Author: Smart City Memphis

“Greenprints,” as Will Rogers of the Trust for Public Land said on Smart City, is a smart growth strategy emphasizing land conservation to improve quality of life, clean air and water, offer more recreational opportunities,...

Maybe the Sons of the Confederacy are right. Taking the names of their heroes off Memphis parks is rewriting history. Instead of rewriting history, maybe we just need to write it right.To do this, there is already precedent for...

Sometimes, listening to the defenders of our Confederate-named parks, you get the feeling that the future of Western civilization itself is at stake. It’s as if Memphis was a bastion of Southern gentility like Richmond or...

When it comes to term limits, we suggested earlier this month (see July 8 blog) that city and county boards and commissions – where members have served for as long as 25 years – should be included. Based on the performance...

I did something today that I’ve never done before in my 35 years of working downtown. I felt “cool.”About 2:30 this afternoon, fighting a losing battle with a big-time case of writer’s block, I grabbed up...

Dear N.W.A.:It’s not you. It’s me. I thought I would never have to write this letter, but I’ve changed. My needs are different, and although I thought I could deal with it, I can’t. You were there when I needed you, but over the...

A report by consultants writing Memphis/Shelby County’s new Unified Development Code is “must reading” for anyone who believes that it isn’t too late for our community to control sprawl, invest in the urban core and save county...

Wendi Thomas writes that we need day care van drivers who do their job. Here’s an alternative: We don’t need day care van drivers at all. We need day care close to home, and let parents be responsible for getting...

There is the classic Buddhist parable, told in several variations, that goes something like this:There is a man running through the jungle, fleeing from a tiger. It is clear that it is only a matter of time before the tiger...

Many politicians secretly love reappraisal. It is a time of complicated assessment equations, mind-boggling financial and legal nuances, public confusion about the processes, and, despite rhetoric to the contrary, windfalls for...