"The Capitol District": the latest candidate in the North End name game

So many attempts over the years to brand neighborhoods of Germantown, Salemtown, Buena Vista, Hope Gardens and Harrison Square have not stuck with the community: "Uptown", "Urban Core", "The Market District". Typically, prompted by realtors, brokers, and developers, these monikers were typically formulated to reflect marketing strategy instead of community character.

A "district"? That's it?

The latest entry in the race to brand our area top-down is "The Capitol District," which reportedly has been agreed upon by all of the association presidents and which has a logo and website designed by Rob Williams. Unlike the previous attempts, "The Capitol District" has a slick, glossy design, which makes sense, because a designer has worked on it. We will see if the latest attempt to brand across the neighborhoods holds. In ubiquitous, "We are Nashville" fashion, they offer t-shirts, which is farther than previous marketers went.

I've been calling these neighborhoods collectively "the North End" for nearly 10 years because that was what I first saw it called on Metro Planning maps. Nashville's planners have community meetings with the neighborhoods and so I figured they were in touch with us and knew what they were doing. Plus, the title makes sense; even more sense than either "West End" or "East End", both of which sprawl rather than "end".

However, I'm not opposed to defining ourselves with respect to our proximity to the Capitol, but I'd beg the designers to come up with something less stale, less overused than "District". Downtown is already "The District". The "Market District" really never caught on broadly. We have councilmanic districts, school board districts and US District Courts. "District" even figures prominently in the US Army Corp of Engineers Nashville Twitter feed.

Everywhere we turn there is a "district" in Nashville place titles. Can't we come up with something more original than "District"? How about "Capitol Downs" (after all, we do all sit at the base of Capitol Hill) or "Capitol View" or "Capitol Rim" or "Capitol Quarter"? How about anything less boring, less commercial than another "District" reference?


UPDATE: one thing I should have asked is whether this is veiled attempt to extend the fight for a Sulphur Dell ballpark?