Nashville native wrestles with city’s transformation in new book
Former Tennessean reporter Richard Schweid returns home for his fifth book, “Nashville: Music and Manners,” part of publisher Reaktion Books’ Cityscopes series examining the past and present of “the world’s greatest cities.”
Schweid, 75, a Nashville native, does so with a critical eye.
“The city has been updated and globalized,” he wrote in the book’s prologue.
“But at the same time, some Nashvillians worry that their city’s relaxed charm is imperiled by so much growth and development. It is this struggle that defines the city today.”
Schweid, who now splits his time between Barcelona and Rhode Island, wrote for the Tennessean from 1980 to 1991. He spoke recently with his old media outlet about “Nashville.”
Question: Let me ask directly – What do you think of new Nashville or It City Nashville?
Schweid: I published a book in 2016, “Invisible Nation: Homeless Families in America.” Nashville was one of [cities], and it’s about a quarter of the book.
I stayed in a motel on Dickerson Road, around mostly homeless families just across from Schwab elementary, where many are experiencing homelessness .... That has a lot to do with how I view the gentrification of the city.
I’m all for the city becoming more prosperous. But it seems to me from what little I know ... the funds which are available for the city to spend on improving the lives of all Nashvillians seems to be quite low compared to gentrification and change in Nashville’s image in the rest of the country.
When a city becomes an “it city,” good or bad depends on what they do with it. I hope Nashville would use that money to help all of its citizens.
Q: You seem to love the city and hate certain parts at the same time.
Schweid: It’s a million times better
than the city was when I was growing up.
It was strongly divided between black and white and there was hardly any brown at all. It’s a much better city, a much more liberal city for all. When I went to Hillsboro [high school], it was segregated.
My biology teacher didn’t teach evolution even though the Scopes trial had come and gone. My history teacher was a rabid anti-communist.
But I sent my boy there and Hillsboro was fine.
Q: Why write this book now? Schweid: I’ve always wanted to write about Nashville. I did write a little for John Egerton’s [“Nashville”] book for the [city’s] Centennial.
It’s the city I grew up in, and I very much enjoyed living there, especially when I worked at the paper. I got to know a Nashville full of artists and writers, good food and good music. So I jumped at the chance to write about Nashville as part of a series about cities around the world.
Q: What’s the most surprising thing you learned about Nashville as you researched your book?
Schweid: There were things I just didn’t know, particularly about the history of Nashville. I didn’t know there were more than a dozen Black free people in Nashville pretty much from the time Nashville got started as a city. I found that interesting.
I didn’t know how easily Nashville rolled over during the Civil War. I was surprised the ease that the Union forces conquered Nashville.