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This story originally appeared in the Jackson Free Press. It was added to the Mississippi Free Press website in 2025.
Note that any opinions expressed in legacy Jackson Free Press stories do not reflect a position of the Mississippi Free Press or necessarily of its staff and board members.

Jackson has a lot of creativity to go around. How do we apply that to making the city better, or at least more interesting? Here are some ways to do that.

Fill potholes with LEGOs.

Or, fill potholes with trampolines.

Dress up or paint the statues on top of the Hinds County courthouse.

Turn broken water mains into a city-wide pipe organ and potholes into percussion instruments. Bam. Built in orchestra.

Sidewalk chalk art.

Repave downtown with yellow brick roads.

Art Deco facades on all city buildings. Make it look like Gotham. Get a Jackson Batman.

Tie-Fighter parking zones in front of every Walmart.

A giant slide down Pearl Street.

Visible holiday decorations on top of the Standard Life building.

Mississippi native Donna Ladd and partner Todd Stauffer founded the Jackson Free Press in 2002 in the capital city. The heavily awarded local newspaper did many investigations heralded across the state and nation and served as a paper of record due to its diversity, inclusion, in-depth reporting and deep connection to readers and dedication to narrative change in and about Mississippi. In 2022, the nonprofit Mississippi Free Press, founded by Ladd and JFP Associate Publisher Kimberly Griffin in 2020, purchased the journalism assets and archives of the Jackson Free Press. A Google grant through AAN Publishers enabled Newspack's integration of the JFP archives into the Mississippi Free Press website to become part of a more searchable archive of recent Mississippi history and essential journalism.