Can a City Grow Too Fast?
Can a city grow too fast? Might the ethos, a particular well known warm southern hospitality, be adversely affected or lost? I've been in Nashville since 1985, and I remember people at four way stops waving at others and or smiling. That has dropped precipitously beginning two years ago. I now experience the scooter onslaught, the finger signals minus the turn signals, the pulling immediately in front of you to let you know you are an impedance to that person's enjoyment of life, and a general BIG city 'get out of MY way!" Not the Nashville I was accustomed to. Do you find it the same?
There is a print media genre, "You're so Nashville when..." and one I recently read, "You're so Nashville when you 've only lived here 5 years and you are seen looking around and commenting, 'Nashville has changed so much'. Do you concur?
Phil Valentine, nationally known speaker, author and famous radio talk show host; recently talked about the time he was talking to the newly elected Mayor, Phil Bredesen. Mayor Bredesen told Valentine that he, Bredesen, was going to put Nashville on the map. Phil Valentine recalls travelling in Europe, and being asked where he was from in the states when Phil replied "Nashville." The European would start talking all about Nashville,"they had been there", "they wanted to go there," or "they loved Country Western music..." In other words, Nashville was on the world's map way before Bredesen was around. To paraphrase a famous CW song, I was country before country was cool.
Nashville was cool way before self appointed important persons were even known.
I hope and pray Nashville refuses to lose it's already world-wide known southern charm, the Athens of the south, the city that acts like a town where people actually want to know you face to face and not just through social media. Come one, come all and learn the original, true Nashville spirit which is "you first," "take care," and "do comeback-we'd love to see you again!"
