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Why I like -- and dislike Nashville & Memphis (II)


william

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I'm in a mixed neighborhood. It's mixed with longtime elderly, new black/white/non-white and sort of white, sort of black professionals, blacks and whites blue collar, architects to designers to school teachers to the lady who rings up sales at the convenience store. Hispanics, Germans, Greeks, gays, straights...you name it, we've got it. I don't particularly like loud thumping music, but I remember mine used to be loud and thump also when I was younger. I do, however, have a problem with the offensive rap with the bad language permeating throughout the neighborhood. They make other places for that and fortunately we don't have much of that. I don't see anybody running away because of our healthy diversity, but I can tell you this. If we suddenly have "gangs, crime, crack, domestic violence, promiscuity, lazyness, illiteracy, ebonics, etc...."ghetto culture" if you will." Then we'll have a problem and believe me it won't be those of us who've built our neighborhood into what it is that'll be leaving. My neighborhood is experiencing increased property values, stability, and appeal...and yes we cross racial bounds all over. I pity the edge neighborhoods who don't have that positive growth and have to deal with such embarrassment.

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If you're talking about newer neighborhoods, I agree with you there about the "edge neighborhoods". White flight in Memphis has occured almost exclusively in newer neighborhoods that were built up as suburban enclaves in the past 30 or so years, sometimes even in the past 5 years.

Midtown Memphis is integrated racially, and there's never been white flight to speak of and of course property values are great (hint, hint, white suburbanites--stay put and values go up). Same with East Memphis, while mostly white, I can't imagine that area being susceptible to flight. It's just a 1940's, 1950's continuation of Midtown.

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If you're talking about newer neighborhoods, I  agree with you there about the "edge neighborhoods".  White flight in Memphis has occured almost exclusively in newer neighborhoods that were built up as suburban enclaves in the past 30 or so years, sometimes even in the past 5 years. 

Midtown Memphis is integrated racially, and there's never been white flight to speak of and of course property values are great (hint, hint, white suburbanites--stay put and values go up).  Same with East Memphis, while mostly white, I can't imagine that area being susceptible to flight.  It's just a 1940's, 1950's continuation of Midtown.

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Yeah, this is so true. I'm not old enough to know for sure, but from older people's account, I can see pretty much which neighborhoods were "in style."

1. Whitehaven

2. Frayser

3. Parkway Village/Fox Meadows

4.Raleigh

5. Hickory Hill

and now....

6. Cordova

Does anyone see a trend?

BTW Sleepy, in an earlier reply you stated that while Dillard's was leaving the Hickory Ridge Mall that Macy's was staying put. The same promise was made by Dillard's when Goldsmith's (Macy's) left the Raleigh Springs Mall. They left after all, and so did J.C. Penny's and virtually every other national major retailer.

Cdarr also made a comment about how freely tax incentives are given out in Memphis. Well, we just gave International Paper another $15 million on top of the other four PILOTs they already have from the city.

What is going on?

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Yeah, this is so true.  I'm not old enough to know for sure, but from older people's account, I can see pretty much which neighborhoods were "in style." 

1. Whitehaven

2. Frayser

3. Parkway Village/Fox Meadows

4.Raleigh

5. Hickory Hill

and now....

6. Cordova

Does anyone see a trend? 

BTW Sleepy, in an earlier reply you stated that while Dillard's was leaving the Hickory Ridge Mall that Macy's was staying put.  The same promise was made by Dillard's when Goldsmith's (Macy's) left the Raleigh Springs Mall.  They left after all, and so did J.C. Penny's and virtually every other national major retailer. 

Cdarr also made a comment about how freely tax incentives are given out in Memphis.  Well, we just gave International Paper another $15 million on top of the other four PILOTs they already have from the city.

What is going on?

