Racism and the "stage-managed narrative" in transit and ballpark plans

Last year I gave Metro Councilmember Scott Davis a pass on his view that a new east-west bus rapid transit line would help "low-income residents" in his district even as it won't help the same classes in North Nashville. Based on the opinions of poli sci professor, Sekou Franklin, maybe I should not have been so quick to concede CM Davis's boosterific points for "the Amp".

Dr. Franklin's recent column is a scathing reflection on the transit injustice wrought by MTA and Karl Dean's administration and the minions supporting "the Amp":

...Amp advocates, backed by the mayor’s office and Metro Transit Authority officials, selectively picked winners and losers for the project. They relied on flawed data, steered federal civil rights officers away from studying North Nashville bus routes and backed zoning changes to boost the appearance of higher ridership in the West End corridor, which stands to benefit the most from the Amp.

The pro-Amp group’s East Nashville angle also has been an insincere attempt to inoculate itself from racial and civil rights scrutiny. Pro-Amp advocates claim that Amp terminals east of the river will help working-class blacks, when in reality, they are located in a rapidly gentrifying neighborhood. The project could actually accelerate the displacement of blacks who still remain in the Main Street-Five Points area.

The Amp debate also has exposed how Nashville’s leading officials exploit the politics of race while lacking any real commitment to systemic racial inequities. Similar to the debate about the Sulphur Dell ballpark, Amp supporters have brought attention to distressed communities and African-Americans, but only to bolster a stage-managed narrative of Chamber of Commerce boosterism — a narrative that is not intended to help African-Americans or distressed communities, but meant to convince urban pioneers that Nashville is the premier Southeast destination.

The irony is that the so-called distressed neighborhoods for both projects (Germantown for Sulphur Dell and Main Street-Five Points for the Amp) are places where working-class African-Americans are being pushed out in record numbers.

In both cases (a new ballpark and the east-west connector) development for the business sector has taken priority over residential interests and social justice. Metro Nashville does not seem committed to balanced, smart and sustainable growth, but seems more bound to a malignant growth that devours quality of life and historic communities. The scales are tipped toward money and power. If you don't have much like the predominantly white Courthouse class does, then you are only in the way.

The truly sad part for me personally, is that there does not seem to be a critical mass of people organized at the grassroots who care enough to speak up for equity in development and in mass transit. The opponents who do speak out are ignored, pigeonholed and marginalized, even by North Nashville council members who are supposed to represent them.

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.

Trigger-happy Parents Advisory Council (UPDATED)

"Engagement Marketing" ad Parents Advisory Council
sent to our PTO [see "UPDATE" below]

Monday night the chair of Metro Schools' Parents Advisory Council, which tends to be the only parents group the school district listens to (at least that was the message I got early on from PTO meetings at my daughter's school), sent out the following email promoting the pro-charter, "parent trigger" film, "Won't Back Down":

Good evening families of Metro Schools.  The Parents Advisory Council has been asked to partner with the Tennessee Charter Schools Association and Students First for the following movie premiere at Opry Mills Movie Theatre on Monday, September 24, 2012 at 6 pm.  We will begin promptly at 6 pm with remarks by the Honorable Mayor Karl Dean, followed by the movie and a panel discussion to follow.

I look forward to seeing you there. Please register in advance to reserve your seats.

Erica W. Lanier
Parents Advisory Council Chair 2010-2013
Parents Advisory Council’s Leadership Taskforce (PLT)
“Your voice matters. Make it heard.”

Ms. Lanier was also one of three losing candidates for the District 5 school board seat election just passed.

What primarily raised my hackles about this email, which was received by our PTO membership, was the partnering of the parents' advocacy and advisement group with Students First led by controversial and conservative Education Reformer Michelle Rhee and with the primary lobbying group for charter schools to red-state Tennessee, TCSA. There were no other groups that PAC partnered with, no other films representing alternative points of view. This event is being staged and marketed by charter school advocates and our advisory council seems to be jettisoning its independence and evenhandedness to enable what amounts to some of us as propaganda*, especially when branded as truth.

