Salemtown meeting tonight to discuss attracting and retaining families in the neighborhood

From Freddie O'Connell via the Salemtown e-list:

We'll be returning to Morgan Park Community Center for this evenings Salemtown Neighbors meeting, which will start at 6pm.

Tonight, the Executive Board will propose an important series of discussions likely to take several months but critical to how our association considers and hopes to have an impact on our neighborhood. We'll be exploring ways to ensure that families of all types can feel comfortable living in Salemtown without feeling pressured to leave because of the neighborhood lacking an important resource. For families with children, these typically include safety, schools, and social outlets. For families without children, it might be as simple as ensuring that SNNA remains affirming of a diverse community, from twentysomethings to retirees. I don't think anyone on our board has expressed a desire to be exclusive, but I and others have heard concerns expressed about motivating factors for neighbors to leave Salemtown, and we'd like to begin to address these actively to the best of our ability. We hope you'll come participate in a discussion about whether this is a discussion and whether there are actions that it is appropriate for our association to become more deeply involved in.

We'll also get an update from our CAC about the community development block grant, and the Social Committee will make a recommendation about our participation in the Germantown Street Festival, among other items.

Bring back the families, bring back the neighborhood

I have preached over and over that if urban neighborhoods are going to be viable for quality growth and development, a concerted effort has to be made to attract families with children. Ask East Nashville, which was recently named one of the "South's Best Comeback Neighborhoods":

After 10-plus years of a slow and steady rise, the neighborhood has managed to keep its eclectic, artsy vibe while welcoming a diverse mix of newcomers. “Of all the great things happening here, when I see young moms pushing strollers down the sidewalks, I know this place is back,” says local shop owner Debbie Goodwyn.

The driving forces of development in North End neighborhoods seem to lock on attracting lifestyle hipsters without intentions to keep the families they have or pulling in more families. Problem is we will never come back without the generational diversity that families bring, as uncool as that may sound to empty-nesters.

Lipstick Liberal

There are liberals whose progressive streak is more substantial than skin deep. Then there are those liberals who wear liberalism superficially, like lipstick.

Recently a friend from District 19 approached me to say that Council-at-Large member Megan Barry called asking her to mobilize neighbors to direct 19's hesitant CM, Erica Gilmore, toward supporting the non-discrimination bill sponsored by Barry and due for second reading next week. Being the good progressive, I would usually support this bill openly and enthusiastically. CM Gilmore would by now have grown weary of phone calls and e-mails urging her to vote with Barry. Enclave would have a long subject thread on it.

People who read me know that I lock on issues like a fully-loaded American Stratfordshire Terrier.

But not this time. Not on this bill. But not because of the issue.

My motivation is my belief that CM Barry is a lipstick liberal, prompted less by abiding progressive principles and more by safe choices and prospects of kowtowing to the Mayor's office.

CM Barry seems to be burning all of her political capital on this issue. She's not used any for the ones for which I've advocated. In fact, after her early opposition to bargaining with Predators, issue after issue she has receded into the background rather than taking a strong progressive stand (unless Mayor Karl Dean does so). Barry baited us to join the fight against Tygard's LEDs, then she switched to acquiescence. At her inexplicably least liberal moment, she supported the Mayor's regressive stormwater fee structure that taxes smaller, greener property owners more than the big, blacktopped boys. And then she had the audacity to blame another council progressive for making her vote unprogressively.

If she were a man I'd call her "Mini-Karl." Perhaps "Mini-Karlene" is fitting.

I'm sorry, fellow liberals, but it is the ethos of the nondiscrimination bill sponsor that has been the obstacle to my ringing endorsement of it. Any encouragement to support the Barry bill comes across like Lt. Kaffee cajoling LCpl. Dawson to accept the government's plea bargain instead of fighting the good fight. I feel like I'm being asked to make one safe choice after a string of risky ones many consider untouchable. And like LCpl. Dawson (whom writer Aaron Sworkin describes as "a man who would rather die than breach military protocol"), I feel like shoving my hands in my pockets and balking in spite of my commitments to progressive issues like nondiscrimination.

So, I haven't written CM Gilmore to encourage support and I don't know if I'll join this fight. I see a certain wisdom in choosing to sit this battle out.

