This thread is my third installment of crazy infill in Nashville.  These photos were taken in November, 2018. 

 

The earlier threads from September 2018 are located here and here:

https://forum.urbanohio.com/topic/15866-nashville-gentrification-madness-1/

https://forum.urbanohio.com/topic/15867-nashville-gentrification-madness-2/

 

Nashville is so cute:

 

Adorbs:

 

Punctuate with one of those cat emojis:

 

Here they come, the $400k particle board row houses on random pieces of land:

 

$400k to live here next to a light-up billboard and the interstate:

 

Legs for days:

 

Pay $400k to look at the interstate, but it's 10 minutes to get to an on-ramp:

 

 

 

 

This is what passes for "architecture" in Nashville:

 

The "Frank Lloyd Wright" house -- completely fake, like the rest of the city:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

New houses jammed sideways on the hillside behind others:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I-40 just west of White Bridge Rd.:

 

 

 

 

OBVIOUSLY WAY BETTER THAN OHIO:

 

...I just...can't...

It's like an entire city designed by architects who'd never even seen a house before.

but ... why? do that many people really like country music?

6 hours ago, mrnyc said:

but ... why? do that many people really like country music?

It's amazingly popular abroad, especially in Asia.

6 hours ago, mrnyc said:

but ... why? do that many people really like country music?

The Black Keys forsook Akron for this. So did Jack White. It's funny, they could have moved anywhere....

About five years ago I heard someone say something pretty sharp -- he said that when he grew up in North Carolina in the 1960s that Southerns liked to pretend that they were "urban", even though they weren't.  Now that The South doesn't farm anymore and has turned into at-best a generic suburb and at worst a drugged-out trailer park, they like to pretend that they're still "country". 

 

Oddly the Southerns have seduced northerners into pretending that they're also "country".  It's as absurd as if Polka was huge and all of the Scots-Irish Southerns pretended they were Polish. 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited December 25, 20186 yr by jmecklenborg

Answering the questions brought up by Shel Silverstein. In Nashville this trash can is Where the Sidewalk Ends. Maybe Oscar the grouch has a Nashville summer home?

 

Tennessee should give serious thought to making like Brazil or Kazakhstan (or the USA, long ago) and start to build itself a new capital city.  

 

 

On 12/25/2018 at 3:40 PM, SleepyLeroy said:

Answering the questions brought up by Shel Silverstein. In Nashville this trash can is Where the Sidewalk Ends. Maybe Oscar the grouch has a Nashville summer home?

 

 

That house- that one house- is making a play for walkable urbanism.  I bet the neighbors are pissed!

Maybe they are requiring sidewalks in these gentrifying neighborhoods but only along with new house construction.  I don't know if the city plans to visit the issue in 10 years and finish the sidewalks or not. 

11 hours ago, X said:

 

 

 

That house- that one house- is making a play for walkable urbanism.  I bet the neighbors are pissed!

The sidewalk seems so out of place because it is abutting a drainage ditch and rural-looking road with no curbs or storm sewers. Most of these pics look like new construction in some rural outpost town, except there is a freeway sometimes and the occasional skyline in the distance. You would not think you are in a large and fast growing city. The new houses are often not very attractive looking either.

It's like they're zoning for ugly.  Makes me appreciate local styles more.  Ours are almost the same but without that one extra mistake.

I stopped in Nashville on my way to New Orleans this week, and holy crap is it ugly. Some of those $400k townhomes are literally in the middle of trailer parks. I... don’t understand it at all. 

Three or four times this last year I’ve had work colleagues, who live in places like Chesterland, Hudson and Perry, tell me how ‘amazing’ Nashville is. When I tell them I don’t see the appeal and push them to be a little more specific, no-one can come up with anything other than ‘the bars’ and ‘the music’. When I ask them how ithose things are better than in any other city, Cleveland or even Columbus, they’ll then talk about the ‘great weather’, usually followed by an admission that they actually haven’t been to downtown Cleveland since the days of Municipal Stadium. 

