Author: Smart City Memphis

We know we are probably just being curmudgeonly, but it’s just hard to get excited about our alma mater’s upcoming date in the 2007 R+L Carriers New Orleans Bowl.After all, it’s a battle between our #123 Tigers and the favored...

There are better ways to run urban school districts than by elected school boards.That’s an opinion that’s gaining traction in many large U.S. cities and given new energy by the success of buoyant, youthful Washington, D.C.,...

This week’s classic Smart City is a repeat of a show that first aired on April 26, 2003.Brussels-based consultant Robert Palmer works on city change and cultural planning in more than 20 countries. He’s learned what...

We always welcome guest posts on this blog, and recently, we asked Amie Vanderford, who notified us last week about the presentation, “Design for Sustainable Systems,” if she would expand on some points in her email....

Four years ago in early May, the Creative 100 – a group of creative thinkers nominated from across the U.S. and that swelled to 150 with the addition of Memphians – came together in Memphis to develop their call to action for...

On February 4, 2001, the first broadcast of Smart City featured a young Pittsburgh economist who was about to turn traditional economic development theory on its head. His name was Richard Florida, whose research on the...

Richard Florida speaks again this week in Memphis about the importance of creative workers and the implications for cities like ours. It’s been six years since he first spoke to Memphians on this subject, five years since he...

In the Wall Street Journal this week, Joel Kotkin once again seemed like a man with an opinion in search of a statistic. We normally disregard his trenchant complaints – although we have decided that Richard Florida must have...

The quality of places results from many factors. This week we’re going to talk to two experts in very different fields, both of whom are deeply engaged in making better places.Maria Hibbs directs The Partnership for New...

To continue the “green” theme, there’s a forum Saturday morning on a subject way overdue for Memphis – how design and environmental sustainability don’t have to be mutually exclusive.The speakers for the session are David Yocca...