I’ve noticed a kind of Devil’s Bargain people in Nashville expect poor people to accept — you can have what you need to live if you’re willing to eat a little shit. So, like in the case of the workforce housing Cloud Hill promises, here’s this cool idea full of lots of neat amenities, but, if we want it — even though there’s a giant parking lot right across the street with no historical value — we have to accept losing half a park.
Now there’s this story about activists already protesting the mayor’s plan to put light rail on Gallatin Road. WPLN's Julieta Martinelli reports:
Lauren Plummer walked down Gallatin Pike for three miles headed towards city hall, speaking to anyone who would listen about the project."It’s our taxes that are going to fund it. We are getting the word out that it shouldn’t displace any people or businesses in the area," Plummer told a local gas station owner. "Have you heard about it?"
Plummer is a member of Homes For All Nashville, a housing and tenants rights organization, and worries that the electric rail will attract big development, eventually pricing local residents out of the area.
First off, people are already being priced out of East Nashville. That horse is out of the barn, across the field, into a neighboring barn and out of that new barn. That horse is over the horizon. We can’t see that horse any more.
But second, it seems like the strategy is “let’s keep traffic terrible — which we poor people have learned to tolerate and work around — so that we won’t have to leave this neighborhood.” In other words, we’re going to advocate for leaving this giant pile of shit here, so that it repels rich people.
I deeply sympathize with that position, but clearly, there is no level of badness a neighborhood in Nashville can have anymore that will repel developers. Thanks to racist transportation policies, North Nashville is cut in pieces by the interstates. There’s only one non-interstate bridge that takes you directly into Bordeaux. Those areas could not be more inconvenient to get in and out of.
Five years ago, if a white person wanted to eat at Swett’s, they turned north off Charlotte and drove in big circles until they stumbled across it. No white person could drive directly to Swett’s. I don’t know why. I just know it’s true.
Now, a white guy is developing the area kittycorner from Swett’s and calling the neighborhood “White People Can Live Here Now!” Oh, no, I’m sorry. “City Heights.” You can pay a half a million dollars to live off Trinity Lane in Bordeaux. In a duplex. A half a million dollars to share a wall!
White people in Nashville spent the last 250 years warning each other about how dangerous “those” neighborhoods were and how white people should never go there. And now is there a neighborhood developers shy away from? No.
I don’t know how to help keep people in their homes in their neighborhoods. But I don’t think thwarting transportation improvements is going to do it.
