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Alex Pemberton @yellowbrickurban.com · 11/06/2026

Your edits, as always, made it readable. Thanks!

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Matt Edens @scruffycities.bsky.social · 11/06/2026

Fascinating piece on how preservation sometimes takes a selective view of the past.

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Neil Kornutick @neilkornutick.bsky.social · 11/06/2026

When we talk about historic preservation, it’s important to remember whose history we are trying to preserve and whose stories we are trying to tell. MHZC has been doing a horrible job of this and needs to do better. What a story this is.

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Betsy Phillips @betsyphillips.bsky.social · 11/06/2026

I was prepared to be mad about this in one direction, but I ended up being gobsmacked in the other direction. Good work, @yellowbrickurban.com.

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Nashville Scene @nashvillescene.com · 11/06/2026

This week’s cover story: The historic zoning commission wrote a whitewashed story of a 100-year-old model home in Green Hills East. The history lives deeper. www.nashvillescene.com/news/coverst…

Nashville Scene cover for 6/11/26: A building plan with title "Veneers of History in Green Hills East"

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Alex Pemberton @yellowbrickurban.com · 11/06/2026

Nashville's historic zoners nominated a conservation district based on a 1927 model home—and they identified the wrong house. The embarrassing error exposes a structural flaw in the historical stories the MHZC writes to promote overlays. I'm back in the @nashvillescene.com with the whole history:

nashvillescene.com

Veneers of History in Green Hills East

The historic zoning commission wrote a whitewashed story of a 100-year-old model home. The history lives a level deeper.

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Alex Pemberton @yellowbrickurban.com · 27/05/2026

Only two rebounds In twenty-seven minutes Seven-foot-five, bro 😅😅😅

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Alex Pemberton @yellowbrickurban.com · 27/05/2026

Only two rebounds In twenty-seven minutes Bro is seven-foot five.

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Alex Pemberton @yellowbrickurban.com · 27/05/2026

Important to emphasize: "depopulation by success" rarely occurs without binding regulatory constraints. Without those constraints, success → land value increase → densification. With those constraints, success → land value increase → mansionization. "Depopulation by success" is policy failure.

nashvillescene.com

The Battle for Belmont-Hillsboro

In 1970, liberal neighbors organized against white flight and transformed Nashville’s inner city. Today, teardowns are selling for more than a million dollars.

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Alex Pemberton @yellowbrickurban.com · 24/05/2026

More support for my "All NIMBYism is Right-Wing" theorem.

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Alex Pemberton @yellowbrickurban.com · 14/05/2026

% of Total Single-Family Properties = share of AH4R portfolio

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Alex Pemberton @yellowbrickurban.com · 06/05/2026

Find one example of MHZC decrying the politics of early 20th century suburban development. If only they did so little...

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Alex Pemberton @yellowbrickurban.com · 03/05/2026

dilettantes, we'd have to dismiss the entire field of American historic preservation. That's just the history of the field. In some ways it has evolved beyond its origins, in other ways it has not. Dismissal of either, as both Ben and Matthew often do, flattens essential complexity. Again, YMMV.

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Alex Pemberton @yellowbrickurban.com · 03/05/2026

One point on concession. I don't see how MLW's elite lineage and equine interests diminish her preservation work. Her preservation work didn't extend much beyond her elite lineage and equine interests; e.g., Belle Meade. If we dismissed MH(Z)C for its origins as an alliance of racists and elite...

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Alex Pemberton @yellowbrickurban.com · 03/05/2026

MHZC and neighborhood conservation activists worked hand-in-hand with MDHA to exercise targeted urban renewal powers like condemnation and eminent domain—exemplified by the East End Market and 931 Russell St. cases—and often complained MDHA was not aggressive enough in its use of its powers.

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Alex Pemberton @yellowbrickurban.com · 03/05/2026

Untrue. Urban Renewal ended pre-MHZC in 1974, its funds converted to Community Development Block Grants that supported early preservation/conservation programs. Metro's conservation programs were the evolution of urban renewal, not its rejection; see Inner City Blight, MPC, 1973. Narrative ≠ Fact

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Alex Pemberton @yellowbrickurban.com · 03/05/2026

trials and tourneys, etc. however much she actually rode. Call her a horse enthusiast, pony promoter, equestrian writer, mare mane maniac, but "equestrian" felt fair shorthand for social microblogging. May Dean Eberling took over in 1973, led shift to historic districting/MHZC—fair clarification.

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Alex Pemberton @yellowbrickurban.com · 03/05/2026

Davidson Co. CWCC was a local committee of TN CWCC, sponsored the opening commemoration. Stanley Horn & Robert McGaw, members of both, instrumental to MHC formation. MLW (cousin by marriage to Luke Lea) never wrote on a horseless sport. Founded MidTN Pony Club, various sporting/dressage/eventing...

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Alex Pemberton @yellowbrickurban.com · 03/05/2026

The Metro Historical Commission was founded pre-Fair Housing Act by Tennessee Civil War Centennial Commission leaders and had to be pried away from Confederate hagiography. Led by an equestrian with a family tree of Nashville street names—Lindsley, McGavock, Lea, etc.—MHZC was founded in 1977. YMMV.