So, yesterday I penned a letter to Ms. Lanier and copied it to my PTO leader, my daughter's principal, my school board member, my council member, and a local reporter covering the charter debate. PAC may be going into this event merrily, if not naively, but I at least want to offer a dissenting view in case they assume everyone is on board with them:


Ms. Lanier:

Some parents do not support the privatization of our public education through charter schools and the shifting of resources away from public schools to education corporations, which are free to select a few Metro students and reject many others. Some of us are concerned about the private wealth and political influence being pumped into the "parent trigger" movement by pro-charter groups and politicians.

Why is our advisory council, which is supposed to represent all voices of public school parents, seeming to take sides in this debate by co-sponsoring a pro-charter film (which is not a factual story, by the way) with a charter lobbyist/advocacy group? Shouldn't the Parents Advisory Council be striving to bring more balance to this event by suggesting alternative viewpoints or contrasting films more critical of what appears to be a headlong rush to charters?

If the Parents Advisory Council is interested in balance and fairness, I would recommend that they consider this film from the Grassroots Education Movement for screening, too: http://vimeo.com/41994760. By all means, advance the debate on education, but please make sure that the debate remains diverse and inclusive of all voices.

The PAC Chair replied last night with a tersely written email. What she did not say in it is just as important as what she did say. She replied with no examples of how our advisory committee had attempted to provide perspectives on transforming education at odds with the business models of the charter industry. In my opinion, the strongest response to my criticism is to list the ways that PAC remains a balanced group that shines a spotlight on all perspectives in a debate. She also failed to acknowledge the legitimacy of parents like me who have another view of charter schools. PAC's willingness to partner with the other sides of this debate would earn my appreciation.

Ms. Lanier did insist that PAC was not siding with anyone in the debate, even though her group forwarded the sales campaign materials to the PTO (even the ad website has the word "campaign" in the URL). She also argued that the movie is "loosely based" on "Parent Revolution" which she called a "real and active parent group". What she did not acknowledge in her letter to me is that Parent Revolution was started by a charter school operator, operates with a million dollar budget, and takes donations from pro-charter venture philanthropists with the Bill Gates Foundation and the Walton Family Foundation. It is not a bunch of PTO moms who got together and organized out of their own frustrations.

She also did not give many any details on how PR work (seems a strikingly appropriate abbreviation) in California led to successful triggers that inspired the movie. Fact is, there have been no successful triggers that could have inspired "Won't Back Down". The movie is a fiction. In fact, it was intended to be a fiction, according to one of its writers.

The idea of a trigger sounds good to frustrated and angry parents, who desperately seek solutions but who often are not aware of the ulterior political agendas they end up supporting by embracing the trigger. The reality tends to prove to be emptier and more regressive than anticipated.

Finally, Ms. Lanier maintained that dissenting views like mine would be accommodated during the panel discussion time. It is not clear to me that dissenting views would even be sitting on the panel. So, why should I hope to have my views acknowledged during that discussion? I could not even have them acknowledged after contacting my PAC leader.

_______

     *One of the pioneers of "parent trigger" lobbying is the American Legislative Exchange Council, which holds closed-door pow-wows with conservative legislators to craft extreme bills with the least resistance.



UPDATE: The Vice Chair of the Parents Advisory Council comments below that the invitation to the "Won't Back Down" event was never planned or authorized by PAC or the Leadership Taskforce. I attended tonight's PAC meeting. While the subject did not come up in the district meeting, an MNPS administrator told me that they would not authorize such an invitation either.

Looks like a rogue invitation to the parent trigger event, which gives the event even less credibility in my book.


UPDATE: I took a screenshot of the advertisement for the Nashville showing of Won't Back Down, which was somewhat different than the ad for both Memphis and Nashville showings (inset screenshot above). The Nashville ad was attached to the email originally sent from Ms. Lanier and forwarded to our PTO group. There is no mistaking that the ad states that the Parents Advisory Council's Leadership Taskforce "is partnering" with the Tennessee Charter Schools Association and with Students First "to host an exclusive preview" of Won't Back Down:

PAC leaders have separated themselves from claims of the partnership. I'm updating this because it seems pretty clear to me that Ms. Lanier's email included some professional advertising work by people who intended to suggest to us that the Parents Advisory Council endorsed their campaign without the permission of PAC. I'm wondering whether anyone at PAC will investigate how this happened.

