Be Careful What You Ask For
From time to time, nearly all human beings are guilty of overreaction—overcorrection might be a better way of stating it—when we face a problem or an issue. Especially when a topic gets some airtime in the media, our way of fixing that problem often goes beyond what is truly needed.
Bigger Than a Brand
If I say, "I'm an avid news reader," you might expect that I have substantial opinions on the country's economic state, political problems, or other significant yet dreary information from sources such as CNN, Fox or NBC. Not exactly.
A Colorful Society
A grouping of three paintings hangs on one wall of the Marie Hull Gallery at Hinds Community College's Raymond campus. The focal center, Mississippi artist Sherry Ferguson's beautifully and boldly watercolored painting "Center," is a large close-up of a flower center—done in vivid, saturated, velvety tonal colors, from cranberry to shrimp pink to peach—you can almost feel.
What Our City Needs
Anyone who has lived in Jackson for a while, and gotten involved even marginally in the community, knows that there is no shortage of ideas on how to improve our city floating around.
Vision 2022: A Regional Vision
The greater metropolitan area of Jackson is a collection of loosely aligned, often-at-odds cities, towns and communities worthy of a university-sanctioned study on diversity and race politics.
Green Space
If you want to see how differently various people approach the idea of planning for Jackson's future, listen to a discussion of parks and green space.
Big Ideas: Getting Jacksonians into City Parks
Mayor Chokwe Lumumba's Parks and Rec Transition Team compiled the following suggestions to get more residents into Jackson Parks and Recreation Department (PRD) facilities throughout the city.
Revisited: Town Creek
Many see Jackson's multiple creeks as nothing more than drainage ditches. They are undevelopable space offering only the threat of flooding, bank caving and snakes. Other cities, however, are increasingly recognizing the value that urban creeks can offer as parks, recreational corridors, and in improving water quality and environmental health.
Defined: People's Assemblies
Mayor Chokwe Lumumba has helped bring a grass-roots approach to idea generation and decision-making to Jackson, both in the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, which he co-founded, and later as a Ward 2 councilman.
New Idea: More Than Sports
When Jed Oppenheim of the Southern Poverty Law Center's Mississippi Youth Justice Project ended up as a "quasi-member" of Mayor Chokwe Lumumba's Parks and Rec transition team, he decided to offer a different direction to the conversation focusing on sports and facilities—which inevitably ended up "male and able bodied-centric."
Bright Idea: Conserve Energy, Create Jobs
You want to reduce your energy bills, improve your in-home air quality, increase the value of your home and help create jobs in the local community? Then invest in energy-efficiency improvements at your home or business.
Filling the Emptiness
When family or friends say Jackson is a bad place, I always want to take them on a trip to the city I've grown to know over the last six months.
Best Practice: Mid-South Minority Business Council Continuum
"Established in 1973 as the Mid-South Minority Business Council (MMBC), a component of the Memphis Area Chamber of Commerce, the MMBC Continuum now serves as a minority business-development organization and a source of expertise in advancing minority economic development."
What the Heck Is An IBA?
Sure, we have business organizations such as chambers of commerce, but they are not primarily and exclusively serving interests of small, locally owned businesses.
Radical Idea: Vacancy Tax
So, just how do we unlock the empty buildings that are "warehoused" downtown by landlords, often absentee, who let their spaces rot waiting for the huge rent check of the future rather than do something creative in them to help Jackson develop a more "creative class" vibe? Why not tax them? Other cities do it.
Build a Bicycle- and Pedestrian-Friendly Jackson
The key to change is finding simple, affordable tools that are easily accessible for people of all ages, races, socio-economic levels and abilities.
Everyone Needs a Roof
You've heard it before: For many Americans, homelessness is just a couple of paychecks away.
Jackson Planning Map
Jackson is a unique city with great potential. What makes this city great are her people, their passions and their visions.