The one true urban neighborhood and other empty signifiers used by developers

The ultimate challenge for a marketer is ... to persuade people to buy something they didn’t know they wanted ....

If you ask a developer, marketer or advertising executive about the desires of younger condo buyers, the conversation almost immediately drifts into a fog of verbal abstractions. You’ll hear that these buyers want to be “edgy” and they want “attitude.” But more than any other word, you’ll hear “lifestyle.” This word will be used in sentences as if it had a specific, well-understood meaning.

-- New York Times, 2007

When the new offices of Nashville native restaurateur Chris Hyndman are completed in a few weeks, the window of his corner office will overlook the Gulch’s McGavock Street, an entire block built under Hyndman’s exacting creative force.

"The Gulch has taken on its own life. It’s almost a lifestyle as much as it is a location," said Hyndman .... "We take under-utilized real estate in great locations and let the restaurants and concepts drive the value, and we’ve created our own little universe over here ....

It’s becoming the true urban neighborhood that Nashville’s really been lacking he said, .... What’s different now is people are choosing to live here, and there’s more of a hipness to living here."

-- Tennessean, 2011

It's almost like developers (and, in the case of the Tennessean's Bobby Allyn, the business reporter covering them) either refuse to learn the lessons of the collapse of the housing market bubble or refuse to acknowledge that there are lessons in the first place. Instead, they just hunkered down and waited for new chances to trot out the lifestyle language once again to convince people that they need to live in the Gulch whether they know it or not.

I've got nothing against the Gulch, but trying persuade people that there are no "true" urban neighborhoods here besides it is sheer hyperbole designed to evoke emotions that prompt decisions to live there. Nashville has a number of urban neighborhoods and even some suburban areas that are "urbanizing", so to call the Gulch "the true" urban neighborhood is meaningless.

And Mr. Hyndman's appeal to the area's hipness is disingenuous. The hipness of various digs has been marketed for years. "The fog of verbal abstractions" marketing hip is nothing new. In fact, "hip" is hackneyed. Hip has been marketed in Salemtown. It has been marketed everywhere. In 2007, hip was said to have hit a wall. There is nothing new or unpredictable about this pitch; nothing new or unpredictable about developers who retread the raggedy old formulas.

Unlike the reporter at the Times, Bobby Allyn did not ever bother to write objectively (and thus critically) about the abstractions applied to the Gulch. The Tennessean has turned writing promotional pieces for influential people into an art form.

There are some far-sighted qualities about communities that make for long-term, generational progress. Attracting buyers and renters with empty symbolism to the "saturation point" is not one of them. Even the code "multi-family" applied to rental spaces is unreal and deceptive, a floating signifier. Much of what passes for multi-family is not built for families, and growing sections of it are designed for lifestyle hipsters on the make and on their way somewhere else to raise a family.

Charter schools: emblematic of our zero-sum culture

A relevant exchange between father and daughter in last season's HBO series "Treme," set in post-Katrina New Orleans:

Sophia:      Where'm I gonna to go to school?
Creighton:  Tulane's working on something for faculty kids. Lusher.
Sophia:       Lusher's not a high school, Daddy.
Creighton:  They're adding high school.
Sophia:       Plus it's public.
Creighton:   Not anymore, it's charter.
Sophia:       Where are they going to put the high school?
Creighton:   They're taking over Fortier.
Sophia:       What about the Fortier kids? Where are they going to go?
Creighton:   Somewhere else, I guess.
Sophia:       That's not fair.
Creighton:   Probably not. That's where we're at now. You want to go to school in New Orleans? So this is how it works. It's a zero-sum world, honey. Somebody wins. Somebody loses.

Part of the reason why I am so appalled by Democrats' support of charter schools is that it is pompous, yet poorly disguised social Darwinism that helps a fraction of the children that require help. It's a zero-sum equation packaged and branded as an opportunity for a disadvantaged generation.

Yet, because of government subsidies, a lot of Democrats (let alone Republicans) stand to make a lot of money off the charter "movement," which exploits the desperation that many parent feel about public schools. I don't know which is more despicable: Republicans, who celebrate the zero-sum game, or Democrats, who participate in under the guise of helping a tiny sliver of the truly disadvantaged for the empty symbolism and the economic opportunities.