But I thought Salemtown was the "next hot spot" 5 years ago

In 2007 real estate reporters called Salemtown the next hot spot, so hot, we were already "on fire":

Up-and-coming 27-year-old developer Jeremy Gearheart seems like a good match with Salemtown, an emerging neighborhood near downtown where he's building single-family homes and putting down roots by buying and rehabbing an old home.

Gearheart is finalizing plans for eight upscale brick brownstones at Fifth Avenue and Garfield. He recently finished three new homes with historic designs at Clayton on Sixth Avenue North.

Those homes go from $289,000 to $348,000 and recently won the city's Preservation Award for infill projects from the Metro Historical Commission of Nashville and Davidson County.

"This area is on fire," Gearheart says. "I'm fully invested in it."

Apparently, our status as the next hot spot in 2007 was just a false alarm. This morning the Tennessean reports that now it's for real; we are the next hot spot:

Salemtown [is] a long-neglected neighborhood near downtown Nashville being discovered by residents and home builders who see it as the city’s next redevelopment success story ....

“This is a very cool, exciting place. It’s the next hot spot,” says Josh McLean, a principal of Kenner McLean Development, who compares Salemtown to other neighborhoods that have experienced a renaissance, including Germantown and, across the Cumberland River in East Nashville, Lockeland Springs.

As I hear it, the real estate reporter at the Tennessean did not even know that Salemtown existed before he was contacted to do this story. We moved to Salemtown in 2004, and I can recall the news media discovering us at various times over the years: 2005, 2006, 2007, etc. So, perhaps the journo is referring to himself as being neglectful of Salemtown. Nonetheless, they have discovered us again.

Pioneers & Manifest Destiny

More troubling to me as a Salemtownie is the reference in the story to our neighborhood as "pioneer territory" along with the screaming colonial headline: "'Pioneers' take over Salemtown". The idea of "pioneers" summons other ideas like civilizing natives and subduing frontier. Pioneers do not just settle, they also drive out other indigenous communities. Because of those connotations, I find pioneer metaphors for urban community redevelopment appalling.

Salemtown is not the wild west or Fort Apache. When we founded a neighborhood association here we sought to acknowledge and to celebrate the class, ethnic, and social diversity of Salemtown. The idea that those of us who have moved here more recently are "pioneers" is at odds with that purpose. I am fortunate to share Salemtown with people who have lived here all their lives, who can remember working at the old Werthan Bag factory, who remember walking to class at the old Fehr school, who have looked at the block-by-block march of hip Germantown northward with a keen sense of loss of their own community. I have no desires to "take over" the neighborhood from them. Recently I found working side-by-side with folk who have lived in Salemtown for decades on our 3-year streetscape project very meaningful. If I were a pioneer I would not even see the value of their perspective or at least I would extol economic growth as the value that trumps all other values, especially "old-fashioned" ones.

Salemtown has a community character beyond that of the "urban core" exalted by lifestyle wayfarers who see the neighborhood as a pass-through from one stage of their life to the next. Some of us have stood in front of the Planning Commission and the Metro Council and defended that character against homogenizing tendencies of the housing market. Whether or not it is (or was or will be) "the next hot spot" promoted by real estate reporters and developers, it is (and was and will be) our home, too. Any so-called "revival" or "renaissance" is always influenced by the past as well as the present and the future.

They Hold These Decibels to Be Self-Evident

That all acoustic thresholds are created equal and endowed by their amplifier with certain unalienable heights ...

Aunt B:

Now I can respect that you do not see yourself as a libertarian, and I should have distinguished between you and P.J. Tobia, who was clearly embracing libertarianism to impugn a proposed ordinance that would be more liberal than some cities and consistent with music-oriented Austin. But even if I was directing my final comments to Tobia, you have to admit that your reply to his post would fit right in with many civil libertarians (with whom I myself identify). Other than that I'm not even sure what you mean by "real libertarian." Are there any left post-Bush's economic crash?

