Author: Smart City Memphis

Something seems to happen the moment that many legislators sit down in the chambers of the Tennessee General Assembly. They forget they represent every one in their districts, not just their narrow political bases. There was a...

A few months ago, Leadership Memphis concentrated on a provocative question, “What Makes a Great City?” and it heard from a highly informative panel of five local leaders, from a noted national urban observer, and from Denver...

From CEOs for Cities blog at www.ceosforcities.org:This week’s Sunday papers from around the country told a sad story about African-American children in America.The Chicago Tribune and Sun-Times examined two shootings in...

The meltdown of the finances of Detroit city government is becoming a stimulus for new regional thinking by adjacent counties concerned about the shut-down or cutbacks of city servcies that are of course regional assets. Surely,...

Who knew that Christopher Reyes’ fascinating livefrommemphis.com website was just the beginning? In the coming week, there are two Reyes-conceived projects that offer us a fresh look at our city.If you haven’t visited the Live...

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...