Wonkette Uses Murfreesboro for Sport

One of the red state's all-white demonstrations against a black president hits the DC gossip mill:

And God bless a hearty Darjeeling brew.

HT: Rutherford Co. Dems

Metro Council's Annual Attempt to Take the Closet Out of Prayer

It has been a while since Metro Council conservatives have tried to join the war on Christmas or to turn zoning disputes into liberal neighborhood do-gooders against innocent churches, but you had to know they were eventually going to start the next culture war diversion to get away from their actual responsibilities as laid out by the Metro Charter.

At next Tuesday night's council meeting, Jim Hodge (The Churches of Christ), Randy Foster (The Churches of Christ), Jim Gotto (The Churches of Christ), and Robert Duvall (fundamentalist Baptist) introduce a memorializing resolution designed to pander to the theocratic right-wing in Nashville that will do nothing to advance the economic and communal quality of life in the city itself. The MR says:

WHEREAS, May 7, 2009, is the 58th Annual National Day of Prayer; and

WHEREAS, the religious freedom guaranteed us by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution and the diversity of faiths practiced in America have made our land a beacon for people who seek freedom to worship according to their conscience; and

WHEREAS, Americans of every race, background and creed come together in their places of worship, homes and work places to pray for guidance, wisdom and courage; and

WHEREAS, just as we rely on prayer for courage, hope and renewal in our private lives, so too do we turn to prayer at times of joy, crises, economic uncertainty and tragedy in our public life as a Nation, a State and a City; and

WHEREAS, Congress, by Public Law 100-307, has called on our citizens to reaffirm the role of prayer in our society by recognizing annually a “National Day of Prayer” and many of our Nation’s Presidents have asked us to pray for our Nation; and

WHEREAS, at this time in our history, we are especially mindful of the heroic men and women serving in our Armed Forces, especially those serving abroad for their safety, for the recovery of the wounded, and for the peace we will seek and their families; and

WHEREAS, it is fitting and proper that the Metropolitan Council recognizes the 58th Annual National Day of Prayer as May 7, 2009, and encourage all residents to pray and request of their Creator, “May your unfailing love rest upon us, O Lord, even as we put our HOPE in you” – Psalm 33:22.

NOW THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED BY THE COUNCIL OF THE METROPOLITAN GOVERNMENT OF NASHVILLE AND DAVIDSON COUNTY:

Section 1. The Metropolitan Council hereby goes on record as proclaiming May 7, 2009, as National Day of Prayer.

Section 2. This Resolution shall take effect from and after its adoption, the welfare of The Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County requiring it.

In spite of the sponsors' ultra conservative church affiliations, their action actually violates the same Bible that the churches from which these men hail purport to follow.

Can I get a witness, Jesus?

Beware of practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them .... and whenever you pray, do not be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, so that they can be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. But whenever you pray, go into your closet and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees you will reward you .... When you are praying do not heap up empty phrases like the Gentiles do; for they think that they will be heard because of their many words.

Not only does the council's latest culture war resolution heap up self-aggrandizing, wheedling phrases to suit the vanity of conservatives, but it is an exercise in hollow piety inconsistent with Jesus's dominant views of prayer itself. These council members are attempting to impose a splinter ideology in the guise of civil religion at odds with founding teachings the ideology claims to follow.

How are they not being the very hypocrites that Jesus himself excoriates? And keep in mind that Hodge's, Foster's, and Gotto's "undenominational" denomination, The Churches of Christ, claims to have no central executive because Jesus Christ himself is their executive. So, why aren't they listening to him on prayer?

In the end, Jesus never teaches proclaiming an Annual National Day of Prayer, and if these self-proclaimed Christians are to truly follow his teachings, then they should be exercising humility, contrition, and even shame at even being tempted to speak of prayer publicly as they intend to do next Tuesday. If they don't feel lead to repent, they should at least apologize to Metro taxpayers for wasting our resources to draft, to seek lawyers' opinions on, to call to committee, and to introduce to council a bill that will not help make Nashville a better place. What a waste of money; what a waste of faith.

