Author: Smart City Memphis

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...

More and more, cities and states are stepping in to address issues that traditionally would have been the province of the federal government. Last June, we wrote about the then 170 city mayors who had signed on to carry out the...

In light of WMC-TV’s coverage of Sunday’s post about county schools, the following commentary from last month seems to be worth a repeat:Why are these people smiling?While Memphis City Schools is developing a...

In December, the University of Pittsburgh Center for Social and Urban Research published a report called “The Roots of Pittsburgh’s Financial Crisis.” It could just as easily be called “A Cautionary Tale for Memphis.”The report...

As we pointed out last week, the rhetoric of Shelby County Schools officials often bears little resemblance to reality, whether the subject is growth, consolidation and academic achievement.It’s a prime example of how if...

From Otis White’s Urban Journal at governing.com:If ever there was a lost cause for cities, you’d think it would be affordable housing. After all, the average price of housing in the U.S. has increased by 73 percent in the...