Who demanded your sympathy on this noise issue? I certainly did not. I also did not demand your sympathy when I moved into a high crime neighborhood and chose to help start a crime watch rather than roll over and enjoy the violation. It's a rather peculiar end to which your logic leads: if one moves some place one must be willing to accept rather than change the impositions. If I move into the city I should be prepared to accept litter. Playing the victim rather than changing the system is the city dweller's lot as goes the logic; so then, she should commit say an act of larceny herself to get into the spirit? If a drunk vomits on her stoop, she can just go vomit on her neighbor's. Stop trying to transform bad urban schools, simply dumb down a kid you know. But otherwise none of us should protest. If we don't choose a hyper-real urban adventure like every other wine-tasting suburban wayfarer or bar-hopping weekend warrior, then we should sit down and shut up.

It's ironic that these Downtowners you asperse would have to hear the loudest music of any American city absent this ordinance, but proponents of becoming the loudest American city don't expect to have to listen to "urban pioneers'" criticism of extreme noise. By the way, maybe you didn't get the memo: many of us who live in the city are critical of the term "urban pioneer." I find it offensive, like you probably find certain labels directed at you or your pit bull objectionable, so please don't throw the term at me. But if it helps you actually address my real world point that each major entertainmentopolis in America has noise ordinances either more conservative than or the same as Nashville's proposed ordinance, then by all means pretend with your mind's eye that I am an "urban pioneer." Just don't call me one.

And, finally, I say fine to your point that we're not talking about the art of seduction but about entertainment commerce. I never meant for this to be about lap dances. You're the one trying to link stripping and loud music for the purposes of sneaking in charges of "Victorianism" and heaping them on proponents of a reasonable and conventional noise ordinance. And, while I am tempted to wax Foucaultian about the production of sexuality in Victorian strictures, instead I would merely suggest that if you don't want to be charged with projection (which can be connected to repression) then don't charge balance-seekers with Victorianism and repression based on no evidence other than your contrived stripper/higher-decibel linkage.

Oh, and about Aristotle: all I did was indicate that one may appeal to balance from a tradition outside of Victorianism. I didn't argue that we should exclude women as Aristotle believed (just like voting for Democrats now is not an endorsement of the Democratic Party's historic opposition to desegregation). I merely linked to his position that we should find a mean between extremes (for boys and girls equally!) rather than moving to extremes just because we can. But if you don't like any Aristotle because of some of his views then take his teacher Plato (who acknowledged women as philosophers): his view of justice as people relating to one another rather than acting strictly as individuals is just as relevant and non-Victorian. The point is not whether you choose one over the other. The point is that I am not being Victorian or repressed because I support a noise ordinance.

Sincerely,
Mike


P.S. You would probably lose the donut bet that this bill has anything to do with the Adelicia or any other place in Midtown. On the one hand, the old law that governed the noise violations in Midtown (which is not Downtown, although it may seem that way to some surburbanites) restricted amplified music to 50 decibels (unless otherwise zoned). On the other hand, a new law was passed a few weeks ago that now covers neighborhoods like Midtown; that ordinance maintains that any noise that is "plainly audible" from the adjoining property line is prohibited. Sound meters are no longer needed outside of Downtown proper. So, Downtown's proposed ordinance is exponentially more liberal (as I expect it should be) than Midtown's and has absolutely nothing to do with the drama over at South Street.


LATER UPDATE: Here is part of the council lawyer's analysis of the proposed bill to limit decibel levels Downtown:

The noise ordinance was amended by Ordinance No. BL2008-259 in September 2008 to add a “plainly audible” standard for determining violations and adding certain restrictions pertaining to motor vehicle noise. However, Ordinance No. BL2008-259 retained the exemption for the downtown area from the noise ordinance restrictions.

This ordinance [NO. BL2008-306] would basically set a maximum decibel of 85 Db(A) for downtown properties, with certain exceptions. For condominium and apartment units, the decibel measurement would be taken from the interior of another residential unit in the same complex (if the sound is coming from a residential unit), or from the boundary line of the nearest residentially-occupied property at street level (for noise from bars, nightclubs, etc.). The ordinance would not apply to special events in the downtown area for which a permit has been issued, or to any outdoor entertainment facilities owned by Metro (LP Field and Riverfront Park). The ordinance would also prohibit amplified sound from businesses to attract customers greater than 85 Db(A) from any point within the boundary line of the nearest residentially-occupied property.