The impression I get that is that Nashville’s appeal lies in the fact that it sits at a comfortable intersection of somewhere that is perceived as big city, without being too big and ‘safe’ in somuchas country music is seen as wholesome and attracts the ‘right’ sort of crowd. 

That's one thing I don't get about Nashville.  Its crime is just as bad or worse than Cleveland's.  This is a metro area smaller than Cleveland (let alone the Cleveland-Akron-Canton CSA) and a city that had 170k people before the city county merger (and almost certainly still less people in the original city boundaries than Cleveland), and it had over 100 murders last year.  Somehow, they have completely whitewashed their image in spite of this, though.  The Wikipedia page on Nashville doesn't even contain the word "crime", whereas Cleveland's page has an entire section devoted to it.

Southerners are 100X better at sweeping stuff under the rug

You see that with a lot of “trendy” cities. I think a lot of it depends on how well-hidden the rough neighborhoods are from the “well-to-do” folks. Until recently Cleveland had a general malaise laying over most of the city that made its rough shape harder to ignore. But then you have places like New Orleans which are as crime-ridden and run-down as most of eastern Cleveland, but the Garden District and French Quarter helps whitewash it’s image. 

9 hours ago, GCrites80s said:

Southerners are 100X better at sweeping stuff under the rug

 

And they don't hesitate to stab you in the back.  

 

 

Edited December 28, 20186 yr by jmecklenborg

On 12/25/2018 at 3:40 PM, SleepyLeroy said:

Answering the questions brought up by Shel Silverstein. In Nashville this trash can is Where the Sidewalk Ends. Maybe Oscar the grouch has a Nashville summer home?

 

I like this sidewalk better - not only is it just a single plot wide, but what looks like a relatively new utility pole and guy-wire are directly in the path of future expansion should it ever occur. And in the other direction, a giant brick mailbox lies in the way:

 

 

These sidewalk oddities are almost always due to zoning codes requiring sidewalks for new construction in a place where most of the construction long predates the zoning code requirements. There are often no plans to complete the sidewalks on existing property, so you might end up having years, decades, or even eternity with random chunks of piecemeal sidewalks.

As ugly as it is, its interesting how dense this new development is - poorly planned yes, but weirdly makes the area gain more of an urban form long term.   In short its still ugly but its better than the shit that preexists the new stuff.

 

In a sense its better than Cincinnati where 90% of all infill is complete shit in the shadow of top tier old architecture...  though you know Cincinnati could remedy itself by preserving more stuff...

2 hours ago, neilworms said:

As ugly as it is, its interesting how dense this new development is - poorly planned yes, but weirdly makes the area gain more of an urban form long term.   In short its still ugly but its better than the shit that preexists the new stuff.

 

In a sense its better than Cincinnati where 90% of all infill is complete shit in the shadow of top tier old architecture...  though you know Cincinnati could remedy itself by preserving more stuff...

Cincinnati may be getting less than ideal infill, but at least it is in an urban setting with existing urban form and infrastructure. This is sort of unattractive urban infill in what seem like old suburban or "old poorer Southern" neighborhoods that have the built environment of semi-rural areas(no sidewalks, curbs, storm sewers, narrow roads lined with ditches, etc.)  You get increasing density with the infill but that. is. it.  The juxtaposition of the new urban infill with the overall poorly built environment and infrastructure is jarring and not appealing to me. I just don't know how you develop an urban neighborhood with the "bare bones crappy roads cracking at the edges leading into dirt weeds and grass and then ditches" look that currently exists.

Edited December 30, 20186 yr by Toddguy

In case anyone is wondering where, specifically, this neighborhood is, here is a link.  You can see the pedestrian bridge over I-40, and the area shown in these photographs is the neighborhood just north of the bridge:

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Nashville,+TN/@36.1538719,-86.8661235,814m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x8864ec3213eb903d:0x7d3fb9d0a1e9daa0!8m2!3d36.1626638!4d-86.7816016

 

On 12/27/2018 at 11:52 AM, GCrites80s said:

Southerners are 100X better at sweeping stuff under the rug

Check out a post of this by this OP on Skyscraperpage city discussions. The Southerners are out in force in defense mode.

