Author: Smart City Memphis

The following testimony was presented today on Capitol Hill by Carol Coletta on behalf of CEOs For Cities to the Saving America’s Cities Working Group, comprised of a group of House Republicans who support cities....

Heard in Washington National today from a harried Northwest gate agent: “Folks, I hate to tell you that we’re still not going to Minneapolis. A window in the cockpit is broken and maintenance personnel are looking at...

OK, so maybe the Riverfront Development Corporation has done a less than stellar job selling its Promenade plan. But that’s no reason for the Commercial Appeal to fall for the case to do nothing being made by the so-called...

Over the weekend, I had my first opportunity to visit “Taste of Chicago,” a 10-day annual event held in Grant Park. The basic formula is simple: a few (very few) rides for the kids, street performers for the adults,...

The underlying emotions in county budget hearings are rarely understood outside the commission meeting room where Finance Committee Chairman Cleo Kirk and other commissioners hear public managers present their spending requests...

In recent weeks, close to 170 U.S. mayors of both parties have signed on to do their part to fight global warming on the local level by pledging to carry out the Kyoto Accords – an international environmental agreement that...

As their taxes are waived, employees of Jabil can take heart. They not only will have new jobs, but they likely will qualify for food stamps.That’s right. The Memphis and Shelby County Industrial Development Board actually gives...

“Jabil adding 500 new jobs” was the headline on the front page of yesterday’s Commercial Appeal. Third paragraph: “The new jobs will pay from $8.50 to $11.50 per hour.”It was only in the twelfth...

It is officially summertime in Memphis. Flowers are blooming, the temperature is going up, tens of thousands of people flood downtown for baseball at the best minor league stadium in the country and the panhandlers are back in...

A recent Michigan headline was enough to make a Memphis reader homesick: “The Height of Foolishness: Sprawl Without Growth.” The article told how Detroit treated sprawl as the engine of economic development, and as a result, the...