This ordinance is the result of a task force made up of downtown residents that began looking at this issue in September 2006. The task force toured downtown at night and took noise measurements at various locations. The 85 decibel limitation is greater than the noise ordinance in Las Vegas and New York City, and is in line with the noise ordinance in Austin, Texas, which is comparable to downtown Nashville as it pertains to the mixture of live music venues and residential living.

It is clear from this analysis that a group of Downtown residents started exploring this problem 2 years ago before ground was ever broken for the Adelicia. I can find no evidence to support Aunt B.'s speculation that the Adelicia residents prompted this bill. And if that were true, why wouldn't those residents go to their own council member, Erica Gilmore, for bill sponsorship? Mike Jameson and Robert Duvall are sponsoring the 85 decibel bill.

In fact, one Downtown member of the Nashville Charrette describes her participation with Mike Jameson in the information gathering process (which sounds anything but unreasonable):

I actually walked around the District with Councilman Jameson and a group of merchants and residents last year on a weekend night. We carried some noise meters and found that most of the clubs on 2nd Ave and Broadway do a good job of keeping the sound within acceptable levels. There are just a few clubs that are creating problems. They are mainly the karaoke bars with outdoor speakers. They even kept blasting during Battle of the Bands on 2nd Avenue over New Years. It is too bad that a few create problems for all, but that is usually the case ....

Currently, there are no noise ordinance rules on the books for Jameson's district. Jameson asked for more time for the residents and the merchants to come to an agreement and we just about have, however, the Convention and Visitors Bureau strongly resists any restrictions of any kind.

There is acknowledgement that most clubs are doing fine and wouldn't have to worry about the new ordinance, which like most Metro Codes are intended to reign in the few who would otherwise act the total asshole. There also seems to have been a deliberative, inclusive discussion involving the impact on the Downtown neighborhoods behind this bill ignored by P.J. Tobia. Aunt B. may not believe excessive noise to be a problem Downtown, but a number do and nobody is threatening anyone's basic rights in asking that some limits be placed around certain behavior consistent with entertainment districts elsewhere.

And let's not be naive in thinking that Nashville ever acts without comparing itself to peers. To suggest that the city should go its own way on music when it compares other codes it applies to any other human behavior is just silly. There's nothing that should make amplified music more exceptional than blinking, animated LED billboards, for example. It is pretty obvious from the council lawyer's analysis of the bill that comparing Nashville to places like New York, Las Vegas, and Austin matters or it wouldn't merit discussion. Peer comparisons are as legitimate as any other data influencing this decision.

Not Good for the North End: New Urbanism's Variations on White Flight

According to Jeff Woods, "Chamber of Commerce types" lobbied the School Board and the Redistricting Task Force to exempt Germantown, Hope Gardens, Salemtown, and Downtown from the MNPS redistricting plan because allegedly white parents here do not want to send their kids to school with black kids. This news couldn't have come at a worse time for the neighborhoods, given that the four presidents of the neighborhoods' associations were called together by HGI President Stacy Mosley to draft a letter opposing the plan roughly about the time that the lobbying commenced at a Chamber of Commerce sponsored conference in Miami, FL. The timing sucks dry any credibility the letter might have had, in my opinion, and I have to wonder if there was some coordination between the Chamber's lobbying and the calling of the presidents together.

While I already declared my opposition to Ms. Mosley's reasons for signing the letter, I was opposed to the redistricting plan because I thought that a neighborhood school needed to be placed in the old Fehr School Building in Salemtown rather than using Buena Vista. But I would have raised all kinds of objections about SNNA President Freddie O'Connell signing the letter if I would have known at the time what was going down in Florida. To his credit, Freddie has already told us that he was signing it not for the group but as an individual. And in a June 3 letter to the association he gave his personal reasons for signing, and he was explicit in his opposition to white flight:

I will not sign my name to anything I suspect of indicating a white flight mentality. Ultimately, I believe that neighborhood schools will play a critical role in revitalizing Nashville's public school system. For the reasons I cite in this letter, however, I'm not sure that this step taken in this way at this time is the best step toward neighborhood schools.

