Author: Smart City Memphis

Does this feel familiar? From Otis White’s Urban Journal at governing.com:Must every issue in Detroit degenerate into name-calling and race-baiting? Apparently, yes. Take the seemingly easy issue of the Detroit Zoo. The...

Let’s just go ahead and say this and get it out of the way: government doesn’t owe anyone a job. That’s why most taxpayers aren’t moved when some elected officials attack a change in operations merely on the grounds that it...

Corrections Corporation of America and The GEO Group – private companies that manage correction facilities – don’t agree on much, but they do agree on this: privatizing the Shelby County Corrections Center and the Shelby County...

The following message is from the Wolf River Conservancy:We recently learned that there’s no Congressional funding for the $12.5 million Corps Wolf River Restoration Project. Please take five minutes, now, to call or...

Cities are doing a number of things these days to highlight and exploit their music heritages. There’s a theme developing in much of it, and it offers a seminal lesson for the Memphis public sector that talks proudly about our...

Our recent commentary urging Memphis City Council to pass a living wage resolution produced some lively responses, so to get the best perspective of the issue, we went to the best expert on the subject, David Ciscel, the highly...

A regular reader reminds us that rather than focus on glitzy projects, the Memphis Music Foundation should “start with a website.” It’s good advice, because the new music organization shut down the Memphis and...

It’s been five months since the Memphis Music Foundation imported the New Orleans Voodoo Music Experience to Memphis. The high expectations and meager results of those concerts are symbolic of much of the Foundation’s work since...

If term limits are an idea whose time has come, perhaps a good place to start would be the members of the more than 150 public boards in Memphis and Shelby County Governments.Media attention regarding terms limits concentrates...

Sometimes, to paraphrase Ross Perot (of all people), in Memphis, we think planning is the same as doing something. If that’s the case, we’ve been really, really busy.We’re not saying that a sound plan isn’t an instrumental tool...