East Nashville Live

Posted by Deirdre Oakley, EAST NASHVILLE, TN – If you want a ‘hip’, ‘edgy’, but increasingly gentrifying and unequal neighborhood experience, visit Music City’s East Nashville. It seems like there are restaurants, bars, and movie and music venues everywhere. There is even a gourmet hot dog place called “I Dream of Weenie” and a cafe where the television show "Nashville" filmed an episode. There are nice houses – some of which are affordable -- alongside boarded up ones; public housing earmarked for redevelopment near a corner store that doesn’t take EBT debit cards (food stamps). I’ve never heard of a corner store that refuses to accept EBT. Like most gentrifying places, some residents benefit more than others. But there is some good news: the Metropolitan Development and Housing Agency (MDHA) is actually working with public housing residents groups to ensure that they will not be displaced through redevelopment. Let’s hope they keep their word.

 

Deirdre Oakley is the Editor of Social Shutter and an Associate Professor of Sociology at Georgia State University. She can be contacted at doakley1@gsu.edu.