Frankly, politics and social justice are mutually bound mechanisms. Ideals are fine, and as Reinhold Neibuhr wrote, they leaven politics. But they are no substitute for balance and mutuality. Many of those supporting Barry's bill have not been supportive of my issues like providing more family-friendly urban environments with strong schools and welcoming parks. They've been quiet on saving Bells Bend and opposing LED billboards. Local politics is not a single-issue, zero-sum game. It comes down to "you support my issue, I'll support yours."

Single-issue arguments do not motivate me to mobilize, especially given the lipstick liberal disposition of the bill sponsor. You want me to support this bill? I would like nothing more than to trump council conservatives after the conservative fiascoes of the previous council. But I'm going to need more than appeals to conscience.

Either express support for the issues I believe in or find a substantive liberal sponsor who is not just using a single progressive issue cosmetically to satisfy her future Democratic Party aspirations. I require something more profound than the triflings of lipstick liberals to pull me on board.

A Different Measure of a City's Success

Petro gets all of this one and then some with the part about increasing cities' appeal to middle class families:

What if we didn’t measure the success of a city and its metropolitan region purely in terms of growth? Demographers use growth because it indicates an area’s attractiveness. But wouldn’t higher home prices, something that Kotkin condemns, also indicate an area’s attractiveness? New York and San Francisco are expensive because people want to live there. Austin and Houston are inexpensive because there is lots of undeveloped woodland available to pave over.

I agree that there is much that New York and San Francisco can do to increase its appeal to middle class families. New housing construction must accommodate families, meaning the construction of apartments with 2 and 3 bedrooms, not just studios. Housing costs should be much closer to the cost of construction. School performance must improve.

But I do not accept the assumption that cities should be more like the suburbs. Suburban style development, and its attendant parking lots and its wide roads filled with speeding traffic, kills the very elements that make urban neighborhoods livable and attractive. And I do not accept the assumption that cities should aspire to becoming playgrounds for the white picket fence crowd. While cities need to address their shortcomings, they also need to play up their strengths: dynamic and diverse neighborhoods; proximity to cultural institutions and magnificent parks; healthier, more active lifestyles; lively streetscapes; and the concentration of good jobs and skilled workers.

May Town Center Developer Gets Huge Tax Breaks Just for Being Family

NewsChannel5 reporter Phil Williams exposes the artificial financial advantages Belle Meade scion and potential Bells Bend despoiler Jack May has just for owning a business and developing property with family members:

[O]ur investigation discovered [the Family-Owned Non-Corporate Entities loophole] also benefited plenty of people around Belle Meade -- the people who appear in the society pages -- who've managed to keep all their money in the family.

Williams: "If I own a building with my best friend from college, it's taxable?" Williams asked [Revenue Commissioner Reagan] Farr.
Farr: "Correct."
Williams: "If I own it with my rich brother, it's tax free?"
Farr: "That's correct."
Williams: "What's the logic behind that?"
Farr: "There is none -- none whatsoever."

Last year, Belle Meade's Rep. Gary Odom, the House Democratic leader, pulled the plug last year on efforts to close the loophole.

"I could not get a clear answer last year as to how many businesses were going to be affected by it," Odom told Williams.

Among Odom's supporters, millionaire developer Jack May and his family own the Belle Meade Plaza, as well as several nearby office buildings.

The Mays are also behind the $4 billion May Town Center proposed for Bells Bend.

"I don't know who has a FONCE. Tax information is private information. It's confidential," Odom said.

"Have they ever discussed it with you?" Williams asked.

"No, sir."

Jack May did not return NewsChannel 5's phone call.

But Odom's own campaign treasurer, millionaire developer Bill Freeman, has acknowledged he's also taken advantage of the exemption to avoid state taxes on his real estate holdings.

Supporters of the FONCE law argue that sheltering mom and pop businesses are a good thing. But the glossy, corporate-looking May Town Center enterprise hardly appears to be mom and pop. The fact that they can promote, plan, and realize that concept tax-free ought to gall those who dutifully pay taxes and are not given special favors because of the accident of birth into rich families.