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Yeah, I see a trend. Folks that move out to those new areas--again going back to 30 or so years ago--basically wanted to escape the city. I hate to say this, but that basically means escaping black people. And when the black middle class moves to the subdivisions to escape inner city crime and so on, the whites move out--Arlington, Lakeland, Olive Branch, you name it.

Odd too, because Memphis has a large black middle-class--teachers, lawyers, judges, doctors, businessmen, etc.

But again, those white people who move are folks who vote with their feet who don't like the city anyway, and in Midtown which has 100,000 people, and East Memphis which must have 200,000 people, white folks stay put.

So, it's not all whites who feel offended living next door to a black person.

Retail---I've got a theory: Black people in Memphis have plenty of dough to support a Macy's, Dillard's, whatever. And I think those stores know it. Imho, those stores are worried about their image. They don't want to be known nationally as some sort of black urban stores. There's really hip, niche, black stuff like FUBU, but a mid-level franchise like Macy's wants no part of that.

BTW--I grew up in East Memphis in the 60's, and Isaac Hayes lived in the next block. lol No one cared.

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Now I have a story of my own to tell. I've heard so much in this thread about how there is much racism in Memphis, yet, do not be fooled into thinking that it is just the white people who are the racist ones. I'm one of the younger ones in this group (17...GASP!!!!!) and attend Germantown High School. My school is in affluent Germantown, but it is in much controversy due to who should go there...a new high school is being built to the southeast to take over many of the Memphis students. Anyway, my school is 60% black...and it is the white people who are at the receiving end of racism. The black students will shove, hit, and jeer at the white students as we cross the campus. Am I saying that this is rampant? No, but it is the "bullying" seen at our school...racism to a black person has NEVER been an issue, yet I find it funny that the black people essentially spite the white people at my school. Furthermore, it's not just in the school system...I was riding with a friend through a neighborhood near the Memphis where we were going 3 miles over the speed limit while other cars (which were occupied by black drivers, I noticed) were going nearly 10-20 miles over the speed limit...we got stopped...ah yes...if that was not enough, the cop was civil until he suddenly gazed at my calendar with "GERMANTOWN" emblazoned across the cover...then he simply got nasty. I was expecting to go to jail after that treatment...Even in stores, if I go to a Walgreen's by the airport or near the Liberty Bowl for something before a flight or football game, I'm eyed suspiciously and even tailed by the all-black staff. See, I not only rationalize that white people view Memphis as a mass ghetto...I believe that they view it as a place where THEY are the brunt of racism.

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But how do you explain then when middle-income blacks move next door to middle-income whites in places like Hickory Hill or Cordova, and whites still leave?  Those black people "have similar dereams and aspirations as they do."  They left the innercity precisely for the same reasons that whites did.  They also wanted to escape "gangs, crime, crack, domestic violence, etc."

It then becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy:  the whites dump their property on the market, the area is saturated with unsold homes, which sit unsold for months, prices go down, vacant property turns into absentee landlords, section 8 housing, etc.  Five years later, whites drive by the old neighborhood and go "tsk, tsk, we were right to leave."

Of course, if they'd stayed, the neighborhood would have remained just fine.

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Sleepy, I don't disagree with any of your points. Certainly, race is part of it. It makes perfect sense to me that a black family moving into a $200,000 house in Cordova are not part of the ghetto culture. In most cases, I imagine, it's not the first few black families moving in that start the exodus. Maybe it starts when somebody sees 3 or 4 black teenagers wearing long shirts and baggy pants walking down the street (innocently, it turns out) and they think "Is that a gang?". Then they notice booming, window-rattling bass driving down the street a bit more often that they used to. Then a break-in occurs a block over. Rationally or not, they start to worry that the gangsta, hip-hop culture they fear is moving in on them and they can't stop it. A few houses go on the market at the same time, and now the neighborhood seems to have lost its momentum.

