The ongoing nextification of Salemtown

When this Tennessean piece appeared earlier in the summer, I lashed out at it in a blog post I did not publish. Now that there is some distance, I'm ready to reflect on its merits to my neighborhood in a more critical, composed way. On with the reflections.

Sometimes I am really glad I have been blogging for so long on Nashville, and particularly, on my part of Nashville. This blog is always a reminder of my actual experience here free from the filters and spin of people who have only recently "discovered" Salemtown. The selling of Salemtown as "new and hot" has been going on for so many years that it is an old, rehearsed refrain. I wrote blog posts in 2006 on how the news media framed our neighborhood as an attractive new option. Does new ever stop being new?

Before last year the latest in a line of coming-and-going real estate reporters at the Tennessean, Bill Lewis (who also wrote an unfortunate piece about "pioneers taking over" the neighborhood) did not even know what Salemtown was. Now he is writing about the community without interviewing long-time residents (and, no, I'm not talking about myself) who have a different point of view than the newbs-in-the-hood. The ex-president of the association whom Lewis quotes wonders why Salemtown "didn't catch on a decade ago", as if she was here a decade ago (she was not) when others of us were moving here because it was a diverse neighborhood of porches already.

Lewis interviews a newly arrived, fresh, young developer to the Salemtown scene. Since I have not met her she is just another number to me because I've crossed paths with dozens of developers since moving here. But we will not be getting off to a good start, given her developers' spin of Salemtown as once a "fringe" neighborhood that has morphed in to a community of rooftop hot tubs. Did Bill Lewis actually count the number of rooftop hot tubs in Salemtown before writing his story? How many hot tubs--rooftop or not--do we actually have in Salemtown? Do hot tubs determine quality?

It is worth noting that Lewis used the same formula two years ago to market what realtors randomly started calling "Historic West Town" (a neighborhood widely known as "The Nations"), sans hot-tub branding. According to one source, The Nations may not even be "Historic". Apparently, the next, big thing is not to deviate from the "hot" potential of transitional (or is that "emerging"?) neighborhoods by using a maelstrom of floating signifiers. (The Lewis hotness coefficient was also applied to the Wedgewood-Houston neighborhood last May).

As for Salemtown, the notion of being called "fringe" by a developer sticks in the craw of my preference for diversity. When I hear developers rationalize their benign neglect (perhaps even a collective, de facto red-lining?) of certain North Nashville neighborhoods with terms like "fringe", I wonder if it is code. I ask myself whether "fringe" is just code for "Salemtown is not yet enough of a eroded, homogenized, white-washed lifestyle draw on which we might build". Money-makers shake with or without diversity.

Our family moved here from Historic Edgefield in East Nashville almost 10 years ago. At the time Edgefield had a much higher crime rate (and less diversity) than Salemtown did, and yet, it was hardly considered "fringe" by developers, who were pushing prices to unreasonable heights before it all came crashing down with housing bubble. In my book that shows just how arbitrary and capricious marketing signifiers are.

Another Nashville journo, J.R. Lind, coined the terms "nexting" and "nextification" to represent and to criticize our city's dogged obsession with the next, big thing. Outside of Lind, though, prominent voices in the news media, especially the ones who report on real estate, embrace the nextification of neighborhoods like ours without a second thought. That is the most troubling aspect of growth: not merely that developers try to rewrite who we are, but that papers like the Tennessean give the fictions implicit facticity to an audience who may not know any better. Thanks to them, Salemtown never stops emerging and nexting.

Journo-a-journo on "West Town" neighborhood

Charles Maldonado, who is headed out of Nashville to write for a New Orleans publication, calls out the Tennessean's Bill Lewis for undoing the distinction between advertising and reporting in this morning's edition.

Here's how Lewis gives a leg-up to realtors and brokers who would otherwise have to pay for exposure as wide as the newspaper's readership:

Homeowners and real estate agents are holding a neighborhood-wide open house today that will showcase 15 homes for sale.

Homes range from a restored 1899 Victorian at 4800 Illinois Ave. to new construction, such as a 2006 cottage at 4906 Illinois Ave. Prices in the neighborhood range from the $90,000s to about $260,000, says Kay Hunter, a Realtor with the Realty Association. A number of vacant lots have signs promising future construction of new single-family houses ....

Potential investors overlooked the neighborhood, says Alice Walker, president of the Greater Nashville Association of Realtors, who helped organize the open house ....

That’s changing as momentum builds in Historic West Town and small neighborhood businesses move in along Charlotte Pike, she says.

“That’s what makes urban living so great. You have your own little neighborhood,” says Walker.

Indeed, there is very little in this article that has to do with broader issues of community development or cultural legacy. Everything is reduced to the economic development tools that Realtors and real estate brokers use to make money off neighborhood life.

