This week I had the opportunity to spend some time in the Nashville, Tennessee area. Since I have returned, I’ve been asked multiple times “How was Nashville?” And my response has been the same every time: “Loud”.
I was in Nashville tagging along with my fiancee as she attended a conference in the city. The hotel where she booked our room was the same facility that was hosting the conference–which was very convenient for her. While she was learning about boring stuff all day, I was able to go play golf, visit Ramsey Solutions, and sample Nashville Hot Chicken for the first time.
But the hotel was located downtown, just a couple of blocks from Bridgestone Arena and a few more blocks away from Broadway, the main entertainment strip in Nashville–featuring massive honkytonks, western wear stores, restaurants, and mini-museums dedicated to country music stars. In other words, we were pretty much right in the heart of all the action. And while that may sound great, since we could walk anywhere we wanted to go to eat, drink, hang out, listen to music, and enjoy the nightlife, it also meant that the “party atmosphere” surrounded us almost all the time.
The first night in our room–which faced out on the main street heading up to Broadway and the arena we became very familiar with the routes and schedules of the multiple “party vehicles” in Nashville. First it was the pedal pub with bachelorette parties drinking and yelling and singing along to hip hop tunes (in the capital of country music) sitting at the stop light just below the room. That was followed by the party bus with bachelorette parties drinking and yelling and singing along to dance tunes (in the capital of country music). And then came the party pickup with bachelorette parties drinking and yelling and singing along to classic rock tunes (in the capital of country music). And then the party fire truck with bachelorette parties drinking and yelling and singing along to bro country tunes (in the capital of country music). And at the next red light, here came another pedal pub–and the entire rotation turned over again. I’m not sure how late those party vehicles made their rounds, because I eventually fell asleep–but my fiancee says it was much later than the noise ordinances allow back here in the Fox Valley.
Of course, those noisemakers were not alone in their sonic assault on the hotel. You had the usual assortment of jacked-up diesel pickup trucks running huge smoke-belching exhaust pipes revving their engines along the street and blasting bro country. That was matched by the guys driving the little tuner cars with the exhaust systems that sound like gunshots or string trimmers on steroids blasting their hip hop music racing up and down the street. And then every other vehicle on the road was playing every other type of music trying to drown out the competing genre.
And if that wasn’t enough, the hotel was also located a couple of blocks from a Nashville Fire station–meaning every call for an ambulance at a honkytonk for someone too drunk to stay conscious and every crash along the nearby turnpike meant long blasts of sirens from multiple emergency vehicles responding to the scene. That went on practically all night–as my early morning trip to the bathroom was accompanied by that cacophony several times.
While all of this made for difficult sleeping conditions most nights, we didn’t call down to the front desk to complain and demand that they “do something about all of that noise”. And we did that because we recognize that downtown areas in cities are just noisy–whether it be Nashville, Chicago, or New York. And that is why I am amused by the group of people who have moved in to downtown Appleton in recent years are now demanding that the city “do something” about noise in their area.
I want to start by pointing out that the same people who have chosen to make their home in the middle of what has been an urban business area for years have claimed they want a “vibrant downtown”–defined, by them, as having lots of little shops selling hand-crafted junk, restaurants with exotic foreign menus and locally-sourced foods, bars with poetry nights and bands featured at Mile of Music every year along with hand-crafted specialty cocktails or micro-brew beers, all of which they can walk to in just a few steps–or take their bicycles in the new bike lanes. All of which close at 10:00 or so–except maybe the taco food truck–which can stay open until midnight or so.
To them, “vibrant” does not mean clubs packed with patrons looking to dance, meet members of the opposite sex, and get hammered until 2:00 every night. Food trucks staying open until 3:00 or 4:00 am to serve the crowds after bar time. And it certainly doesn’t mean cruising the Ave showing off your new rims, or underbody lights, or likely-illegal exhaust system, or the deafening levels as which you can play your stereo.
Like all complainers nowadays, this group is empowered by social media–posting their videos of all the noise outside their windows at 1:00 am and demanding those people keeping them up at night be held accountable. Increasingly, those online complaints have been met with threats from organized groups of certain vehicle owners to cruise the Ave even more and to make their vehicles even louder.
Caught in the middle of all of this are Appleton officials, who have to balance the demands of a disaffected few with the public safety needs of the rest of the city. Appleton Police are looking to add two more traffic safety officers, who will likely have to waste more of their time (and taxpayer money) sitting around the downtown area waiting for loud vehicles to drive around, pull them over, issue tickets, and then prepare for possible court hearings where the citations can be challenged. Wouldn’t you rather those cops be patrolling areas where the have been vehicle or garage break-ins, or out along Interstate 41 looking for drunk drivers going the wrong way and killing innocent people?
As irritating as the noise was outside our hotel for four nights, my fiancee and I still came back home to our quiet, suburban home on a cul-de-sac that makes “cruising” very difficult. We didn’t decide to make our home in an area full of people looking to have fun all the time and demand that everyone kowtow to our demands for peace and quiet. And yet, those residing in downtown Appleton are among the strongest supporters of bringing more residential development to that area. How exactly is packing even more people into that small area going to reduce noise? And those folks are also big proponents of bringing urban density to the residential neighborhoods in the city as well. If you would like, I could re-state some of my experiences of living in a single-family zoned district that abutted multi-family apartment complexes if you would like to be reminded of who brought all of the “noise” to my yard over the years.
While there were plenty of honkytonks, restaurants, museums, stores, office buildings, and hotels in downtown Nashville, I don’t recall seeing any new residential towers going up. A Google Maps search shows about five or six in the blocks surrounding Broadway–none of which have reviews saying “peaceful and quiet in the heart of downtown”. And if those people can put up with the almost deafening roar that accompanies a major tourist destination, then the folks with the sensitive ears in downtown Appleton should be able to handle a few loud cars and lousy music.