Many of those white flighters struggle with their decision more than you might think. They're attached to their homes. Their kids grew up there. They have neighbors they like. They probably even know it's wrong to automatically associate incoming blacks with inner city problems. But in the end, fear wins out and the easiest way to deal with it is escape. If the whole community thought collectively, maybe they would realize they're ruining their own neighborhood by bailing out, all at the same time. But rarely are such decisions made collectively.

There are non-racial factors that can't be discounted, however. One of them is ecomonic. The benefits of living in the city (convenience, shorter commutes, mature neighborhoods, trees, entertainment) are being grossly outweighed by the tax premium one pays to live in Memphis. People are doing the math and coming to the conclusion that it doesn't make financial sense to live here. That, in turn, decrease property values. That's why I say that maybe the city should use its PILOT program on the residential side to lure new residents into the city. How about this - 5 years property tax abatement for a homebuyer who is moving in from outside the city limits? This would change the mathematics significantly.

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Team Memphis hasn't been consistently losing. How many cities would love to be in the position we are in? And how many people would deny that we are in a much better position than we were in the moment the Chicks announced that they were moving? Since that point, the city has been on an overall growth and improvement slope. I don't think that should be overlooked or trivialized. The community as a whole is in a much better condition than it was a decade ago. There are still lingering problems, and some things have gotten worse. But Team Memphis isn't "losing."

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Now I have a story of my own to tell. I've heard so much in this thread about how there is much racism in Memphis, yet, do not be fooled into thinking that it is just the white people who are the racist ones. I'm one of the younger ones in this group (17...GASP!!!!!) and attend Germantown High School. My school is in affluent Germantown, but it is in much controversy due to who should go there...a new high school is being built to the southeast to take over many of the Memphis students. Anyway, my school is 60% black...and it is the white people who are at the receiving end of racism. The black students will shove, hit, and jeer at the white students as we cross the campus. Am I saying that this is rampant? No, but it is the "bullying" seen at our school...racism to a black person has NEVER been an issue, yet I find it funny that the black people essentially spite the white people at my school. Furthermore, it's not just in the school system...I was riding with a friend through a neighborhood near the Memphis where we were going 3 miles over the speed limit while other cars (which were occupied by black drivers, I noticed) were going nearly 10-20 miles over the speed limit...we got stopped...ah yes...if that was not enough, the cop was civil until he suddenly gazed at my calendar with "GERMANTOWN" emblazoned across the cover...then he simply got nasty. I was expecting to go to jail after that treatment...Even in stores, if I go to a Walgreen's by the airport or near the Liberty Bowl for something before a flight or football game, I'm eyed suspiciously and even tailed by the all-black staff. See, I not only rationalize that white people view Memphis as a mass ghetto...I believe that they view it as a place where THEY are the brunt of racism.

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northernbizzkit1--I think it is important in a situation like the one you mentioned above to not let some bad personal experiences sour you against people of other races, especially in a more subconcious way. Perhaps the best way to look at it is to see it as getting just a small taste of how minority races have been treated by whites in the past. It can be counterproductive for a society to take a "but look at what they did to me" attitude about race relations. Surely racism happens against all races at some point, but it takes a person of integrity to avoid letting it affect their own values.

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I bet color only plays a small part of this. You've got poor kids going to school with the rich kids...their clothes, cars, recreation, homes are totally out of reach for these poor students and they probably resent that. It's coincidental that the most of the rich kids are white. Let the black kids visit the era when this country had "Whites Only" bathrooms and drinking fountains .... then they can pretend they know how their grandparents felt. I don't buy the fact that they know how it felt for those folks back then.

But bizzkit's right ssj, try to be bigger than that. It takes real effort sometimes, but you have to realize, color aside, that mostly, our lives are infinately different than theirs. Black, white, or purple ... poverty breeds contempt. You''ll be a better person for trying. If they can't use their heads and snap out of it, then that's just sad.

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Got my names twisted, bizz, sorry. Should have said, ssj's right....etc.