However, it is unfortunate that Salemtown is being associated now with what looks like a new urbanist strain of white flight. I wonder how much Ms. Mosley knew about the lobbying that she didn't divulge when she called the presidents together.

Finally and for the record, despite the Woods' characterization of young white professionals in these neighborhoods, we've never referred to ourselves as "urban pioneers" (every reference to "pioneers" on Enclave since 2005 is someone else's quote). Frankly, the people that seem to like referring to urban dwellers like us as "pioneers" are the Realtors and developers who are trying to invent and market a lifestyle that doesn't exist in reality. Also, the broad generalization that white parents don't want to send their kids to school with black kids may be true of the Chamber of Commerce types lobbying against the plan, but it is not true of all of us who live in these neighborhoods.


UPDATE: Task Force sticks by its guns, but adds three additional public hearings (which should have been scheduled in the first place), including one at MetroCenter/Buena Vista's John Early Middle. I'm pretty sure that Salemtown is not in the Hillsboro cluster as Amy Griffith reports; it's in the Hillwood cluster.

Rex Needs to Learn a Little English, Too

The word "gentry" is generally associated with a ruling class. Compared to developers, their lawyers, and the truckloads of money that they donate to political campaigns (like Mayor Karl Dean's), neighborhood "forces" are quite meager resistance. Follow the donations and the lobbyists. They ain't coming from the neighborhoods. Rex needs to get a grip on the reality beyond the condescending terms that the true elites ("moderates" and their development clientele) use to poke fun at the modest influence of neighborhood groups. Get beyond just Janel.

Now I'm going out to mow my own lawn and pull some weeds on hands and knees. I wonder how many elite Court House moderates and developers do that?


UPDATE: Kay Brooks says that good government advocates are "nuts."

She also takes some shots at HGI President Stacy Mosley:

I understand they took a chance on that part of town but also ensured, as best they could, that their children would attend 'high-performing Hillsboro cluster' schools. Would they have taken that same chance if the Hillsboro Cluster hadn't been available? No one really believes they would have. Likely what they'll do is what the East Nashville GooGoos did, opt out of the neighborhood school and create an enhanced option or design school. These 'urban pioneers' shouldn't pat themselves on the back for their support of public schools when they've done that.

NashPo's blog took their own shots at Stacy wanting it "her way" this morning in Gentrification Is Not Like Burger King.

Portland Gentrification Spurs Community Discussions

This article on the racial and socio-economic dimensions of gentrification in Portland (OR) is worth your time. One person's frontier is indeed another person's front porch. I've always been uneasy with terms like "urban pioneers."

Cavalcade of Capitalists: Financing TV Pioneers Without People of Color

This evening we watched PBS's "Pioneers of Television" segment on variety shows (from the 1950s to the 1970s). I was once again struck by the vacuum of morals, the sheer moral relativism of financial relationships.

Case in point: the unwillingness of financial sponsors in the 1950s to buy commercial time on variety shows that included African American guests or hosts. The most dramatic case in point was Nat King Cole's 1957 variety show, which sponsors refused to finance for fear of alienating southern audiences. NBC refused to bow to the market and financed the show itself all the while losing money. After one year, the show was cancelled for lack of advertising money. The market ruled African Americans out-of-place and money forced them out of TV variety shows.

It would not be until 1970, when Flip Wilson hosted variety show "Flip" and after more than 10 years of government enforced promotion and protection of civil rights for all that the market would come around to financing shows promoting black entertainers. Segregating advertising was a sad episode in TV history and it further sustains the argument that markets require government to move it toward a higher moral plane.

Architects talking trash about my rusticated concrete!

The Nashville Scene has been my newspaper of choice for fifteen years. Christine Kreyling’s articles on urban design are one reason for that. She has a knack for helping her readers understand the significance of the design of lived space. Heck, I even cite her a couple of times in my 1997 Vanderbilt dissertation on community-based organizing, simply because I tend to agree that built space makes a difference in all aspects of neighbors’ lives, including the more political aspects.