Here is Maldonado's response to the Tennessean pieced together from his Twitter stream:

Okay, the Nations or Historic West Town or whatever is a perfectly fine neighborhood. No reason to be scared by it or anything .... But it still has plenty of problems. And this article which declares its "rebirth" in a nonquote, is barely distinguishable from an ad .... Furthermore, the name. Just because there's like one house from the (extreme late) 1800s, that a realtor pointed out to the paper .... That doesn't actually make this neighborhood as a whole historic. Basically it's an ordinary suburban neighborhood .... Lots of post-War tract housing. And plenty of houses wherein whatever "historic" elements there once were have been renovated into oblivion.

Isn't speculation on real estate part of what brought us a bubble and then the housing crisis of the past half decade? It seems like a contradiction of the journalistic mission for a newspaper to aid and abet wealthy special interests that inflate expectations and buying frenzy without regard to facts or local history.

Maldonado points out that this story simply gave real estate developers the benefit of the doubt without any digging behind the image that they project for the commercial purpose of selling property. Bill Lewis was helping out the privileged few more than he was doing the local community favors, especially if home values are artificially driven up with contrivances like "historic". The more influence Realtors have, the more likely they are to do what they want regardless of what's good for all West Town residents.

Recovery of the Richland Creek watershed continues

Volunteers weathered cooler temperatures and the threat of rain to continue the project of restoration of Richland Creek in West Nashville:

The volunteers worked tirelessly and retrieved about 4 tons of flood debris. Many large floatable flood remnants easily could have made their way back into the stream, met up with the sewer line just downstream and created a blockage to stream flow. Volunteers from the Nations neighborhood understood the potential flood hazard and expressed gratitude for our event. Beside filling the roll of dumpster below, volunteers seperated out tires and hazardous materials for proper disposal and Metro trash receptalces to be returned for reuse ....

Our next Richland Creek flood recovery project is scheduled for April 9th at Charlotte Avenue and we need volunteers with canoes to help retreive debris from the steep stream banks. Contact us at rcwa@comcast.net if you can help.

The Metro business owner who wants Metro property in order to stop dumping continues to permit dumping himself

CM Buddy Baker has been trying to convince constituents in The Nations community for some time that he intends to hand campaign donor Ron Hunter a Metro alley in order to stop dumping. Mr Hunter's lawyer and Board of Zoning Appeals member David Ewing has joined Mr. Baker, insisting that Metro's "failure" to stop dumping and not Mr. Hunter's plan to rezone residential properties he owns across the alley is the real reason for the alley grab.

But what if Ron Hunter himself allows dumping on his property? Mike Peden sent an e-mail to Metro Council over the weekend with photographic recon that probably makes both Mr. Hunter's lawyer and his council member wince:

----- Original Message -----
From: Mike Peden
To: councilmembers@nashville.gov
Sent: Saturday, August 07, 2010 6:43 PM
Subject: Emailing: P1017960

CM Baker - can you please advise your friend Mr. Hunter that his property is not zoned as an open dump site.

I have attached a photo of his property taken this morning.

The new no dumping signs have been installed in the alley, and the rules apply to Mr. Hunter as well.

Also, the grass needs cutting on his vacant lots. I have notified Codes and Public Works.

I am sure you are as interested as I am in keeping the neigborhood clean and free of illegal dumping.

Thank you
Mike Peden

During a recent community meeting over this controversial alley closure CM Baker replied smugly to a local who told him that The Nations had formed a dump watch, "Well, 'bout time y'all done something!" Given this embarrassing turn of events, perhaps the council member was wishing the neighborhood had not started monitoring and reporting dumping.

Alley closure opponents have insisted that the alley gets trashed in part because Mr. Hunter allows dumping and blight around his business. It appears that the business owner cannot straighten up and fly right long enough for CM Baker to slip the closure proposal, which is currently indefinitely deferred, under the community radar.

Many believe that closing the alley is merely the antecedent to commercial expansion in The Nations community. But let's play the fools that lawyer and council member take the neighborhood for and play along with the charade: now how would handing the alley in question to Mr. Hunter discourage dumping when Mr. Hunter seems to permit dumping himself?

CM Buddy Baker has to break out of his huddle with the lawyers tonight to pass an unpopular alley abandonment

A little later this evening Metro Council Member Buddy Baker will bring his controversial motion to abandon an alley as requested by one of his campaign donors who has also drawn up plans to industrialize residential properties by rezoning them. Many in the community believe that the abandonment is the gateway to rezoning, so they are organizing to show up in numbers tonight even though they will not be given the chance to address the council in a public hearing.

It's basically David and Goliath: The Nations neighborhood against Baker and the lobbyist lawyers who helped him take on opponents during a community meeting this week. Expect CM Baker to be as dismissive of his constituents as he was in this exchange during Saturday's meeting:

Constituent #1: Lots of neighbors are now doing neighborhood watch, dumping watch. They are pulling together as a neighborhood association and group to keep the community safe and clean.