However, the May family is not the only one sponging off Tennesseans. Williams says non-Tennessean business owners, including a New York strip club sugar daddy are using FONCE as a tax shelter. Watch NewsChannel5's entire report:

Parenting an Interracial Family

ZZ Packer has a thought-provoking article in the March 2009 edition of Wondertime magazine based on her experience as an African American mom of an interracial son. Here's an exerpt:

The problem, as I see it, is that people still segregate their minds, even as the neighborhoods and social circles grow more integrated. Whereas I truthfully say that I don't experience overt racism when I go to get my daily nonfat latte here in the San Francisco Bay area, I do experience another level of curiosity and wonderment when I do so with Donovan. Something elemental in people seems to assume that despite the baby's father being one race and the mother another, the baby will always come out looking like the parent standing right in front of them ....

A friend of mine, who is Korean American and engaged to a half-Moroccan, half-Irish British national said, "It's hard to believe he came out of you!" Not so hard to believe if you tried to push all 7 pounds 7 ounces out for hours nonstop, until he arrived a bloody mess, hoisted to your breast before you had time to ask for more ice chips.

Perhaps most interesting is the reaction of black folks. A simple trip to the supermarket with my son in his Baby Björn became an invitation for black men to stare.  So, you gave up on the brothers did you? Or black women to touch his straight hair and declare, "It's good hair now, but it'll nap up before you know it" ....

I always thought it strange how many old-line black folks in the South praised kids with light skin and straight hair as "beautiful," only as long as the kid was "black," meaning that neither parent was fully white. No one wants to think about a white parent being in the mix.

While CCA Gives Convicted Criminals ESPN and Pizza in West Tennessee, It Imprisons Innocent Children for Profit in Central Texas

According to the Texas Observer blog, Corrections Corporation of America--which was spotlighted in this morning's Tennessean--is getting paid for incarcerating the innocent children of immigrants who have fled violence or persecution in their home countries and landed in Texas. In spite of the fact that CCA is billing the the US immigration enforcement agency $3 million a month for detaining these children, detainees of all ages tell the Observer:

• Kids spend 10-11 hours each day in a cell where they are not allowed to have toys or even crayons.
• Guards frequently threaten children with separation from their parents.
• Just like a “regular” prison, there’s no privacy in the cells. Kids have to go to the bathroom in front of their parents and vice versa, a deeply humiliating experience in some cultures.
• Sick children often do not receive prompt or adequate medical care.
• The food is unpalatable and foreign; meals last only 10-20 minutes. As a result, kids frequently undergo rapid weight loss.

Our tax money is apparently paying private corrections corporations for mistreating children and spoiling convicted criminals.

English Already First in Immigrant Families, But to the Detriment of Bilingual Skills

The other day I quoted Pew 2005 stats that showed that Hispanic immigrant families learned English at such a quick pace that, by the 2nd generation in immigrant families, Spanish dominance had dropped to a mere fraction of what it was in the 1st (72% to 7%). By the 2nd generation in immigrant families, a whopping 93% were either bilingual or English dominant. 3rd generation numbers indicate a complete conversion to the English language.

According to various studies, immigrant families promote English internally, believing that it will create more opportunities for future generations. However, the 1st generation does not merely drag the 2nd and 3rd generations kicking and screaming to learn English. According to a 1998 study of 8th and 9th grade students in San Diego and Miami-Fort Lauderdale (cited by Lucy Tse in Why Don't They Learn English?, p. 31), two-thirds of 2nd generation immigrants favored using English over their parents' language. The causes of that preference include the powerful cultural and popular pulls of English, limited exposure to and less opportunities to learn the language of family heritage, parental and school misconceptions based on fear, and peer pressure.

So, without any government coercion, immigrant families push themselves to learn English. But there are also casualties that may be further harmed by local government mandating English. One of those casualties is bilingualism or the ability of 2nd and 3rd generations in immigrant families to utilize two languages at once. In the study of 8th and 9th graders, while researchers found that the students knew English well, they were progressively losing their bilingual skills. Among the Spanish-speaking students, fewer than half were fluent bilinguals.

The destruction of a bilingual skill set in the children of immigrants is a strike against their future professional and economic opportunities. In today's world, bilingualism is an asset that can translate to future success. Yet, there is no effort here in Nashville to encourage immigrant children to develop their bilingualism to open more doors for them in life.

In fact, Metro Council's English Only/First response signals knee jerk opposition to any Metro official who assists immigrants using both English and the language of heritage. Government mandates of English Only like Eric Crafton's are overkill: not only would they artificially force the language assimilation process that is already happening naturally in immigrant families, but they would further wreck the future opportunities for progress by the 2nd and 3rd generation immigrants that bilingualism creates.