Check out these new homes that technically have a front entrance but do not have any path connecting their front door to the street. And of course there is not even a sidewalk on the street. Most people will be entering from the "garage" on the back of the house, which is a glorified carport with a garage door.

1 hour ago, Toddguy said:

Check out a post of this by this OP on Skyscraperpage city discussions. The Southerners are out in force in defense mode.

 

Wow, already more comments there in 6 hours than here in a week. 

 

5 minutes ago, taestell said:

Check out these new homes that technically have a front entrance but do not have any path connecting their front door to the street. And of course there is not even a sidewalk on the street. Most people will be entering from the "garage" on the back of the house, which is a glorified carport with a garage door.

 

Wow, that is truly crazy. 

 

Overall we're seeing only a *slight* increase in density in these areas.  The narrowness of nearly all of the new homes gives the impression of a northern "prewar" density but it won't even have that because the lots are typically so deep.  Those homes are built on 150-ft deep lots, something that hardly exists in the prewar north. 

 

In Cincinnati, most of the basin was platted with 70ft to 100ft deep lots (for example, my house is situated on a 25x90 lot) and then the hilltop neighborhoods were platted with 100-125ft lots.  The drop in density between an area with 100-foot versus 150-foot lots is profound.  So there really isn't any hope for improving real walking and biking in these hopelessly not-dense neighborhoods. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

31 minutes ago, taestell said:

Check out these new homes that technically have a front entrance but do not have any path connecting their front door to the street. And of course there is not even a sidewalk on the street. Most people will be entering from the "garage" on the back of the house, which is a glorified carport with a garage door.

 

That's the weirdest thing I've seen.  Seriously, have the people who design and build these homes seen houses before, or is this some sort of alien invasion by real estate?

This shows that you can really get away with a lot as long as whatever you're selling is new.

On 1/2/2019 at 12:47 PM, jmecklenborg said:

 

Wow, already more comments there in 6 hours than here in a week. 

 

 

Wow, that is truly crazy. 

 

Overall we're seeing only a *slight* increase in density in these areas.  The narrowness of nearly all of the new homes gives the impression of a northern "prewar" density but it won't even have that because the lots are typically so deep.  Those homes are built on 150-ft deep lots, something that hardly exists in the prewar north. 

 

In Cincinnati, most of the basin was platted with 70ft to 100ft deep lots (for example, my house is situated on a 25x90 lot) and then the hilltop neighborhoods were platted with 100-125ft lots.  The drop in density between an area with 100-foot versus 150-foot lots is profound.  So there really isn't any hope for improving real walking and biking in these hopelessly not-dense neighborhoods. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It has gotten way worse over there. I cannot believe the lengths some over there are going to in order to defend this (mainly)bad architecture plopped in the wrong type of neighborhood. Some of the new houses look ok really, but does it matter when there is no modern city infrastructure? I looked at Nashville and the lack of sidewalks outside the center city is astounding. And when they do exist they are not connected to anything but are scattered about in certain subdivisions. The sprawl there is only going to get worse because they are cut off to the northwest by the mountainous topography-the sprawl can only go south and east.  I think that even with Nashville being so huge in area, most of the new growth is already outside the city limits now spreading south and east.

 

Columbus is hardly ideal but it is not like that.

^It isn't "mountainous" but it is comprised of super-hard rock.  Those rocky hills make highway construction cost-prohibitive, which is why Nashville never got a real beltway.  There are some rumblings about reviving the I-840 plan across the north side of Nashville.  The project was last shelved in 2003. 

 

There is basically zero sign of second half of the 20th century in Cheatham County, which is only 10 miles or so west of the downtown.  I doubt almost anywhere in Cheatham County has sewers outside of the county seat, tiny Ashland City.  Incredibly, Cheatham County only has 40,000 residents, and has been completely untouched by the building boom occurring just 4-5 miles east. 