CM Baker: I'm glad they're finally doing it!

Constituent #2: Do you know that there is an order in to get Metro Public Works to put a camera in this alley should dumping continue? And the dumping sign that's on the tree at the end of the alley which appeared this week is due to the community contacting Metro Public Works to get it done?

CM Baker: Well, 'bout time y'all done something!

[Laughter]

Constituent #2: Why did you not consider these options instead of driving around and acting like there is nothing to be done but, "Oh, let's abandon this alley and give him the land?"

Constituent #3: I been picking up dump here for ... years.

It seems to me that CM Baker is so lead around by donors and lawyers that he feels emboldened not to work with voters in his district who disagree with him come to a win-win solution for both sides on alley maintenance and community planning.

UPDATE: According to the 43rd Avenue Rezoning Twitter feed, the Neighborhoods Defense Fund and the Historic Sylvan Park Neighborhood Association have publicly come out in opposition to alley abandonment.

UPDATE: Opposition leader Rick Bradley reported tonight on the Nashville Neighborhoods e-list that CM Baker told NewsChannel5 that he deferred abandonment at the council meeting because he did not have the votes for approval. Baker's indefinite deferral allows the bill to be put on the agenda again without much warning.

UPDATE: Buddy Baker told NewsChannel5 that he believes he had the votes to pass abandonment but it would have been close.

UPDATE: NewsChannel5's video:

What Metro Council Member Buddy Baker supported and when he supported it

Via Mike Peden, a February Planning e-mail that indicates CM Buddy Baker understood an alley abandonment issue and rezoning request to be more directly connected than he claims to now:

At his community meeting on Saturday, CM Buddy Baker denied the connection between alley abandonment and rezoning. The 43rdrezoning website has video. Here's an excerpt of CM Baker's comments that contradict Metro Planning's construal of his support for rezoning:

A lot of y'all think this is a zone change. This is not a zone change. I have nothing to do with a zone change.

If it is rezoned it'd be Mr. Hunter. That would not be me .... I did not know anything about the zone change until Wednesday or the Thursday before we went to the Planning Commission. If Mr. Hunter wants a zone change that is up to Mr. Hunter. That's not up to me.

I find CM Baker's appeal to ignorance disingenuous. I've observed the planning and zoning process for some years, and I believe that council members do not bring rezoning requests forward in the face of public opposition unless they support them themselves. Rezoning does not go forward on Mr. Hunter's initiative alone. It requires CM action. And if CM Baker did find out about it last minute, why didn't he put the brakes on and plan community meetings?

Almost on cue after CM Baker mentioned Mr. Hunter, the attorney for Mr. Hunter, former Chamber of Commerce lobbyist, and Board of Zoning Appeals member, David Ewing, interrupted and took the heat of community questions off CM Baker. He insisted in spite of his client's wishes to rezone industrial that the motive behind the alley closure was to clean up the alley because "Metro is not doing that well."

There was a time in Salemtown when we were having trouble with Public Works not maintaining our alleys well. Abandonment never even entered the picture. We just assumed that if Metro wasn't doing something well, then we would work to compel Metro to take care of the alleys, which they eventually did. It seems a lawyer's trick to use poor Metro service delivery to justify privatizing an alley, which increases the probability of rezoning in the future. Metro Planning opined that themselves.

But the lawyer overplayed his hand by insisting that those who chose to participate in this community meeting could only ask questions about whether the alley should or should not be abandoned. He has a responsibility to represent his client, but he has no authority in the forum

to terminate questions about rezoning, especially when his client, the business owner, initiated the rezoning process.

Attorney Ewing also oddly declared CM Baker's community meeting closed and out-shouted a community opponent around minute 39:00. Who put him in charge? He won't be able to alter public perception that rezoning remains the long-term counterpart of short-term alley abandonment. The huddle of CM Baker with the business owners' lawyers at the end of the video is emblematic of what is wrong with the planning and zoning process. It often defies democracy.

Buddy begrudgingly bends to constituents on contested alley abandonment

CM Buddy Baker reverses his field and will hold a community meeting on the controversial plan to shut down an alley and industrialize the Nations neighborhood in his district at the behest of a campaign donor. Via Rick Bradley:

From a neighbor in the Nations. Note that we are 6 blocks from the site and received no notice, so the notification must be very selective.

"Mr. Baker has sent notice dated July 9, 2010 of a "District 20 Neighborhood Meeting" to discuss Metro Council Ordinance No. BL2010-682.

For those who did not get the letter, it reads in part: "It is not required that I hold a public meeting on an alley closure. I have followed all the rules of the Metropolitan Government as relates to alley closures. However, out of loyalty to my constituents, I am holding this meeting to provide an opportunity to allow for feedback on this issue."

The meeting is set as follows:

Saturday, July 17, 2010
4:00 p.m.
4300 Georgia Avenue"