It's got to be tough. Try to stay level about it. I can't really even speculate on what school is like nowadays. My school of 800 students (high school) only had 8 blacks. We were only 6 miles from downtown. It was novelty for us, but we seemed to all get along fine. It's tougher today I'm sure. I'll bow out of this part of this discussion. I just don't have any current experience with what goes on.

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northernbizzkit1--I think it is important in a situation like the one you mentioned above to not let some bad personal experiences sour you against people of other races, especially in a more subconcious way.  Perhaps the best way to look at it is to see it as getting just a small taste of how minority races have been treated by whites in the past.  It can be counterproductive for a society to take a "but look at what they did to me" attitude about race relations.  Surely racism happens against all races at some point, but it takes a person of integrity to avoid letting it affect their own values.

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I may have been misunderstood, for I was just trying to explain the racism in Memphis is simply not just white flight and opression of the black people, for it is the other way around in many cases here.

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One thing I dislike are perspectives implying that a 55-story building makes a great city. Or that any tower, in and of itself, makes a great city. Or that the presence or absence of such a building can define comparisons of the worth of cities. Or that Charlotte or Atlanta are obvious and ubiquitous benchmarks for great cities.

I mean, having a Fortune 100 company such as, say International Paper, select a city to relocate its global headquarters is also a great thing as well; perhaps as great as a 55-story building. But that, alone, doesn't make a great city either.

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One thing I dislike are perspectives implying that a 55-story building makes a great city.  Or that any tower, in and of itself, makes a great city.  Or that the presence or absence of such a building can define comparisons of the worth of cities.  Or that Charlotte or Atlanta are obvious and ubiquitous benchmarks for great cities.

I mean, having a Fortune 100 company such as, say International Paper, select a city to relocate its global headquarters is also a great thing as well; perhaps as great as a 55-story building.  But that, alone, doesn't make a great city either.

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Great point Clobber. That Fourtune 100 company may contribute to a 40-60 story tower at some point in the future.

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Clobber, I don't think anybody meant that one building is a benchmark of a city's greatness. Nashville and Memphis are both great cities in their own right. Memphis is embracing its heritage and returning existing structures to old glory and new uses perhaps better than most others. You know all of us here would LOVE to have some structures like Memphis has. We never will, actually never did. We weren't a big city when Memphis built those grand buildings. We have some good ones, but we were much smaller. Now, Nashville is basking in a light of a different type. Sure, we get the national and international press, we get great numbers in many "lists".. but the bottom line is, we are a great place. We are growing into a shining, slick, fast-paced metro. That's not going to stop, it's only going to get better, slicker and shinier. None of here can take much credit for that, or be blamed for that. We are different in so many ways. Memphis doesn't have to be bottom dwellers in the pool of self-esteem. Remember, we are the people who appreciate your city. This isn't another forum where we feel we constantly have to compare our "things" with your "things." Right now, we're all excited about this beautiful new structure. What dp said about our tower was not to put Memphis down. It's just where we are right now and where you might be later. The way things are going there makes me think it's only a matter of time. But let us bask for a while. This is truly worth a little pride, don't deny us that.

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Some of you may know how much I love Nashville. So having said that, I have to say that so much about Memphis is authentic. What I mean is that the buildings are truly old (not built to look old). Yes, I know that Nash has plenty of them, but it has (unfortunately) seen some of the same destroy/rebuild mentality that has ravaged my hometown (ATL) and Charlotte. Memphis on the other hand, still has much of its original character, and fortunately it's now doing something about it.

So the downtown doesn't have as many talls, but it also doesn't have that gap-toothed appearance created by talls next to surface lots. Plus, it has many attractive pocket parks. So, it has an almost (if you squint) old world, Savannah quality about it. In this regard, I believe MEM has a lot of potential that the other (so-called standard bearers) big cities don't have.

So of these two cities, I have only lived in NASH (88-92), but I go there often (and some grandparents lived there), I'll just give one like/dislike for that city.

