Author: Smart City Memphis

The ugly underbelly of Memphis politics was exposed this week after a whisper campaign against Tennessee Senator Steve Cohen by some African-American political leaders burst into the open.For weeks, some well-known...

We’ve written before about the need for nonpolitical prosecutors whose actions have no place for ego or self-promotion or special rules for special people. In light of the election of the district attorney general in the...

Our subject is sprawl and development this week on Smart City.For the past 50 years development in America has been sprawling away from the old urban cores into ever farther suburbs and exurbs. Why did it happen?Our guests this...

Here are my nominations for things to do now in downtown in priority order:1. Do whatever it takes to remove panhandlers.2. Clean up. That means maintenance and trash removal.3. Green up. That means plant and maintain.4. Develop...

There is no place more near and dear to our hearts than downtown Memphis, as evidenced by the fact that a couple of us have worked or lived here for more than 30 years apiece. There is nothing that we’re more passionate about,...

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...