Author: Smart City Memphis

Can the very thing that plagues a city also be the solution to its problems? Steven Johnson may have that answer. He is the author of the new book The Ghost Map that details the mystery of the Broad Street cholera outbreak in...

It was encouraging to see that the Memphis Regional Chamber held a meeting last week that spotlighted Memphis’ potential as an aerotropolis. It’s a topic that deserves serious attention here for a variety of reasons....

It’s a tale of two cities, and only a short drive is needed to come face-to-face with the telling.In Nashville, the drive takes you to Williamson County, the 11th wealthiest county in the U.S. with a median family income that’s...

‘Tis the season to be jolly and to cherish our children.However, some Democratic county commissioners and some Republican Shelby County school board members seem intent on using children during this holiday season in ways that...

The Memphis Charter Commission shouldn’t draw up the ethics laws for city government that its members have been discussing.That’s because it needs to be done by Memphis City Council. The Council owes it to its citizens,...

The recent news conference by Attorney General Bill Gibbons featured his now familiar political bump and grind in announcing that he is cracking down on the nonpolitical version found in Memphis’ “anything goes” strip...

As a general rule, governments and public agencies do relatively poor jobs of communicating. Unfortunately, that’s especially true for Memphis City Schools, and it’s regrettable, because if there’s any public entity who needs to...

Every one with Memphis City Schools and Shelby County Schools put on a happy face last week as they emerged from a meeting about an agreement for handling the students in the area to be annexed by Memphis, but the chances of...

Imagine a Learning City where everything – literally everything – is turned into an opportunity to teach something new and all day, everyday is considered a teachable moment.Kevin Crowley is director of the...

The announcement by Metrotimes’ cultural editor that she was leaving Detroit shocked some people there, but here, it feels unsettling, because all of us know someone who has said something like this. The question is: what...