The Delicate Treasure of Bedtime

The better part of man is soon ploughed into the soil for compost. By a seeming fate, commonly called necessity, they are employed, as it says in an old book, laying up treasures which moth and rust will corrupt and thieves break through and steal. It is a fool's life, as they will find when they get to the end of it, if not before .... The finest qualities of our nature, like the bloom on fruits, can be preserved by the most delicate handling.

- - Henry David Thoreau, Walden

Knuck Shrugs

Knucklehead is no chucklehead. His queries on Downtown development resonate in these quarters. The answer, of course, is to diversify Downtown offerings, both public and private, or else find a big footprint for a Central Park-type park (Bicentenial Mall is good, but not central enough). The greenspace is not emerging fast enough. And I still have my doubts that dogs are a practical commodity Downtown with the lack of greenspace. And it's not just that the Downtown core is not family-with-kids friendly enough. The neighborhoods proximate to Downtown also don't offer enough single-family homes. The market still seems bent toward young couples (both straight and gay/lesbian) and individual residents. Yet, Downtown will never be a truly livable neighborhood until it also draws families with children back from the suburbs.

This Land of No Culture: It Has Some Way Of Sucking The City Out Of You

Check out this NY Times piece (from last Sunday's Real Estate section) on families who moved from NYC to the suburbs only to find a lack of community and some "disconnects between fantasy and reality."


HT: Barista

The Boobs In Franklin

Leave it to conservative Williamson County to be thrown into a turmoil over the baby-nurturing, family-bonding act of breast-feeding, which some down there seem to associate with urination or defecation, given that mothers have been banished to bathrooms to feed their babies. The flap over flopping out a tit to furnish food for an infant is furious enough to effectuate legislation to eliminate the filth from un-bra-dled founts. Since when did brandishing mammaries in the name of bringing up baby become opposed to traditional family values? If they really value "discretion," Franklinites should put more effort into making their mall-bopping muffin-top girls wear larger jeans or longer shirts and they should spend less time embarrassing mommies and exiling them to back rooms and furtive nooks.

Important Cost-Effective Support For Families

Today's Nashville City Paper reports of a pilot program of sick-child childcare for non-school-district Metro employees. If the pilot becomes permanent it would be a great investment of local tax dollars since it stands to save Metro money over the long-term by mitigating the costs of worker absenteeism to care for sick children who are refused by private day cares. It seems that this program would be less open to abuse than regular sick-leave benefits, because the employees with sick children would otherwise have no excuse not to be at work and the sick-child childcare center could confirm the presence of sick children. It's a significant step forward in benefits and, as a cost-conscious taxpayer, I hope the idea works.

There Is Nothing Sexy About Spring Hill

A couple of mothers don't want to work through the awkwardness of defining a certain s-word for their children, and so Spring Hill sign officials prohibit a relatively tame word from merchant signage. I cannot remember a more glaring example of government-enforced political correctness when some parents would not finesse an answer to a child's difficult questions.

Fertility And Facilities: Exploding Evangelical Smugness And Disrobing The Theological Myth Of Mainline Decline

A sociological study of mainline and conservative churches from 1900 to 1975, lead in part by prominent Roman Catholic priest Andrew Greeley, is debunking the urban myth that a specific theology is the cause for decline or growth in Christian congregations. To be specific, evangelical "bigger-is-better" zealots often blame liberal theology and social ethics for the decline in mainline church membership numbers (as if size really matters to God).

This new study indicates that the real causes of mainline decline and conservative growth are more simply explained: sex and retention more than theology controls church size. Decline in the birthrates caused by family-planning practices now dominant in American culture were accepted earlier in the twentieth century among women who attended mainline churches than their counterparts in conservative churches. However, current fertility rates between evangelicals and mainliners are virtually the same.

The study indicates that conservatives were more successful than mainline churches in retaining their members. My own view of retention differences is that conservatives are better than mainliners at building mega-church "Christian Life Centers" with comprehensive recreation and entertainment facilities, which are strong attractors, especially when they are conveniently located in suburbs. Large building facilities may point to real amenity differences, but they don't suggest theological differences as attractors.

