Don't You Be My Neighbor: Criminalizing Neighborliness Through Zoning

Barry Ballinger, Belmont University

Location

Janet Ayers Academic Center, Room 4094

Presentation Type

Presentation

Start Date

24-9-2025 12:00 PM

Description

Mr. Rodgers’ Neighborhood begins with a title card and the camera slow pulling back to reveal a detailed model of an American Main Street, a fine-grained, mixed-use small city, complete with a streetcar, sidewalks, parks, and a school. It presents a wholesome, family friendly, ideal for American life – a neighborhood that encourages neighborliness. However, land use policies such as zoning makes most of Mr. Rodgers’ Neighborhood illegal to build today. Nashville’s land use policies, which evolved from its segregationist past, determine who your neighbors are and who they are not, how we move about the city, and contributes to housing unaffordability and wealth redistribution. This presentation will reveal the regulations that make Mr. Rodgers’ Neighborhood illegal, show how these regulations shape Nashville, and discuss neighborly reforms that urbanists are proposing in Nashville.

Comments

The Theme of September 24 is "Unleash Hospitality with Love"

WELLCore: Social Wellness

Link to Full Text

Share

COinS
 
Sep 24th, 12:00 PM

Don't You Be My Neighbor: Criminalizing Neighborliness Through Zoning

Janet Ayers Academic Center, Room 4094

Mr. Rodgers’ Neighborhood begins with a title card and the camera slow pulling back to reveal a detailed model of an American Main Street, a fine-grained, mixed-use small city, complete with a streetcar, sidewalks, parks, and a school. It presents a wholesome, family friendly, ideal for American life – a neighborhood that encourages neighborliness. However, land use policies such as zoning makes most of Mr. Rodgers’ Neighborhood illegal to build today. Nashville’s land use policies, which evolved from its segregationist past, determine who your neighbors are and who they are not, how we move about the city, and contributes to housing unaffordability and wealth redistribution. This presentation will reveal the regulations that make Mr. Rodgers’ Neighborhood illegal, show how these regulations shape Nashville, and discuss neighborly reforms that urbanists are proposing in Nashville.