 

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Cheatham+County,+TN/@36.2278881,-87.0775208,11z/data=!4m5!3m4!1s0x88649e49ad0ff68b:0x6c093f37302297a3!8m2!3d36.184749!4d-87.1023746

 

 

14 hours ago, Toddguy said:

It has gotten way worse over there. I cannot believe the lengths some over there are going to in order to defend this (mainly)bad architecture plopped in the wrong type of neighborhood. Some of the new houses look ok really, but does it matter when there is no modern city infrastructure? I looked at Nashville and the lack of sidewalks outside the center city is astounding. And when they do exist they are not connected to anything but are scattered about in certain subdivisions. The sprawl there is only going to get worse because they are cut off to the northwest by the mountainous topography-the sprawl can only go south and east.  I think that even with Nashville being so huge in area, most of the new growth is already outside the city limits now spreading south and east.

 

Columbus is hardly ideal but it is not like that.

 

I can offer some insight into how strange things are in Nashville, as I go there 2-3 times a year and my aunt and uncle moved into a newly constructed house in the East Nashville Area. The area is in a very obvious phase of transition, as there are older established homes on many streets, with new construction happening up and down the streets also. Probably the strangest aspect for me is that the new homes are designed to look EXACTLY like the older existing homes in the area. The newer homes are clearly made of much cheaper material however, as there is already obvious wear on homes built less than 5 years ago. There are times you have to do a double-take however because it can be hard to tell if a home is new or existing at first glance. Upon closer inspection, it's often obvious. 

 

 

There are no sidewalks in their area, at least on the side streets surrounding their home, none. The main streets have fairly narrow sidewalks that begin and end abruptly. I would not feel comfortable traveling the area on foot during times of high traffic. There are bike lanes also kind of intermittently dropped onto side and main streets heading toward the downtown core. 

 

I spoke with two young couples who had moved from Austin my last time there. They were all musicians, go figure, who echoed that Austin had become "brutally unaffordable" and that they moved to Nashville for a better cost-of-living and for the hype of the music scene. They had moved a year and a half prior and noted that prices for apartments and everything else were on an uphill climb, due to lots of transplants from Louisville and other parts of Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana, and...lots of other creative types from Austin. 

 

There are parts of the city I love. It seems as though lots of the former charm is being hidden by some of the rapid changes occurring. 

 

 

Edited January 4, 20196 yr by NorthsiderWithaDog
missed word

Well the thread on this on skyscraperpage was closed because "it was an obvious attempt to troll the city of Nashville". SMDH.  Sweeping stuff under the rug indeed.

 

And by a mod from...  Austin. 

Edited January 7, 20196 yr by Toddguy

^I saw that.  It's okay to post threads about the ruins of Detroit and to speak disparagingly of the entire Industrial Midwest.  As an Ohioan, you are *expected* to accept all criticism and if you point out something positive about where you're from then they double-down on you and make a whole scene. 

 

I speak as a former Tennessean that people down there *CANNOT* take criticism.  If you say point-blank that Nashville is ugly, their faces melt like that last scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark. 

^There is no way to make some people from other parts of the country respond in breathless panic than to even suggest that there are positive aspects of the Midwest. They will trip over themselves pointing out all the things that it isn't, as if it were any surprise to anyone that there are no mountains there or as if literally everyone there is addicted to meth. I think the perceptions of the Midwest as a whole (and Ohio in particular) as being unlivably backwards and cultureless are so deeply ingrained in some that it is almost like getting red-pilled hearing that there are people who like living there, warts and all, and people will fight the realization accordingly. I've found this to be particularly true of the transplants from there I met living in NYC. For most it was deeply and personally important to feel that they had fled a wasteland rather than to accept that perhaps they made a personal choice that others wouldn't have made. 

