Interesting article I ran across about how Nashville is becoming a bachelorette party capital. What I found most interesting isn't the bachelorette thing, but the article's focus on the effects of gentrification and the loss of local culture. Home prices in a previously slummy section of the Belmont area are now around $600,000! Locals have been pushed out and don't recognize their town anymore. A good read.

Nothing new really about Nashville being a hipster hotspot, but I didn't realize the magnitude of it. I thought it was funny that few Nashville natives, at least white ones, had ever heard of Nashville hot chicken until it became a national thing with the hipsters.

https://www.buzzfeed.com/annehelenpeters....uhjLLvADj

Yup. That long time Nashville favorite, Hattie Bs, has been open longer than most current Nashville residents have been living there.....6 years.

I read that article too...pretty much sums it up - Nashville has let themselves become the next city with zero soul or identity. I found the stats on crime in Nashville vs. New Orleans, a city that oozes soul, interesting as well.

As Memphis continues to grow & improve, I hope we keep Nashville as a cautionary tale in our minds.

The article makes it sound like it's a crime to be white.

"The bride’s, of course, is white."
"Even without the matching clothing, you can spot a likely bachelorette party from 100 yards away: a group of (almost entirely) white women.."
"Nashville — or whatever city they’re visiting — becomes their playground. And in the case of the bachelorette parties, they get away with it (and have entire industries cater to them) in large part because they are white, and because they have money. "
"An upscale restaurant moved in, as did a bike shop, an anarchist bookstore, and a thrift shop named Katy K Designs and Ranch Dressing. In other words, Stuff White People Liked. "
"That change, of course, has already happened: the core of Nashville is increasingly white, increasingly rich, increasingly polished."
"But watching the bachelorettes of Nashville against the backdrop of citywide gentrification reminded me of how mindlessly I did all of it. Friction, resistance of any kind — whiteness, youth, and money removed it all."

Its funny that some idiot said Nashville today is what Austin was 10 years ago. As a long time former Austin resident, I can safely say that Austinites will tell you that Austin 2008 had already crossed the Rubicon from quirky, artsy music city to soulless traffic death trap way before that.

Of course, Austin has something Nashville doesnt....a multi billion dollar tech sector. Austin had a fallback industry after went from "it" city to just another huge American city. I'm not sure Nashville has something comparable.....at least on the same level as what Austin already had. And that is how bubbles are made.

(04-03-2018 02:15 PM)salukiblue Wrote:  The article makes it sound like it's a crime to be white.

"The bride’s, of course, is white."
"Even without the matching clothing, you can spot a likely bachelorette party from 100 yards away: a group of (almost entirely) white women.."
"Nashville — or whatever city they’re visiting — becomes their playground. And in the case of the bachelorette parties, they get away with it (and have entire industries cater to them) in large part because they are white, and because they have money. "
"An upscale restaurant moved in, as did a bike shop, an anarchist bookstore, and a thrift shop named Katy K Designs and Ranch Dressing. In other words, Stuff White People Liked. "
"That change, of course, has already happened: the core of Nashville is increasingly white, increasingly rich, increasingly polished."
"But watching the bachelorettes of Nashville against the backdrop of citywide gentrification reminded me of how mindlessly I did all of it. Friction, resistance of any kind — whiteness, youth, and money removed it all."

Well, a good chunk of the article is about how rich, white kids are moving into formerly black neighborhoods and whitewashing them. So, yea, they are going to mention stuff about white folks.

Yeah, the white angle is fair play here.

Nashville needs Jesse Jackson to come to town and lead a boycott of something. That way he can extort money from someone new. His old victims are running dry. Hopefully Kroger won't cave to his threats.

(04-03-2018 02:16 PM)aTxTIGER Wrote:  Its funny that some idiot said Nashville today is what Austin was 10 years ago. As a long time former Austin resident, I can safely say that Austinites will tell you that Austin 2008 had already crossed the Rubicon from quirky, artsy music city to soulless traffic death trap way before that.