The Nashville Tennessean, Thursday, Nov. 24, 1966

Opening paragraph from The Tennessee Civil War Centennial Commission: Looking to the Past as Tennessee Plans for the Future (James B. Williams)

https://npshistory.com/publications/nha/tennessee-civil-war/tn-cw-cent-commission-rpt.pdf

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Alex Pemberton @yellowbrickurban.com · 02/05/2026

MHZC is not mandated by the Metro Charter.

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Alex Pemberton @yellowbrickurban.com · 22/04/2026

Ah shit you right, you right. Sorry for making everyone mad.

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Alex Pemberton @yellowbrickurban.com · 22/04/2026

2021 or -2. FWIW my read, proposal was closer to sell-the-dream than a real viable project. But it was the only shot at an alternative to this outcome and everyone involved in its demise should be marked persona non grata at the adult's table.

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Alex Pemberton @yellowbrickurban.com · 22/04/2026

Not for nothing (and not in the NBJ piece either) a proposal a few years back for a DTC overall height modification would have achieved the unit count (200+) and value needed to fund remediation. The Community wanted to preserve the Black history of the environs instead, which this does, somehow.

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Alex Pemberton @yellowbrickurban.com · 14/04/2026

Building code contributes. Finance contributes. Supply chains contribute. Project economics contribute. Consumer preferences contribute. Dozens more factors contribute. American real estate development is among our most complex endeavors. Anyone who claims it's One Thing doesn't know enough.

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Alex Pemberton @yellowbrickurban.com · 13/04/2026

Single-Family is much more concentrated. The Top 15 account for over half of closings per NAHB.

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Alex Pemberton @yellowbrickurban.com · 13/04/2026

It was excusable to lend credence to Charles Marohn in 2012 when the field was so barren we had to extrapolate allegories for every urban issue from small town sewer project finance, but there are simply too many people now doing too much thorough, empirical, insightful research to do so today.

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Alex Pemberton @yellowbrickurban.com · 13/04/2026

The National Multifamily Housing Council (NMHC) reports production by the Top 25 developers every year. Federal Reserve tracks private debt conduits, which banks and industry typically use for their debt market share reporting.

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Alex Pemberton @yellowbrickurban.com · 13/04/2026

Can urbanists be done with confidently wrong cranks? Approximately 3% of U.S. multifamily debt is securitized (CMBS)—over 85% of MF debt is agency or held on bank/insurer balance sheets—and the 25 largest developers account for just a quarter of new units delivered.

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Alex Pemberton @yellowbrickurban.com · 07/04/2026

Bogotá's cultural heritage office created a superb report on self-constructed districts and their social, architectural, construction, and political aspects. Bogotá Hecha a Mano: idpc.gov.co/publicacione... I had Claude Code make an English-translated HTML version: drive.google.com/file/d/12XbE...

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Alex Pemberton @yellowbrickurban.com · 06/04/2026

If I ever get a fuck-around year, I'll spend it in Bogotá making a picture book of these houses. This neighborhood is fun: maps.app.goo.gl/ixhuxDfYMegE...

maps.app.goo.gl

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Alex Pemberton @yellowbrickurban.com · 06/04/2026

In addition to the economic imperatives, these autoconstrucciónes are often built floor-by-floor (desarrollo progresivo) with the slab extended for water runoff. When the next floor goes up, the façade goes flush to slab edge. Another fave, the pollo asado spot behind my wife's old family conjunto:

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Alex Pemberton @yellowbrickurban.com · 06/04/2026

Bonkers how often NYT headlines and copy have grammatical errors characteristic of the website transcriptions of Sinclair local news hits.

NYT Headline: Artemis II Astronauts Travel Farthest From Earth Than Ever Before

This is not grammatically correct.

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Alex Pemberton @yellowbrickurban.com · 30/03/2026

No, Joe, that's just your 'foist' becoming your 'doomscroll' It's normal to feel disoriented when your 'foist' becomes your 'doomscroll'

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Alex Pemberton @yellowbrickurban.com · 30/03/2026

Bro had his LLM trained with clips of David Duke on acid.

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Alex Pemberton @yellowbrickurban.com · 28/03/2026

Hell yeah. It should win 205 Excellence in Development awards. It should win every Excellence in Development award for the next 205 years. Great work, Hannah.

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Alex Pemberton @yellowbrickurban.com · 25/03/2026

The only thing clean about that Popeyes

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Alex Pemberton @yellowbrickurban.com · 24/03/2026

swear to god if this is about the popeye's on gallatin

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Alex Pemberton @yellowbrickurban.com · 23/03/2026

The best way to alliterate is to simply use the same word over and over again. The Dems will get there, give 'em time.

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Alex Pemberton @yellowbrickurban.com · 22/03/2026

Sometimes I believe economists are too cute by half with their models and equations. There are boundary discontinuities everywhere for those with the eyes to see.

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Alex Pemberton @yellowbrickurban.com · 20/03/2026

Your preference is good and correct, if we accept the premise that that building and others like it are worthy of historic status, but it's not Historic Preservation.

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Alex Pemberton @yellowbrickurban.com · 20/03/2026

All the drama here goes away if people could stop pretending that these shitty old houses have structural or historical value and just allowed demolition with the constraint that the replacement construction meets Disneyland design guidelines; i.e., the outcome in this case. But that's not legal.

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Alex Pemberton @yellowbrickurban.com · 20/03/2026

Right, so the process here should have been to apply for demolition, get denied, take a dilapidated (yes, it was) structure with premodern building science down to the studs, functionally rebuild it all, and come out with a more expensive worse building that serves the same ends.

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