Like: Entrepreneurial spirit unmatched by anywhere else in the south

Dislike: Doesn't use its riverfront enough

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Fortunately, Nashville has the state capitol. (IMHO) It is one of the most beautiful statehouses in the country. On that note, I always thought that the unwritten height limits were in deference to the capitol. Oh well, I guess I was wrong about that. Plus, if the rules can be bent in Philadelphia for Billy Penn, then I guess it's possible anywhere.

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Nashville is Nashville, Memphis is Memphis. Both are great cities. I love them both, but for completely different reasons. Neither IMO, when weighted completely for the differing things both have to offer, is better than the other.

I could go into more detail, but why. I think most folks know the reasons I would state why both are great and special.

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Hmmm...really? Would you care to compare the downtown population of Nashville as opposed to that of Memphis and then explain how Nashville is "way in front of Memphis"? I'd be particularly ammused to see how 750 units makes Nashville stride in front of Memphis when the Bluff City has experienced such extensive growth since the late 1980s in downtown residency. Sure, why don't we combine the Vue, No. 1 Beale, the condo towers going in by WREG, and much of the South End development in Memphis, and we'll have Tennessee's first 100 story tower...and all residential. Perhaps Nashville is the slow one and is dealing with little man syndrome against the well-endowed downtown population of Memphis. Yes, Clark Tower is in East Memphis, but that makes Memphis much more unique...we have two skylines...downtown and then the spatial East Memphis one (Clark Tower, Independence Bank Tower, the three International Paper towers, Crescent Center, Regions Bank Building, NBC building, etc...)...Yes, Nashville is the "unique" one in that it is the 8-year-old sister to the older Charlotte and Atlanta twins who is always stealing clothes and make-up to look just like Big Sis...good job at the originality!!! I choose my slow-paced Memphis over the little girl known as Nashvegas (gotta love the non-conformity!)

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I think that the Signature looks great for Nashville! I also think that you can't compare the skylines of Nashville and Memphis. Take the Vue on Main, it fits right in with the Memphis skyline, but wouldn't do anything for Nashville (just as the Signature wouldn't do anything for Memphis). The Riverside Towers that will go up on Channel 3 Drive also fit right in. Even the mostly glass Peabody Place Tower fits in with most of the brick architecture in downtown Memphis. All of downtown Memphis seems to just flow naturally from one building to the next.

Someone also stated that there is more street level density in Memphis. I think this is true except on Main Street. IMO, I think that Main should be open for one lane of vehicle traffic on each side. This would allow people to drive past all of the shops, boutiques, and restaurants up and down the street and would eventually fill some of the vacant buildings up with things other than retail. I read an article about Amsterdam (I think it was Amsterdam), and they allowed vehicle traffic on a few tight streets just like Main Street and everything was fine. If trolleys and cars can co-exist on Madison Avenue, why not on Main too?

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I think cars and pedestrians on Main would be the big issue. I think it would be asking alot to trust folks and cars to intermingle on Main without the two having bad run-ins with one another, thats just my opinion though. Amsterdam is alot different than Memphis ;), I've been to both.

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Mandrws, you make good points, but just for fun, we do have to wonder what the thread would look like if a 55-story, silver and white glass tower was announced for downtown Memphis all of a sudden. While Memphis has all those great buildings, she can be compared to a beautiful woman, all natural, looks good with only the right touches of makeup...but with a tower like our proposal, whatcha bet she puts on a pair of pantyhose buys a sparkly new little purse. Kate Spade, anyone?

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Mandrws, you make good points, but just for fun, we do have to wonder what the thread would look like if a 55-story, silver and white glass tower was announced for downtown Memphis all of a sudden. While Memphis has all those great buildings, she can be compared to a beautiful woman, all natural, looks good with only the right touches of makeup...but with a tower like our proposal, whatcha bet she puts on a pair of pantyhose buys a sparkly new little purse. Kate Spade, anyone?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Thats good. :):)

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