Eleanor Scott

I’ve been interested for a while about pinning down exactly what gentrification means, and my last column—a definition and general overview of gentrification—was the result.

Gentrification. In the past month, I’ve seen the concept defended on a local Internet forum, heard it derided in front-porch gabfests, and seen it awkwardly danced around in community meetings.

The cops say it is not our imagination. The past few months have seen a marked increase in armed home invasions, drive-by shootings, and murders, mostly in East Knoxville. In the violence, one pattern has emerged.

Knoxville was one of the finalists in the Bloomberg Philanthropies’ Mayor’s Challenge with a multi-faceted plan for an “Urban Food Corridor” to increase access to healthy food, reuse abandoned lots, and create local food-industry jobs. It didn’t win the grant, ...

Why is there a square of daffodils peeking through the crispy brown kudzu off Alcoa Highway?

Spring is coming. In March a new queen will be born. Even now, she’s curled in her queen cup, small and larval-white, floating in a bath of royal jelly. Soon, the workers will cap her cell with wax. When she’s ...

“I’m an advocate for trees,” says Kasey Krouse, “that is, the right tree in the right place.”

The house around the corner from mine needs a lot of love. Or to be put out of its misery.

In December, John Coleman announced on Facebook that his used/rare/antiquarian bookstore, Central Street Books, will close in March. For the first time in 22 years, Coleman will take a “sabbatical” from bricks-and-mortar retail.

For some time I’ve been meaning to write about three especially thrilling salvage yards in town, their rickety outbuildings and crowded aisles full of history, whimsy, and intrigue. These salvage yards are all are second- and third-generation locally-owned businesses, and ...