Author: Smart City Memphis

Even Germantown can’t match its rhetoric about the importance of design when developers need land. A couple of locations within the city limits are now sites for the clear cutting of trees. And this in the city that thinks it...

At a time when Memphis and Shelby County Governments are waiving more than $60 million in taxes every year to recruit new businesses, the Memphis and Shelby County Film Commission — which has the greatest return on...

Elvis Week has come and gone, and the thousands of tourists have returned home, having left their cash in the local economy and left with memories for life. Sadly, the beggars that greeted them downtown when they arrived didn’t...

Success has many fathers, it is said, so before the delivery room is filled with proud parents, we need to take a moment to recognize the team that put together the proposal that lured the world headquarters of International...

There are times when the Religious Right would try the patience of Jesus Christ Himself. The growing battle over “intelligent design” is the latest evidence of the literalism that threatens the independence of school districts...

In response to Thursday’s blog on how Memphis and Shelby County lead Tennessee in the number and amount of tax freezes, we received several calls and emails. One reminded us that Agricenter International and all of the...

Reading Chicago Metropolis 2020 plan tonight, I ran across the following… “The sustaining force of this historic process of renewal is Chicago’s strongest spiritual asset: its swaggering self-confidence. This...

Every war seems to bring with it an unexpected aspect unforeseen by The Pentagon. The War in Iraq – whether being called by The White House the War on Terror or the Struggle Against Global Extremism, depending on which is...

If you haven’t read it, it’s still news. And in that vein, consider a study on the impact of tax abatements on education by the Tennessee Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations (TACIR) that failed to cause even a...

This week’s column by longtime urban commentator Neal Peirce has special meaning for our community, where the amount of taxes waived for businesses approaches $100 million a year. When tax freezes given by Memphis, Shelby...