Author: Smart City Memphis

Rarely do we get a good news story about teenagers. But this week is different. Teens in Memphis, many living in public housing, spent the summer mapping their neighborhood and its assets. And even they were surprised by what...

We were proud to see our colleague and friend, Carol Coletta, quoted again today in the New York Times in its coverage of what young jobseekers want.In answering the question – you’ve already read it here frequently: they are...

Here’s a city department that immediately attracted our attention – Office of Strategic Customer Services.Unfortunately, it’s in the city government for Dallas and not our City Hall, but it manages a program that seems like an...

It is understandable that African-Americans frequently feel more like prisoners of history than participants in it.After all, for more than a century, they were denied a voice – not to mention a vote – in public decisions that...

Our colleague Carol Coletta – now president of Chicago-based CEOs for Cities – recently spoke in Pittsburgh about the importance of young workers, a subject frequently explored here. There’s no one who...

Memphians aren’t really asking all that much.They aren’t looking to their mayor to paint grand visions or even act as a source of civic inspiration. These days, we’d be glad to settle for just getting the basics right.Instead,...

Are we on the verge of a second renaissance? Patricia Martin thinks so. In her new book, Ren Gen, she writes that cultural consumers are at the heart of this new generation and that a surprising group of cities will emerge as...

WWJD?Apparently, in the minds of the Memphis Ministerial Association, He would scream, threaten and bully.In fact, if we’ve ever seen the antithesis of Christ-like behavior, it was in the reception that the preachers gave their...

The new Democratic majority on the Shelby County Board of Commissioners is still showing growing pains, and based on yesterday’s performance, it clearly seems to be stuck in adolescence.First, it questioned the impeccably run...

Former Tennessee Senator John Ford was sentenced to 66 months in federal prison today by U.S. District Court Daniel Breen.In our post of April 30, 2007, we calculated the federal sentencing guidelines and predicted a sentence of...