In 2014, comedian, musician, podcaster and Nashvillian Chris Crofton asked the Scene for an advice column, so we gave him one. Crowning himself the “Advice King,” Crofton shares his hard-won wisdom with whoever seeks it.
Follow Crofton on Twitter and Instagram (@thecroftonshow), and check out his The Advice King Anthology and Cold Brew Got Me Like podcast. To submit a question for the Advice King, email bestofbread@gmail.com.
Dear Advice King,
When you spoke at the public hearing about the new Titans stadium, you called Ellington Parkway a “wagon track.” Well, it’s even worse than it was a year ago. In general, the roads in Nashville are a mess. What should we do about the potholes? Should we start fixing them ourselves?
— Mandy in Madison
Hi Mandy! I’m listening to “Smoky Mountain Rain” by Ronnie Milsap. It was a big hit in 1980. 1980 was a good year to live in Nashville. The music industry hadn’t been taken over by billionaires yet, and neither had the legislature. There just weren’t many billionaires around back then. Millionaires, sure — but that’s much different. And don’t tell me that “a million back then was the same as a billion now,” because that’s not true. Millionaires had yachts, and big stone lions at the end of their driveways — billionaires have the Supreme Court.
One particular billionaire — Spotify CEO Daniel Ek — owns the music industry. He makes all the money that all the musical artists in the world used to make.
Read that again. It’s a slight exaggeration — but only slight.
Billionaires are made of the middle class, Mandy. They are made of all the money that the middle class used to be made of. And the middle class were the ones who bought all the copies of “Smoky Mountain Rain.”
Um, what was the question?
Oh yeah, potholes. Potholes made me think about tax avoidance. Which made me think about monopolies, which made me think about Spotify. Potholes made me think about “YIMBYs” too.
Chris Crofton
“YIMBY” means “Yes In My Backyard.” YIMBYs have been on my mind, because they are pushing to make significant changes to the zoning laws in Nashville. Politicians I voted for are proposing these changes. Basically, the idea is that if more housing is built, housing prices will have to come down. Supply and demand, right? Same with rents, ostensibly. (“Yes In My Backyard” is meant as a retort to the NIMBYs’ slogan, “Not In My Backyard.”) This sounds fine, but in an economy dominated by monopolies, supply and demand doesn’t really function. My concern is that, at this point, the rich are so rich, and the poor are so poor, that there isn’t enough sheet rock in the world to get the cost of a house in Nashville down to a point where a low-wage worker could buy one. Or even rent one. And there are A LOT of low-wage workers in Nashville (*cough* musicians *cough*).
My concern is that, without drastic action on truly affordable housing — as in, affordable for a server or a barista — rezoning will amount to rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. Or in this case, putting so many deck chairs on the Titanic that you can’t park anywhere near the Titanic (your house).
We need big, subsidized apartment complexes where the rent is $700. Because that’s all a service industry worker (aka a musician, aka me) can afford. And billionaires like Daniel Ek have made sure that that won’t ever change.
You’re not gonna believe this, but we have finally arrived at potholes.
Before we turn developers even more loose in this town in the hopes that someday home prices will come down to, oh, let’s say $400,000 — which still isn’t even close to affordable for working-class Nashvillians — let’s tend to those Nashvillians. Let’s comfortably house the Uber drivers, the musicians and the Waffle House staff. And fix the potholes that are destroying their vehicles. Then we’ll worry about all the arriving tech people (who often work remotely, and could live anywhere) who are having trouble finding a house in East Nashville.
I understand that many of the worst roads in Nashville are the responsibility of the state, not the city. So sure, advocate for zoning changes if you genuinely think it will help — but bring up these horrible roads every day. Humiliate the Republicans who are trashing Tennessee cities and then blaming the Democrats for it. Talk about how the Barnes Fund is woefully inadequate — every day! I want some fire from my elected officials — fire and pragmatism.
P.S. To fix a pothole yourself, I would suggest filling it with marzipan.