 

Case in point (anecdotal, I know, but it is what I experienced. Take it for what it is): I had a 7-hour layover in JFK this weekend after an international flight and decided to meet up with my cousin who still lives in Brooklyn (we grew up together in Dayton, Centerville to be exact). He and I met up at a cool beer spot, the kind you've seen a million of pop up everywhere ('backwards' Ohio, included) and were having a good time. Got into a chat with the bartender who asked me how I knew so much about the city and I told him I was a former New Yorker. The guys response: "I can't wait to be a former New Yorker. I'm sick of this place." My cousin damn near hit the floor. He personally identifies with his decision to move there and so any time someone doesn't like it he fights it, HARD. Now, people are like that everywhere, but to jmecklenborg's point, if you're in or from Ohio, you're not expected to fight the idea that it is a shitty place whereas you're supposed to duel to the death if you're living in a place that is hot and has name recognition. Try criticizing Denver or saying that you thought it was ok but not worth the price. Same with Nashville, Austin, etc. Ohio? You're an idiot rube for liking it there. 

 

No suggestion in mind, what was said just resonated with me and I felt like I should add the above. Just to keep it Nashville-related so this post doesn't get mod-ed, people in Nashville can't take any criticism of their city that is basically Anywheresville, USA outside of a handful of places downtown and on campus at Vandy because a lot of people are moving there so that they can belong to something, one of those "movements" everyone seems to be dying to join lately. If you criticize it, you are a heretic and must be dealt with accordingly. Ohio is not like that, for better of for worse. 

Edited January 7, 20196 yr by GrassIsGreener
Clarity/word choice

On 1/2/2019 at 12:47 PM, jmecklenborg said:

 

Wow, already more comments there in 6 hours than here in a week. 

 

 

Wow, that is truly crazy. 

 

Overall we're seeing only a *slight* increase in density in these areas.  The narrowness of nearly all of the new homes gives the impression of a northern "prewar" density but it won't even have that because the lots are typically so deep.  Those homes are built on 150-ft deep lots, something that hardly exists in the prewar north. 

 

In Cincinnati, most of the basin was platted with 70ft to 100ft deep lots (for example, my house is situated on a 25x90 lot) and then the hilltop neighborhoods were platted with 100-125ft lots.  The drop in density between an area with 100-foot versus 150-foot lots is profound.  So there really isn't any hope for improving real walking and biking in these hopelessly not-dense neighborhoods. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

8 hours ago, Toddguy said:

Well the thread on this on skyscraperpage was closed because "it was an obvious attempt to troll the city of Nashville". SMDH.  Sweeping stuff under the rug indeed.

 

And by a mod from...  Austin. 

 

Sometimes it's better to burn out than to fade away!

22 hours ago, GrassIsGreener said:

^There is no way to make some people from other parts of the country respond in breathless panic than to even suggest that there are positive aspects of the Midwest. They will trip over themselves pointing out all the things that it isn't, as if it were any surprise to anyone that there are no mountains there or as if literally everyone there is addicted to meth. I think the perceptions of the Midwest as a whole (and Ohio in particular) as being unlivably backwards and cultureless are so deeply ingrained in some that it is almost like getting red-pilled hearing that there are people who like living there, warts and all, and people will fight the realization accordingly. I've found this to be particularly true of the transplants from there I met living in NYC. For most it was deeply and personally important to feel that they had fled a wasteland rather than to accept that perhaps they made a personal choice that others wouldn't have made. 

 

Case in point (anecdotal, I know, but it is what I experienced. Take it for what it is): I had a 7-hour layover in JFK this weekend after an international flight and decided to meet up with my cousin who still lives in Brooklyn (we grew up together in Dayton, Centerville to be exact). He and I met up at a cool beer spot, the kind you've seen a million of pop up everywhere ('backwards' Ohio, included) and were having a good time. Got into a chat with the bartender who asked me how I knew so much about the city and I told him I was a former New Yorker. The guys response: "I can't wait to be a former New Yorker. I'm sick of this place." My cousin damn near hit the floor. He personally identifies with his decision to move there and so any time someone doesn't like it he fights it, HARD. Now, people are like that everywhere, but to jmecklenborg's point, if you're in or from Ohio, you're not expected to fight the idea that it is a shitty place whereas you're supposed to duel to the death if you're living in a place that is hot and has name recognition. Try criticizing Denver or saying that you thought it was ok but not worth the price. Same with Nashville, Austin, etc. Ohio? You're an idiot rube for liking it there. 