However, other times when I read her work I am left with the distinct impression that her “caste and station” (nod to Charles Dickens) unduly influence her reportage and commentary. Her tone in this week’s issue of the Scene is a case in point. In an article called, “Tomorrow’s Landmarks” (click HERE to read it), Ms. Kreyling seems to have two purposes: 1) to characterize the debate over new builds in historic and conservation districts as sharp (her reportage); and 2) to claim subtly that Metro’s preservationists are obligated to encourage architecture that is “worthy of the architecture around them” (her commentary).

I believe that she achieved her first purpose. I was somewhat less than satisfied that she even attempted the second. I reserve the right to be wrong, but I get the impression she has a dog in the fight on which she is reporting; and that dog is a blue-blood best in show. It is the breed of high culture (vs. low culture).

She seems to take aim at various targets. Some of her shots are true. I lived in Historic Edgefield for two years, and I agree with her that in the context of Edgefield, the City View Lofts are “U-G-L-Y.” They look like architecture that would fit Hillsboro Village or Green Hills, but in East Nashville they look out-of-place. No argument there. In fact, I would also include the mini ranch-style houses that are converted into bungalows by CPR Solutions LLC, which then jacks up their prices because of the demand for bungalows. (Click HERE to read about it).

I do have a bone to pick with what I consider to be potshots at newly built (a.k.a., “in-fill”) houses that she associates with the snobbish label “replica-lite.” I have to admit that I am talking out of my own more modest station as an owner of one of these “replica-lite” homes built last year near Morgan Park. I confess that I live in what seems to be the illegitimate child of conjugal relations between late Transitional Victorian style and a bungalow. A retro retread.

Ms. Kreyling expressed the concern that “pseudo-old” houses like mine run the risk of giving old neighborhoods the “artificial aura” of a theme park. It is in the “rusticated concrete” and “cement fiberboard” (both of which I have) that new builds do not live up to the older architecture around them. (By the way, calling Hardiplank® “cement fiberboard” is about as romantic as calling flagstone “slabs of hardened inorganic and organic waste sediments.” I do not know the lineage of fiberboard, but just for the record, long before cement became gauche for contemporary architects, it was invented by the Ancient Egyptians and concrete was used by the Assyrians and Babylonians [Source]).

The issue of “living up to landmarks” is the point where sirens and flashing red lights go off for me. Irrespective of the number of imitators in a neighborhood, neighbors generally do not need architects and designers around to tell the difference between the historic landmarks and the houses that mimic older styles. For those of us who don’t have $500K or $600K to slap on the barrelhead for stately landmarks, consistent but not identical replicas come as a more modestly priced compromise. We may not be able to have the best, but we can have “the good enough.” They are good for the owners, good for the builders, and good for the “pioneers,” who still enjoy the elevated status of “the original.”

Don’t get me wrong. I am not suggesting that whatever sells most in the market is intrinsically good. But what satisfies the aesthetic tastes of architects is not necessarily intrinsically good, either.

Please understand me. Perhaps cement and fiberboard are not the best architectural materials for in-fill. Perhaps retro is not the most commendable style. But until the cadre of architects Ms. Kreyling interviewed gets beyond the lavish visions of architecture as high artistry, and until they address common people down below whose choices are subject to the marketplace, the rest of us are going to have to make due with what builders offer us.

In the best of all possible neighborhoods, architectural definitions of beauty ought not just involve the preciousness of building materials, but the inclusion of diverse groups of people into a built community where art is appreciated. Besides, if every house in the neighborhood is a landmark, then no house in the neighborhood is a landmark.

The question of inclusion of many cultures begs another point: artificiality is not the unique ken of low culture. For better or worse, we live in a world of “artificial auras.” Preservationists have their own more expensive “artificial auras”: there are homeowners of century-old Victorian façades who “patina” newly installed hardwood floors to make them suit the age of the house. Other preservationists wire entertainment rooms for surround sound to compliment their plasma televisions, which can be discretely hidden in antique armoires. Every time I drive through Franklin, I get the impression that they are trying to make it look more like a Mayberry-vintage town square than like the booming edge city and bedroom community it has actually become.

There are enough artificial auras to go around. There is enough artistry to go around. When architects start meeting people where they actually live and not where they think people should live, it will be a landmark; perhaps even tomorrow’s landmark.