Author: Smart City Memphis

This article from today’s Chicago Sun-Times reports on research that began as part of our work at Coletta & Company (now Smart City Consulting) with economist Joe Cortright for Philadelphia, Atlanta, Portland,...

The Commercial Appeal letter to the editor:If Memphians can’t make our riverfront a signature gathering place, what are we capable of doing? Your Dec. 5 editorial, “Land bridge going nowhere,” misses the fact...

Please, mayor, say it ain’t so.In the wake of the release of the most insightful, thorough report on tax incentives for business ever written, Shelby County Mayor AC Wharton calls for creation of a committee.It’s not...

The long-anticipated study of the city-county PILOT (payment-in-lieu-of-taxes) program is finally finished and the conclusion couldn’t be more clear and unequivocal: the present system is broken and cannot be fixed. The 97-page...

From a Financial Times interview with Tom Friedman by Andrew Hill…”Sir John Rose of Rolls-Royce [said], “I think we’re going to move from developing, developed and under-developed countries to a category...

A book review from the Philadelphia Inquirer:The Gang That Wouldn’t Write Straight Wolfe, Thompson, Didionand the New Journalism Revolution By Marc WeingartenCrown. 325 pp. $25Long-form journalism keeps taking punches to...

From Nashville Tennessean:Lawmakers may have been in the dark, but Nissan North America’s consultant wasn’t when a new law came up for a vote last summer that would mean millions more taxpayer dollars for the car...

While we have questioned the ultimate usefulness of the Wharton-advocated development fees in correcting the fatally flawed tax structure that plagues our community, his proposal is not the devastating attack on the homebuilding...

Shelby County Mayor A C Wharton has begun once again to lay the groundwork for another legislative session in which he will seek the authority to broaden county government’s tax options, but in truth, even if he gets approval...

On those days when discouraged about the course of Memphis events and with questions about the future that seem to have few answers, I always find encouragement in the realization that the real strength of Memphis does not...