 

No suggestion in mind, what was said just resonated with me and I felt like I should add the above. Just to keep it Nashville-related so this post doesn't get mod-ed, people in Nashville can't take any criticism of their city that is basically Anywheresville, USA outside of a handful of places downtown and on campus at Vandy because a lot of people are moving there so that they can belong to something, one of those "movements" everyone seems to be dying to join lately. If you criticize it, you are a heretic and must be dealt with accordingly. Ohio is not like that, for better of for worse. 

 

I experience this type of situation all the time in California. People seem to love talking shit about the Midwest, even if it's clear they have never been, or have no idea what they're talking about. Transplants are indeed some of the worst offenders. There is a woman I work with who is originally from Ohio, and when she was introducing herself (to the whole department) she said "I'm from Ohio, which is an alright place to grow up, but a TERRIBLE place to live now...wouldn't ever go back!". Of course everyone laughed, and my coworkers who knew I'm from Ohio all looked at me to see my expression I guess. I think it's a bad look to talk shit about the place you're from. Almost like the mentality of 'keep family stuff in the family' I guess. I'll complain and bitch about parts of Ohio to other people from there, but to outsiders I try to be pretty complementary or at least silent, because there's no need to pile on or reinforce this phony national narrative. The one good thing about LA, though, is that loads of people here also talk about how shitty it is, which I guess is pretty different than what happens in the Nashville/Austin/Denvers of the world. Locals and transplants alike often remark on the traffic, how much of the city is ugly, the air quality, the homeless- really anything. It's kind of endearing, I think. Like yeah much of it's shitty, but there's also a fair amount of cool stuff and the weather is usually pretty great, so...eh, it's an alright place to live. I wouldn't be able to take incessant cheerleading or boosterism from the city I live in.

New York seems to have a similar attitude in that regard, I think. 30 Rock spoofed it a couple of times (notably and ironically in the episode where Liz contemplates moving to Cleveland), where characters will go on a monologue about how greate NYC is only to be pushed into a giant pile of trash bags next to the curb. When you're confident enough in your city, you can own the shitty parts instead of being embarassed by them or trying to "booster bro" them away. After all, what is LA without the traffic or NYC without Pizza Rat? 

5 minutes ago, edale said:

 

I experience this type of situation all the time in California. People seem to love talking shit about the Midwest, even if it's clear they have never been, or have no idea what they're talking about. Transplants are indeed some of the worst offenders. There is a woman I work with who is originally from Ohio, and when she was introducing herself (to the whole department) she said "I'm from Ohio, which is an alright place to grow up, but a TERRIBLE place to live now...wouldn't ever go back!". Of course everyone laughed, and my coworkers who knew I'm from Ohio all looked at me to see my expression I guess. I think it's a bad look to talk shit about the place you're from. Almost like the mentality of 'keep family stuff in the family' I guess. I'll complain and bitch about parts of Ohio to other people from there, but to outsiders I try to be pretty complementary or at least silent, because there's no need to pile on or reinforce this phony national narrative. The one good thing about LA, though, is that loads of people here also talk about how shitty it is, which I guess is pretty different than what happens in the Nashville/Austin/Denvers of the world. Locals and transplants alike often remark on the traffic, how much of the city is ugly, the air quality, the homeless- really anything. It's kind of endearing, I think. Like yeah much of it's shitty, but there's also a fair amount of cool stuff and the weather is usually pretty great, so...eh, it's an alright place to live. I wouldn't be able to take incessant cheerleading or boosterism from the city I live in.

 

Agree, it is a bad look, and to me seems childish, because even if you felt that way you could always just, you know, not talk about it since you don't live there anymore. It feels like someone going on and on about how over their ex they are; if you have to keep telling yourself that, maybe it isn't others that need the convincing. 

