Creating Places: A Citizen Observer's Look at Nashville's Built Environment


Writer's Note: William Williams' interest in the manmade environment dates to 1970, at which point the then-young Williams started a collection of postcards of city skylines. The collection now numbers 1,000-plus cards. Among the writer's specific interests are exterior building design, city district planning, demographics, signage, mixed-use development, mass transit and green/sustainable construction and living. Williams began his Creating Places column with The City Paper in February 2005. The column in its original form was discontinued in September 2008 and reinvented via this blog in November 2008. Creating Places can be found on the home page of the website of The City Paper, at which Williams has worked in various capacities since October 2000.

Wednesday, November 28, 2012

Creating Places: Four years and 257 posts

On Nov. 28, 2008, Creating Places was jump-started as a blog site. (Check the first post here.) During that four years, I've written 257 posts — a modest number when you consider 204 weeks have since passed. As this blog site enters its fifth year of existence, I admit I need to be more productive. On a positive note, this post represents my 83rd of 2012. So compared to 2010, during which I submitted a pathetic 44 posts, I have made some progress. Still, I can do better. Ideally, I will record 150 posts in 2013. That's three per week, not an unreasonable number, even for a man who is known to be lethargic at night (when he typically posts). All this said, I appreciate those of you who read this blog site. Some of you have offered constructive criticism, noting I need to use more images (I agree and I have) and write more often. No doubt, I listen to you and I continue to welcome comments.

For tonight, I would comment on the bland exterior materials of some unattractive building (the Cornerstone Financial Credit Union in Hillsboro Village quickly comes to mind) or the lack of proportionality of an equally ugly structure (the LDS church and The Alexander, both on Hillsboro Road in Green Hills, for example). However, I'm being hypnotized by the lush sounds of classy British songstress Kate Bush. Feeling weary, I am off to bed.

WW




3 comments:

  1. WW - Nice that you've been posting for 4 years. This blog is a good way to keep current with the numerous developments in Nashville, but it often seems to be more like highly personalized rants rather than informed commentary or updates on news stories. What a bummer to mention "ugliness" and then tap out. Alas, we will eagerly await the promised commentary about The Alexander, Cornerstone Building and the Church of Latter Day Saints? Haven't we been down those parts of Hillsboro/21st Ave. before?

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  2. A-Mous 7:57,

    Thanks for the kind words. I definitely personalize the posts with this blog site and do the more straightforward built environment coverage in Nashville Post. I feel that's a solid one-two punch.

    As to the LDS church, I actually wrote a major blog entry on that subject on this site but I can't seem to find (Googling does me no good). I think I also wrote about The Alexander. Will try to find both and re-post.

    Thanks,

    WW

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