Kingsport Spirit

Lately, I’ve been thinking about the natural life cycle of a city—of any built environment really.

When you are a city manager, the challenges you face are based on when you arrive on the scene during that life cycle.

If it’s a brand-new city, you have a clean slate. But there’s no infrastructure. So you have to build that first. There must be roads, water, sewer, communications, and electricity to support development. Then you need housing and jobs in rapid succession. You have the opportunity to put regulations in place that dictate density, height, the size of lots, signs, driveway connections, etc.

As someone who grew up in Kingsport in the 1960s, came of age in the 1970s, and chose to remain here the rest of my life, I’ve seen many changes to the Model City, or the “magic” city described by Vince Staten.

Why was it so magical? It rose up overnight to become one of the most important industrial cities in the nation. In fact, I found a 1939 federal report to the President on cities and their role in the national economy, highlighting Kingsport as one of those with national impact.  Just a few years later at Holston Defense, Kingsport provided the industrial prowess to produce an explosive capable of stopping a German U-boat, and its manufacturing and management processes helped Oak Ridge turn uranium into the bomb that ended World War II. During that time, this magical town in East Tennessee was literally in the center of solving a global crisis.  

The early town was financed by investors with deep pockets, primarily from New York, joined by land and railroad speculators out of Southwest Virginia. A 1905 article in the Johnson City newspaper hinted at a “plan to boom a town in Kingsport” nearly a dozen years before official incorporation. All of the land was assembled privately, not seized by eminent domain. Every parcel was bought on the open market.

In its early years, the city’s growth depended on a close partnership between industrial leaders, local residents, and business owners. Business and industry leaders sat on municipal bodies—from the Planning Commission and Library Commission to the Board of Education—and maintained a strong, ongoing relationship with the Board of Mayor and Aldermen. This collaborative model proved that workers, supervisors, and management could not only coexist, but actually flourish together. By preventing labor disputes and strikes, it secured higher wages and put more disposable income into the hands of local families—money that, in turn, fueled the community’s own businesses.

Homes built during Kingsport’s boom were celebrated as the height of modern living. Workers enjoyed modest two- or three-bedroom houses—usually with a single bathroom—and, since cars were a luxury, few featured garages or driveways. Small yards provided a place for kids to play outside and a garden plot to grow fresh vegetables. With central heating and air still decades away, the more upscale residences climbed knolls or higher ground to catch natural breezes. Executive dwellings embraced the era’s popular revival styles—Colonial, Tudor, and Spanish-Mediterranean—rather than the ornate Victorians from earlier generations found in nearby Bristol or Johnson City. From compact street grids to tree-lined sidewalks, everything was intentionally designed to be walkable and community-focused.

As wartime production ramped up, builders raced to meet housing demand—laying quick-setting “speed bricks,” installing prefabricated modular homes, and converting virtually every vacant lot into worker residences.

As the town expanded, retailers and service providers rushed in to capitalize on its growth. National chains like Sears, JCPenney, and Montgomery Ward opened flagship stores downtown. But by the early 1970s, the rise of suburban malls lured shoppers—and stores—away, leaving behind empty storefronts that proved hard to re-tenant. In chasing ample parking and convenience, Americans traded the charm of a compact, walkable center for sprawling shopping centers on the outskirts.

If you still remember the earliest days of Kingsport, it can seem like our momentum has stalled—and I still carry a personal ache whenever a beloved store closes or relocates, as though I’ve somehow let down the generation that built this town before me.

Then I came across an article announcing Hilton Head Island’s new city manager—and it completely shifted my perspective. Rather than just celebrating the hire, it laid out the community’s biggest challenges in stark detail. And I remember thinking, “Hilton Head has challenges?”

In my mind, Hilton Head was the envy of towns nationwide. In the late 1950s, private investors began developing a community of national significance in very short order. Sound familiar?  

By the 1980s, planners everywhere scrambled to emulate Hilton Head’s sign rules: small, softly lit signs nestled at ground level—no towering fluorescent billboards or cookie-cutter franchise façades. Developers were required to preserve trees instead of clear-cutting them, and new buildings were designed to look like they were surgically-inserted into the canopy, dressed in muted grays and browns so they almost disappeared into the landscape.

But six decades on, Hilton Head has predictable urban problems. Two-thirds of all residential properties are built at ground level. Since 1990, new construction standards require units to be elevated to minimize the risk of coastal flooding and climate change. That means a substantial portion of Hilton Head is technically at a higher risk of “functional obsolescence,” which means there is a fundamental design flaw that can’t easily be fixed.

Market dynamics changed, and buyers demonstrated a willingness to live across the bridge in Bluffton. They were choosing the rainbow pastel palette of neighboring Margaritaville over the muted tones of Hilton Head. Aging residents were complaining about their inability to read the small, dimly lit signs, and it was getting harder to find a workforce to sustain the island when there was no affordable housing available for workers to live.

It occurred to me that magical Hilton Head had become a real town, just like Kingsport did. Our first 60 years were 1917-1977, there’s were 1955-2015.

The new eventually wears off in any town. Housing ages, market dynamics change, buyer preferences evolve. The question becomes, “Do we throw in the towel, or do we roll with it?”

Lately, we’ve heard a lot about the global economy and the offshoring that occurred post World War II. A concerted effort is being made to bring domestic manufacturing back. Many American manufacturing towns became known as the ‘Rust Belt’. The service economy rose. Americans didn’t ‘make’ as much; rather their jobs focused on services that are harder to quantify and easily transferable to any other place. Meeting Wall Street projections fueled a relentless pursuit of automation and lowering labor costs. Proximity to natural resources seemed less crucial. Living near an industrial plant—once seen as a lucrative job opportunity—became somewhat of a liability. What were all the weird noises and smells coming from the plant? Are they safe? Maybe I’ll just live a few exits down the interstate and commute to work. Leaders of legacy industries pulled back from public service. The symbiotic relationship of industry and its surrounding community waned, at least compared to the early years.

Now we find that the mid-1970s mall that decimated downtown has fallen into hard times itself–although much effort is being made to stabilize it. American consumers are buying more and more online. It has become possible to live anywhere and work remotely.

So, the story of Kingsport’s second 60 years has been one that I call “remodeling the Model City.” People still pine for the good ol’ days of cruising Broad, Legion Pool, Horse Krickers, or the Eastman carnival, but newcomers still see the magic of a mid-size slice of Americana set in a beautiful natural environment with four balanced seasons, excellent schools, and relatively affordable housing. The Kingsport Spirit is still evident in things like Fun Fest, the Independence Day Parade, and Christmas in Kingsport.

During the past 25 years, the City of Kingsport has been reinvesting in itself—redeveloping downtown and numerous commercial districts, rebuilding Main Street, expanding the Greenbelt, improving Bays Mountain, transforming a closed brick plant into a community asset called Brickyard Village, reimagining Kingsport Press, modernizing schools, adding a variety of housing options, and enriching its portfolio of parks, playgrounds, and outdoor recreational opportunities.

All towns boom for a time, then it’s another town’s opportunity. That’s why we need to play the long game: imagine the very best Kingsport can be and then work to build it day by day. I still believe our brightest days are ahead. We already strike the perfect balance—large enough to offer the daily amenities you need, yet compact enough to sidestep big city headaches. You can be at the airport and park near the front door in 20 minutes. We won’t be swallowed by a nearby metropolis and its inherent problems, and our central spot in the Eastern U.S. makes us a natural hub. Blessed by the sheltering mountains, we are buffered from natural hazards and severe weather. With Tennessee’s favorable personal-tax climate and reputation as a great place to do business, Kingsport has every advantage to thrive well into the future.