Of course, Austin has something Nashville doesnt....a multi billion dollar tech sector. Austin had a fallback industry after went from "it" city to just another huge American city. I'm not sure Nashville has something comparable.....at least on the same level as what Austin already had. And that is how bubbles are made.

You may not agree with the timing, but it seems like there are some parallels and similarities between the booms in the two cities.

(04-03-2018 06:51 PM)AlonsoWDC Wrote:  Yeah, the white angle is fair play here.

Why?

Heaven forbid a bunch of people move and live there with money and make it a nice city.


Like getting mad at the way South Main has grown. Nice condos, apartments, restaurants.

I remember a little over 20 years ago there was Wolf's corner, E&H, and nothing else but a bunch of sh!thole buildings.

Should have just let it stay that way. Same for Cooper Young.

(04-03-2018 02:19 PM)aTxTIGER Wrote:  

(04-03-2018 02:15 PM)salukiblue Wrote:  The article makes it sound like it's a crime to be white.

"The bride’s, of course, is white."
"Even without the matching clothing, you can spot a likely bachelorette party from 100 yards away: a group of (almost entirely) white women.."
"Nashville — or whatever city they’re visiting — becomes their playground. And in the case of the bachelorette parties, they get away with it (and have entire industries cater to them) in large part because they are white, and because they have money. "
"An upscale restaurant moved in, as did a bike shop, an anarchist bookstore, and a thrift shop named Katy K Designs and Ranch Dressing. In other words, Stuff White People Liked. "
"That change, of course, has already happened: the core of Nashville is increasingly white, increasingly rich, increasingly polished."
"But watching the bachelorettes of Nashville against the backdrop of citywide gentrification reminded me of how mindlessly I did all of it. Friction, resistance of any kind — whiteness, youth, and money removed it all."

Well, a good chunk of the article is about how rich, white kids are moving into formerly black neighborhoods and whitewashing them. So, yea, they are going to mention stuff about white folks.

And I guess the author didn't care to realize that Nashville, in 1970, was 80% white. It was 74% in 1990 and now less than 60%. While black populations have risen from 19% to 27%.

So over the time of Nashville's growth, it has actually become "less white."

(04-04-2018 08:58 AM)salukiblue Wrote:  

(04-03-2018 06:51 PM)AlonsoWDC Wrote:  Yeah, the white angle is fair play here.

Why?

Heaven forbid a bunch of people move and live there with money and make it a nice city.


Like getting mad at the way South Main has grown. Nice condos, apartments, restaurants.

I remember a little over 20 years ago there was Wolf's corner, E&H, and nothing else but a bunch of sh!thole buildings.

Should have just let it stay that way. Same for Cooper Young.

It's much easier for the politicians to stay in office if they keep promising the people in poverty that things will get better, but in most cases it doesn't. That plan sure helped the Fords and Cohen on Election Day.

Those large tractors that pull the trailers full of drunken bachelorettes up and down the main drag, Broadway, are embarrassingly bad. For years now Nashville has been trying to shed the country music image. This doesn't help.
Hee Haw salutes Nashville Tennessee. SA-LUTE!

(04-04-2018 11:05 AM)UofMark Wrote:  Those large tractors that pull the trailers full of drunken bachelorettes up and down the main drag, Broadway, are embarrassingly bad. For years now Nashville has been trying to shed the country music image. This doesn't help.
Hee Haw salutes Nashville Tennessee. SA-LUTE!

What?

Nashville helped on a $100 million EXPANSION of the Country Music Hall of Fame.

CMA fanfest is held there every year.

The Hockey team trots out every famous county singing Nashvillian out to sing the national anthem.

There is a TV show called "Nashville" about aspiring country artists.

(04-03-2018 09:25 PM)3601 Wrote:  

(04-03-2018 02:16 PM)aTxTIGER Wrote:  Its funny that some idiot said Nashville today is what Austin was 10 years ago. As a long time former Austin resident, I can safely say that Austinites will tell you that Austin 2008 had already crossed the Rubicon from quirky, artsy music city to soulless traffic death trap way before that.