Fertility and facilities have been the principle causes of evangelical church growth over the last one hundred years. But even that is changing as evangelical fertility is now declining at a mainline rate and as diminishing numbers of mainliners are making the jump to conservative churches. Pay no heed to grand narratives about theological differences. Watch for shrinkage in conservative churches now that evangelical families are getting smaller. It will be fun to watch the myths change to suit.

Her Coming Out

This morning our youngest, lunch box in hand, headed out for her very first day of day care ever at Eastwood Christian Children's Center. I am at once very proud and somewhat melancholy as she crosses this threshold.

"Camel on the ceiling. C ... c ... C."

Metro Council School Visits: More A Matter Of Journalistic Sloth At The Tennessean

After reading Tennessean Staff Writer Diane Long's piece last week on 17 Metro Council members whom she reports did not respond to the Parents Advisory Council's invitations to visit school in their districts, I was troubled to see that three of my Council members--Ludye Wallace, Adam Dread, and Diane Neighbors--were on Long's list.

Why was I so troubled? Well, it seems to me that missing an event for honest reasons is one thing. But totally failing to respond to an event planned by parents, students, and school officials might indicate that one does not care enough to listen to grassroots advocacy for public education. More to the point, it might suggest that Metro Council members might not care about the students in their communities who put forth a coordinated effort to show them how important their schools are to them.

So, I set out writing my three representatives, two of whom I voted for in the last election. Both Mr. Dread and Ms. Neighbors responded almost immediately. I have not yet heard from Mr. Wallace, which is pretty much par for the course here in District 19.

Mr. Dread insisted that he "always RSVP to invitations," and that he believes that he did not receive one. He also wrote that Council has "zero jurisdiction" over the education budget, since the school board makes those decisions. I understood the spirit of his budget argument, although I thought the adjective "zero" was disingenuous, since the Council ultimately votes up or down on the Mayor's budget, which includes the education budget. That is some measure of jurisdiction. I pointed that out to him, but it yielded no response.

Ms. Neighbors assured me that she had responded. She forwarded an e-mail from Sara Martin-Michels, Hillwood PTSO VP, saying that the Tennessean article was wrong. Martin-Michels wrote that Ms. Neighbors had responded to her request and that Ms. Neighbors had in fact told her about a budget town hall meeting.

Well, I found it just as disconcerting that I might have chastised my representatives unnecessarily because of some inaccuracies in the Tennessean. So, I followed up with Diane Long. I gave her all of the information that both Mr. Dread and Ms. Neighbors gave me. I asked if the Tennessean might make a correction to its report on at least those two. Ms. Long declined, saying,

The Tennessean always promptly replies to any situation that may need clarification or correction, but that request needs to come directly from the person involved. I have not been contacted by either Mr. Dread or Ms. Neighbors. As Council members, I'm sure they are aware of newspaper's policies and I believe both of them know that I, personally, am quick to respond to any concerns they have.

Ms. Long's last response insinuates to me that all reports are accurate, unless and until those who are the objects of the reports say otherwise. However, as a member of Ms. Long's audience (does heeding one's audience matter anymore?), I am inclined to see her report now as flawed and to chalk up her inaccuracies to lazy journalism rather than to dishonesty or lying on Mr. Dread's or Ms. Neighbor's parts. The next time Ms. Long reports something about my representatives, I'll try to double check the verity of her report before taking her at her word.

2:00 p.m. Update: The Tennessean link for Ms. Long's May 11 story is no longer active, which suggests to me that it has been moved to the archives. That means to view it, you'll have to pay the Tennessean since they charge for archived stories.

10:30 p.m. Update: Kudos to Kevin Newman, who is more adept at "googling" than I am. He has provided the link to the google cache in the comments. Click on comments and then click on Kevin's link to read Ms. Long's Tennessean article free of charge. Thanks a million, Kevin.

A Happy Mother's Day

A Shared Moment At Brunch On Mother's Day, 2005. Photograph by S-townMike.

Happy Birthday to Me

It's official. Today I am old enough to have become my father. I am also old enough so that the very idea of becoming my father does not scare the ever-loving crap out of me. My dad's a pretty good guy and I realize now what he put up with to continue to call me his son. Welcome to mid-life. Funny how it looks more like Fathers Day than my birthday.

The family has some sort of designs for me today, which include a Sounds game. (We tried to go last night, but the injury of a cold rain was made worse by the insult of a major stadium power outtage when a telephone pole outside got knocked down).