Monday, July 13, 2009
Around Town The Brooklynization of Nashville?
Posted by Tracy Moore on Mon, Jul 13, 2009 at 2:30 PM
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The New York Times ran a piece about a little "Hot Hood" in Nashville you might have heard of called the Gulch.
Author Jeffries Blackerby (no seriously, that's his name) cites a recent visit to our fair city, where restaurants in the area were packed with as much as an hour wait--I believe that's just like a real city. Lots of people are buying up those condos in the Icon, too.
Sure, with its chain restaurants it's small potatoes compared to Brooklynites moving to Philly, but that we've even devoted one block at all to New Urbanism is a sign of Progress. I guess.
At the moment there are 900 condos and a handful of shops and restaurants ranging from a burrito-and-margarita place to the serious foodie magnet Watermark. Within five or six blocks of most of the neighborhood are dozens of city bus lines and bike and pedestrian paths.But the idea of the so-called "Brooklynization" of cities--big-city folks splitting for mid-sized cities and boroughs looking for cheaper rent, and giving back cultural cues--that Blackerby tries to apply to us doesn't really stick. It's the sort of trend that typically includes interesting residential rehabs and culinary niches, not overpriced brand new construction and margarita-and-burrito places--not to mention chains . It embraces a vibrant arts and music scene rather than either ignoring it or merely hovering over it. What, no mention of the bluegrass mainstay Station Inn in the piece, one gen-u-wine cultural artifact only steps away? And finally, it usually has bus lines that at least sometimes run on time and are a reliable form of transportation. Come back in 10 years, sir.
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