Author: Smart City Memphis

The headlines in The Commercial Appeal this week about funding by the City of Chattanooga pension fund in a Memphis investment firm raised the eyebrows of federal investigators because of its striking similarities to a pension...

New immigrants are changing America’s cities in many ways, but what is happening in immigrant neighborhoods is not always easily understood. Sandra Ball-Rokeach and Vikki Katz, both at the Annenberg School for...

The road to hell may be paved with good intentions, but I-69 was paved with partisan, hardball politics. Without U.S. Senator Trent Lott, “there probably would not be an I-69,” said Ken Murphree, former Tunica and Desoto County...

Shelby County Schools reports that it’s about to overhaul its schools’ attendance zones. As usual, in the parallel universe that is the county school district, the announcement was made by the political head of the system, David...

The use of new media, particularly by young people, challenges conventional wisdom in many fields – education, social engagement, civic participation. Our guests today have been studying new media and how they may change...

Fire investigators at the scene of the devastating fire at downtown’s First United Methodist Church are looking into the possibility that a vagrant could have been involved in the three-alarm blaze.It’s one of...

If all politics is local, then surely all government is personal.So, forgive us for being less than optimistic about throwing more than 600 new police officers at the city’s crime problems. We’re just waiting to see if the MPD...

Forgive the skepticism, but the premature announcement by the former president of the Memphis Music Foundation about the interest of an Australian film production company in opening a regional operation in Memphis feels awfully...

With the impending approval by the board of directors to hire former county mayor Jim Rout as head of the Mid-South Fair, the organization seems to see a future more shaped by politics than event management.It’s a shift in...

What happens when a dying town’s civic leaders decide they have to change the way their citizens think about the future? If you’re Linz, Austria, you create Ars Electronica. Its artistic director, Gerfried Stocker,...