Author: Smart City Memphis

In light of the changes at the Memphis and Shelby County Music Commission, we direct your attention to our post earlier this week on the future of labels and to Sherman Willmott’s July 29 responses to our earlier post.

Finally, Memphis gets a member on the Tennessee Valley Authority board, a lucrative and powerful position, but with Memphis’ historic ties to TVA, it’s amazing how long it took to do something so logical. TVA has been...

Based on last night’s election performance, The Commercial Appeal needs to reassess its partnership with WREG-TV.Those of us who logged on to the CA’s website, assuming that it would offer the most accurate, up-to-the-minute...

This week on Smart City, the topic is how to respond to new realities and re-think future possibilities: It’s always difficult to leave old ways behind and embrace the new. But our guests this week, working in very...

While many local governments are working to solve the problem of the Internet’s “last mile,” Memphis and Shelby County Governments – despite spending about $25 million a year on computer technology – can’t seem to begin...

The world of pop culture was abuzz last week with Justin Timberlake’s overly candid comments about his drug use. We hope he was stone cold sober when he decided to resurrect the Stax label in Memphis, because with the dizzying...

To follow up Thursday’s post about Shelby County Democratic Party Chairman Matt Kuhn’s low aim in trying to improve the local political environment, we forgot to mention another target — the race for the Juvenile Court...

From governing.com:Rockdale, a suburb of Sydney, was having a problem with loiterers in a local park. So officials decided something must be done to drive them away.Their solution? Play songs by Barry Manilow and Doris Day....

From Otis White’s Urban Notebook at www.governing.com. He is featured weekly on our syndicated radio program Smart City:Not all things were better in the past, but one thing in cities was genuinely better 30 years ago:...

A few weeks ago, in response to our post about the contract with the Memphis Grizzlies to build the FedExForum, we had a spirited conversation with readers about whether the agreement was a victory for Memphis (we voted yes). As...