"How the Music City is Losing Its Soul: Gentrification In Nashville and How Historic Preservation Could Hinder the Process"

Segregation and urban renewal are directly connected, and gentrification is an indirect consequence of both. Gentrification and contemporary neighborhood revitalization would not be quite so striking if it had not been preceded by urban renewal when mostly low income, African American neighborhoods were targeted. When the back-to-the-city movement lured white, middle class homeowners back to the cities that the previous generation had flown from, historic preservation was used with little thought to long term residents and their neighborhood culture. With no signs of slowing down, Nashville’s exponential growth and rapid gentrification over the past decade has been steadily destroying what made it unique in the first place: its communities and the historic neighborhoods that house them. Gentrification has, as it usually does, hit Nashville’s older, lower income communities the hardest. One of these is Edgehill, an historically African American neighborhood that is in danger of being destroyed by tear-down fever and short-term rentals. Though many seem to think that displacement and housing destruction is an unavoidable consequence of growth, this does not have to be the case.

Historic preservation has had a hand in gentrification, but to claim, as its critics have done, that it is largely responsible for the United States’ affordable housing crisis is ridiculous. But Historic Preservation does need a public relations makeover. It seems to still be viewed as the stodgy hobby of people who want to dictate what color to paint a house or something to be feared as a harbinger of displacement for lower income residents. The financial benefits of preservation have understandably been used to convince cities and private developers to invest in historic structures, but Preservationists need to accept that to protect historic structures and the healthy communities within them they need to become activists, not just for the built environment but for the people that reside in these historic places. While preservation will not fix the affordable housing crisis, it can and should be used as a tool to save extant housing and preserve the history of our most vulnerable communities before they are erased, socially, culturally, and physically. But to meet this goal we will need to broaden the definition of preservation and preservationists will have to see themselves not only as historians, but as activists that can affect change. City administrations will have to make a choice to strike a balance between preservation and development. There are many ways the preservation of extant buildings can help, not hinder, with the affordable housing crisis while preserving communities and our historic resources. Change is inevitable, but change that completely disregards communities is wrong and in the long run detrimental to the health of cities.

For a preview of my thesis, click here.