 

I think transplants do that because of a desperate need to feel a part of where they are and it's a pledge of allegiance, in a way. Other people are just small-minded and think that being from a big name city absolves them of that. I showed a coworker in NYC pictures of Sleeping Bear Dunes and purposely didn't tell her where they were. She was talking about how crazy pretty it was until I mentioned it was in MI, then all of a sudden it wasn't as cool anymore. Later that month she moved to Denver. Some people just really are afraid to live outside the lines/off-message for their age group and it's just as true in "elite" locations as it is in deep rural areas. 

3 minutes ago, BigDipper 80 said:

After all, what is LA without the traffic or NYC without Pizza Rat? 

 

Or Ohio without the "I need to speak to the Manager!" haircut. 

 

Edited January 8, 20196 yr by GrassIsGreener
Spacing

18 minutes ago, GrassIsGreener said:

 I showed a coworker in NYC pictures of Sleeping Bear Dunes and purposely didn't tell her where they were. She was talking about how crazy pretty it was until I mentioned it was in MI, then all of a sudden it wasn't as cool anymore.

 

Yep.  And the exact opposite is the case with Nashville. 

 

In 2015 I drove down there to see The Rolling Stones with a bunch of people I used to be friends with there.  I went to dinner ahead of the show with my parents and some other people at a place called The Pharmacy (I think - yeah, here it is: http://thepharmacynashville.com/) and the condescending hipster waiter assumed that we were tourists.  He said something to my dad like "...well you are in East Nashville" and my dad rolled his eyes at him .

 

So there you have it, the recent hipster transplant to Nashville -- er EAST Nashville -- is so much cooler than the longtime transplants who he mistook for tourists. 

 

There was absolutely nothing special about this restaurant, either, except they managed to hire fragile-ego hipsters who accrued cultural capital in their own little bubble from working there. 

 

 

 

  

6 minutes ago, jmecklenborg said:

[...] fragile-ego hipsters who accrued cultural capital in their own little bubble [...]

 

Thank you for the succinct way of phrasing what I took more words to express. A lot of the sensitivity comes from needing to prove something to all those people in their heads that they needed to be better than. Fighting over the bottom rung with stuff that doesn't matter. 

7 hours ago, GrassIsGreener said:

 

Or Ohio without the "I need to speak to the Manager!" haircut. 

 

 

 

Haha, Ashville is the epicenter of that haircut.

Quote

I think transplants do that because of a desperate need to feel a part of where they are and it's a pledge of allegiance, in a way. Other people are just small-minded and think that being from a big name city absolves them of that. I showed a coworker in NYC pictures of Sleeping Bear Dunes and purposely didn't tell her where they were. She was talking about how crazy pretty it was until I mentioned it was in MI, then all of a sudden it wasn't as cool anymore. Later that month she moved to Denver. Some people just really are afraid to live outside the lines/off-message for their age group and it's just as true in "elite" locations as it is in deep rural areas.

 

First off people from NYC are the absolute worst when it comes to being provincial about their place and viewing anywhere that isn't east or west coast as worthless.   Secondly I love trolling coastal people with photos of the sleeping bear dunes as it defies all expectations of the kind of lack of natural beauty people expect out of the midwest.

 

I'm a transplant to Chicago and I'll admit that yes Ohio is backwards in a lot of ways* and culture is harder to come by, but I wonder how much of that is due to the fact that media is so hyper concentrated in a handful of "cool cities" who tend to reinforce that idea creating a vicious cycle - perhaps if these regions who hog cultural capital wouldn't be so darn smug about their area being the only areas having value maybe it would help level the playing field a bit.

 

A favorite thing of mine to do is call New Yorkers out on a national urbanist facebook group about their BS and they are just oozing with it, its one of the ugliest forms of provincialism I've seen.

 

*A good example IMO is over thanksgiving I went to a suburban brewery in Cincy and saw people unironically enjoying a smashmouth cover band even to the point of singing along with it (the band was also unironically playing the song).  A week later a coworker of mine who lives in suburban Chicago said in an unrelated conversation "no one takes Smashmouth seriously anymore" and I started laughing and said, well I've got a story for you...  (of course there are more political examples I could give but I figured a cultural one would be a good illustration - like local radio stations in Cincinnati still play the same playlists they did back in the late 1990s, its insane - local radio up here isn't great but at least they've moved on and play different terrible or overplayed music though all radio is controlled by companies at the national level so ?).