What is it with these data-compromising government contractors and using children in branding privatization?

Is there some sort of fetish afoot in the use of images of children to market government services firms?

"Under God" Pastor is Dead; the 1950s Still Very Much Alive

The original Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag was written in 1892 by a Baptist who also happened to be a Christian Socialist. The original did not include the words "under God" after "One nation." I prefer the original wording and intention of the Pledge when I recite it.

Fast forward to 1952, when a Presbyterian pastor DC lobbyied for the words "under God" to be written into law after "One nation" from his pulpit:

[He] delivered a sermon saying the pledge should acknowledge God in 1952 at Washington's New York Avenue Presbyterian Church, just blocks from the White House.

On Feb. 7, 1954, he delivered it again after learning that President Dwight Eisenhower would be at the church.

Congress inserted the words a few months later.

The Presbyterian pastor just died. It's too bad that the co-mingling of God and government--which leads to both oppression and idolatry--couldn't have died with him.

Latest Volley in the War of the Yellow Ribbons Fired Tonight

Tonight Jim Gotto continued the battle of empty gestures by re-shepherding a memorializing resolution at council meeting to tie yellow ribbons around the old lamp posts on the Courthouse public square to call attention to troops at home and abroad. The Council passed the same resolution in April 2007. I pointed out at the time that actual yellow ribbons are about as significant as those ubiquitous "remember our troops" ribbon magnets on cars.

Rather than asking that troops be deployed more effectively to fight the war on terror or that earmarks be made for medical treatment of veterans, the Council is exercising a cheap, cosmetic form of patriotism in asking Metro Parks to put ribbons up. When Parks did not comply last year, Council conservatives used dyed pieces of fabric to impugn the patriotism of Parks Board Members.

This time around it looks like this Mayor is more willing than the last Mayor to participate in the superficiality of chintzy cloth, substitutionary atonement for actual wartime sacrifice. Jim Gotto told the Council tonight that "the administration" and Parks officials have told him that the ribbons would be hung this time if Council approved. But the memorializing resolution already passed last year, so why does Mayor Dean need another request to exercise the empty symbolism of posturing politicians?

Coming Out of Their Prayer Closets

More government intrusion into people's personal spiritual lives. And I don't mean intrusion into non-believers' lives. They're pandering to a set of people who stand on street corners and use prayer for self-interest. The resolution would bleed devotional quality from faith-based acts.

Don't they have enough on their plates to keep them busy with the Mayor's budget coming?

Why do they have to insert themselves into religion, too? If they celebrate "religious freedom" so much, why are they passing a resolution prompting people to "give thanks for the rich blessing of our City, our State and our Nation"? This resolution is a swipe at the rights of religions to be free from government intrusion, and the First Amendment doesn't just "guarantee" those inalienable rights; it acknowledges them for all human beings.

Quote of the Week

The flag [lapel pin] is just a symbol. You're getting pissy about a broach, you drama queens: one that was probably made in China; one that's probably leaking poison lead on you right now.

- - Bill Maher on the controversy--lead by conservative commentator Sean Hannity--over flag lapel pins and the people who don't wear them

Bridge Equity: Back on Plaques

A handful of Metro Council Members is not satisfied with the December 2005 renaming and signage of Gateway Korean Veterans Memorial Bridge. They either want to rename the street, too, or they're pushing for a plaque, which is something that no other Downtown "Memorial" bridge has. These members are making the Korean Veterans seem a lot less grateful for our city's remembrance than are the Police, "Victory," and the family of Rev. Kelly Miller Smith. Why ask the taxpayers to waste any more money on a plaque when they've named an entire bridge after the vets with standard signage? Why brook such ingratitude and such a self-serving sense of entitlement from two or three council members?

"Memorializing," Which Means, "It Is Toothless"

After the state dropped this, Ludye Wallace took it up. However, because Ludye's resolution is a "memorializing" resolution it is merely a request that no one has to respond to. Chalk it up to empty posturing that eats up Council time.