Author: Smart City Memphis

The following is from Otis White’s Urban Notebook. He can be heard each week on Smart City:In the 1970s, New York leaked corporate headquarters like a busted hose. One after another, big corporations decamped for the...

For too long, we’ve had the tendency here to measure success by comparing Memphis against itself. At best, it’s an incomplete context for making realistic plans, and at worst, it deludes us into thinking we’re making substantial...

It’s time for a modest proposal regarding the controversial city-county PILOT program waiving $60 million in property taxes this year.“Modest” being the operative word, since it seems obvious at this point that is what...

The following commentary from The Commercial Appeal was written by Carol Coletta: Every few months, the U.S. Census Bureau releases data on which regions, cities or suburbs are gaining or losing population. And each time, the...

If there’s ever been a question about our wonkish predilections, it has been answered. We’ve spent Friday night reading responses by Charter Commission candidates to questions from the Coalition for a Better Memphis.We’ve been...

The following is the City Journal column in Memphis magazine written monthly by our colleague, Tom Jones: This is the golden age of great city mayors.In Chicago, Richard Daley transformed “Beirut on the Lake” into one of the...

So, I decide Saturday to go to a 2:20 movie at Malco’s Paradiso Theatre. We’re rushing because we’re late, but we get there just as the house lights are dimmed and the advertisements begin.Yes, I said advertisements.The show...

From Otis White’s Urban Journal at www.governing.com:Not all things were better in the past, but one thing in cities was genuinely better 30 years ago: business leadership, particularly among big companies. Alas, today’s...

Memphis is hollowing out.That’s the conclusion of research by the Brookings Institution. Earlier this week, we suggested that Memphis Mayor Willie W. Herenton read research about Memphis instead of relying on political insiders...

This news release on some landmark research by CEOs For Cities seems especially pertinent today, with Memphis Mayor Willie W. Herenton saying that our city has to keep giving away tax freezes to counter the exodus of people from...