Edited January 9, 20196 yr by neilworms

33 minutes ago, neilworms said:

*A good example IMO is over thanksgiving I went to a suburban brewery in Cincy and saw people unironically enjoying a smashmouth cover band even to the point of singing along with it (the band was also unironically playing the song).  A week later a coworker of mine who lives in suburban Chicago said in an unrelated conversation "no one takes Smashmouth seriously anymore" and I started laughing and said, well I've got a story for you...  (of course there are more political examples I could give but I figured a cultural one would be a good illustration - like local radio stations in Cincinnati still play the same playlists they did back in the late 1990s, its insane - local radio up here isn't great but at least they've moved on and play different terrible or overplayed music though all radio is controlled by companies at the national level so ?).

 

10 years past your prime, nobody takes you seriously anymore.  20 years past, you come back around as nostalgia.  Smashmouth is way past the first milestone and is creeping up on the second, which means your Chicago friend is behind the times.

I don't think it's that hard to find culture in Ohio.  The suburbs are definitely going to have less of it, but there's plenty in the larger cities.  I would say, however, that the suburbs of Cincinnati have a bit more of a "backwards" feel than those of Cleveland and Columbus.

 

However, using a single anecdote from an experience in the suburbs of each city hardly makes a pattern.

Go to the "honky tonks" on Broadway in Downtown Nashville -- you know, those authentic-looking bars that are owned by New York hedge funds -- and the bands are doomed to playing and replaying the same songs every night.  You're going to hear "Folsom Prison Blues", "I've Got Friends in Low Places", etc., being played by multiple bands simultaneously.  Like the exact same song going on at the same time on either side of a brick wall.

 

That's "culture"?  I suppose, in the same way that the pianist in the cruise ship piano bar is stuck having to play "piano man" 4-5 times per night. 

That whole thing will be screwed when mellenials and especially Gen Z are middle-aged and there's no shared culture other than like, Pokemon maybe.

12 minutes ago, GCrites80s said:

That whole thing will be screwed when mellenials and especially Gen Z are middle-aged and there's no shared culture other than like, Pokemon maybe.

 

Old School Nintendo games are shared culture for millennials.   Either super or regular depending on the age - everyone my age knows Mario.

36 minutes ago, jmecklenborg said:

Go to the "honky tonks" on Broadway in Downtown Nashville -- you know, those authentic-looking bars that are owned by New York hedge funds -- and the bands are doomed to playing and replaying the same songs every night.  You're going to hear "Folsom Prison Blues", "I've Got Friends in Low Places", etc., being played by multiple bands simultaneously.  Like the exact same song going on at the same time on either side of a brick wall.

 

That's "culture"?  I suppose, in the same way that the pianist in the cruise ship piano bar is stuck having to play "piano man" 4-5 times per night. 

 

 

Change the genre of music, and those kinds of stupid bars do exist in Chicago particularly in River North, though River North is pretty much tailor made for tourists or a certain kind of transplant who loves living a phony pretentious big city culture for like 2x the price of what you could get it for in other neighborhoods and 10x the bro-y-ness.  It frequently tops surveys of most hated neighborhood in Chicago by Chicagoans even beating Wrigleyville.

Edited January 9, 20196 yr by neilworms

I was reading the comments on a NY Times article about Amazon's HQ2, and I couldn't believe the vitriol being spewed by people against the "heartland". Really nasty stuff about the entire Midwest being third world, totally boring and ugly with no "action". It's as if the entirety of the Midwest is shitty regardless of the policies and lifestyles of the cities within the region, whereas being a coastal city exempts you from the backwards policies of, say, interior Washington or coal-country Pennsylvania. 

Edited January 9, 20196 yr by BigDipper 80