Author: Smart City Memphis

It’s always the innocent bystanders who get shot. That’s especially true in school politics, where the ultimate victims are always the students.Recently, in the latest salvo from the Shelby County School Board, Memphis City...

From the Hollywood Reporter comes this reminder of the most important asset of Memphis Music – the music being created right now – and why we need to do a better job of showcasing and supporting it. If we’re...

Yesterday, Memphis City Council and Shelby County Board of Commissioners had one of their infrequent joint meetings to discuss a bothersome issue for Memphis – the S-O-B’s. The news they got was B-A-D.In this case, we’re...

The following is the City Journal column in the May issue of Memphis magazine by Smart City Consulting’s Tom Jones:Spray painted on a New Orleans wharf warehouse near the Lower Garden District: “Next time, we vote for...

John Charles Wilson is a breath of fresh air.In an interview with The Commercial Appeal, the president of Agricenter International admits what others there have refused to face for years. The facility’s founding vision and...

Memphis is in trouble.There, we’ve said it. Please tell us we’re wrong. We have traditionally been dependable cheerleaders for Memphis, but right now, we’re hard-pressed to feel like our team is even in the major leagues, much...

Primary elections are about a candidate identifying a base and talking about the red meat issues that its members care about. The general election is about broadening the base to appeal to more than the true believers....

Everybody’s all for government acting more businesslike until it affects their special cause. This comes to mind when we listen to some of the arguments from grassroots leaders who insist that Libertyland and the Mid-South...

They won’t get headlines in the newspaper or be tonight’s “big story” on television news, but nonetheless, some national programs recruited to Memphis and transplanted into Memphis City Schools are producing “stop the presses”...

The following column is from Otis White’s Urban Notebook. Otis is a regular contributor on Smart City each week, and his daily missives are instructive to anyone who cares about cities. This one on multi-modal centers and...