Metro Pulse

Commentary: With few exceptions, the long-anticipated 12-month shutdown of I-40 through the middle of downtown kicked off last week with more whimper than bang. A simple malfunctioning signal caused the most noticeable backup after the closing. The loudest complaints, so far, have been from the folks who live within earshot of the construction site, not commuters sitting in traffic. And the biggest story of the shutdown has been the surprising lack of one—a serious embarrassment for WBIR, who borrowed a chopper from an Atlanta station to better cover the epic chaos everyone predicted. Full story »

Commentary: Low-income housing does not mean poor people,” says Mercy Health Partners’ Metro CEO Jeff Ashin. He made the comment on WBIR the other day, addressing neighborhood concerns about the possibility that some portion of longtime North Knoxville landmark Saint Mary’s Hospital could be converted to low-income housing. I don’t know that Ashin’s argument won over many skeptics, especially considering he was the one who first floated the idea of low-income housing on the Saint Mary’s site a few days earlier in the News Sentinel. Still, he has a point. Depending on the nature of the subsidies and programs involved, a single person could make as much as $30,000 a year and still be considered “low-income” as far as the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) is concerned. Full story »

CommentaryThirty years ago, then-president Jimmy Carter boosted the fund-raising and building effort that led to Knoxville’s 1982 World’s Fair with a proclamation calling the city: “a splendid setting in which to explore new technologies to conserve energy, to harness the long-lasting and most renewable sources, and to carry on the search for new sources of energy.” It was a brief moment in the sun, brought on by all-too-recent memories of the Arab oil embargo and the subsequent economic recession that rippled through the country for the remainder of the ’70s. Full story »

Ordinarily, I don’t follow the news out of Oak Ridge, so if a friend hadn’t sent me a link to the article in the Oak Ridger, I might have missed out on a rather interesting development. A group of developers, according to the article, is about to build a residential community on The Atomic City’s old South Hills golf course. But the real surprising part is that, rather than build a few high-dollar houses overlooking the bunkers, greens, and tees, they’re getting rid of the golf course altogether. Full story »

Over on the irreverent Internet forum KnoxBlab, the phrase “This Will Kill Downtown” is something of a running joke. It’s sort of an all-purpose punch line prompted by some people’s always imminent expectation of downtown’s demise once the tax money/drug money/trendiness (take your pick) runs out. The tongue-in-cheek statement has also been a testament to downtown’s resilience, as the district repeatedly weathered setbacks such as the Wests’ property seizures, the McClung, Crimson and Phoenix fires and, of course, 50-some odd years of disinvestment and suburban development. Face it, downtown’s the architectural equivalent of Rocky Balboa: No matter how many times it’s beaten to a pulp, it somehow staggers back to its feet. Full story »

Two years after the abortive “Take Back Our Government” rally at the Expo Center formerly known as the Clinton Highway Lowe’s, Knox County’s voters seem well on their way to doing just that. The turnout on “Super Tuesday” was tremendous. And it’s tough to say what was the bigger draw: the chance to help choose a presidential candidate or the opportunity to throw out some of the doofusses who have made Knox County government so dysfunctional that even the New York Times has taken notice. Full story »

Whatever you do, don’t call it a convention center hotel. The proposed $78 million mixed-use development on the site of the old State Supreme Court building was announced last week with great fanfare. There were fancy renderings, a statement from the mayor, and a swiftly filed lawsuit (one that, in a refreshing change of pace, didn’t involve County Commission). Instead, the lawsuit has to do with a 2004 referendum prohibiting public funding for a convention center hotel. That may explain why Mayor Haslam and developer Nick Cazana were splitting hairs very carefully when describing the development. Full story »

The train wreck that is Knox County politics is nothing if not entertaining. The latest installment, barring another blow-up before this goes to print, came last week during County Commission’s monthly Agenda Committee meeting. Commissioner Greg “Lumpy” Lambert all but stormed the podium in response to Community Services Director Cynthia Finch’s not-so-veiled reference to the Commission as racist. Full story »

What should we change about Knoxville in 2008? Surprisingly, I’ve had a pretty hard time coming up with something, particularly with regard to my pet issues of downtown and center-city redevelopment. Full story »

Despite being one of the Southeast’s oldest state universities, you won’t find any buildings dating back to the University of Tennessee’s founding on campus. For starters, despite the 1794 date on its seal, UT didn’t move to its current environs until the 1820s. And even then, nothing but the real estate remains to connect UT’s current campus to its antebellum beginnings. Full story »

Joel Kotkin, columnist and author of The City: A Global History, has carved out quite a niche for himself critiquing the hip factor of urban development trends. In fact, his frequent lampooning of the supposedly latte-loving “creative class” shtick of economic- and urban-development guru Richard Florida has converted the supposedly old-school Democrat Kotkin into the darling of conservative publications such as The Weekly Standard. And the title of his latest column, in last week’s Wall Street Journal, captures Kotkin’s argument in a nutshell: “The Rise of Family-Friendly Cities: It’s lifestyle, not lattes, that our most productive workers want.” Full story »