Of course, Austin has something Nashville doesnt....a multi billion dollar tech sector. Austin had a fallback industry after went from "it" city to just another huge American city. I'm not sure Nashville has something comparable.....at least on the same level as what Austin already had. And that is how bubbles are made.

You may not agree with the timing, but it seems like there are some parallels and similarities between the booms in the two cities.

Disagree. Austin's boom coincided with the explosion of the tech sector in the area. Dell specifically but also IBM, National Instruments, AMD, SBC/AT&T, and Freescale/Motorola, etc setting up shop in the first wave of tech in Austin in the 90s and early 2000s that kept those UT grads in the city and brought tech workers from California and Colorado.

Basically, it grew industry and then became the It city. Not the other way around.

While Nashville has had money move into the market nothing in the same realm as the tech industry foundation Austin had. The closest would be healthcare.

(04-04-2018 11:48 AM)salukiblue Wrote:  

(04-04-2018 11:05 AM)UofMark Wrote:  Those large tractors that pull the trailers full of drunken bachelorettes up and down the main drag, Broadway, are embarrassingly bad. For years now Nashville has been trying to shed the country music image. This doesn't help.
Hee Haw salutes Nashville Tennessee. SA-LUTE!

What?

Nashville helped on a $100 million EXPANSION of the Country Music Hall of Fame.

CMA fanfest is held there every year.

The Hockey team trots out every famous county singing Nashvillian out to sing the national anthem.

There is a TV show called "Nashville" about aspiring country artists.

The Hee Haw, old school, banjo pickin', tractor ridin', Conway Twitty, George Jones aspect of non cool country music.

(04-04-2018 11:05 AM)UofMark Wrote:  Those large tractors that pull the trailers full of drunken bachelorettes up and down the main drag, Broadway, are embarrassingly bad. For years now Nashville has been trying to shed the country music image. This doesn't help.
Hee Haw salutes Nashville Tennessee. SA-LUTE!

The author of that article said that most of those bachelorettes come from the east coast and the midwest, not so much the south, and they seem more enamored of the country stuff than southerners. Probably seems more exotic to them than their hometowns in New Jersey. To some young southerners going to Nashville on vacation might seem more like something their parents would do.

(04-04-2018 08:58 AM)salukiblue Wrote:  

(04-03-2018 06:51 PM)AlonsoWDC Wrote:  Yeah, the white angle is fair play here.

Why?

Heaven forbid a bunch of people move and live there with money and make it a nice city.


Like getting mad at the way South Main has grown. Nice condos, apartments, restaurants.

I remember a little over 20 years ago there was Wolf's corner, E&H, and nothing else but a bunch of sh!thole buildings.

Should have just let it stay that way. Same for Cooper Young.

Sure. But it has consequences.

But being white is a crime? Lol.

(04-04-2018 02:21 PM)AlonsoWDC Wrote:  

(04-04-2018 08:58 AM)salukiblue Wrote:  

(04-03-2018 06:51 PM)AlonsoWDC Wrote:  Yeah, the white angle is fair play here.

Why?

Heaven forbid a bunch of people move and live there with money and make it a nice city.


Like getting mad at the way South Main has grown. Nice condos, apartments, restaurants.

I remember a little over 20 years ago there was Wolf's corner, E&H, and nothing else but a bunch of sh!thole buildings.

Should have just let it stay that way. Same for Cooper Young.

Sure. But it has consequences.

But being white is a crime? Lol.

Obviously hyperbole on my part, but the author laments the situation and consistently mentions the fact the "whites" or "whiteness" is the driving force behind what she perceives as an unfortunate change in the city's essence.

Again--even though Nashville is becoming less white by a substantial margin.

(04-03-2018 08:50 PM)karter25 Wrote:  Nashville needs Jesse Jackson to come to town and lead a boycott of something. That way he can extort money from someone new. His old victims are running dry. Hopefully Kroger won't cave to his threats.

I heard about this earlier today. As luck would have it, I am picking up a Click List order on the way home this afternoon. I'll shop anywhere that JJ is boycotting.