Category: Motivation
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Portland has discovered what Kingsport has known for 106 years
For the past three decades, I’ve been trying to explain why Kingsport is called “The Model City”. Many think it’s because of the city’s physical plan that was laid out on a drawing board in Cambridge, Massachusetts by pre-eminent city planner John Nolen. In reality, it’s because Kingsport was the first city in Tennessee–and one…
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Time marches on
Some of my fondest memories of my parents were our annual beach trips. It was the only time they didn’t work. They would scrimp and save all year for that one week in Myrtle Beach. There were 12 years between my brother and I, so his daughters were more like my sisters. We doubled-up in…
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Kingsport: Fiscally conservative since…forever
As a former city manager, I know the pressure to provide the highest possible service at the lowest possible cost. Each year staff and board members agonize to cut corners, stretch dollars, and provide value. If you’ve always lived here (like me), you may not realize just how relatively valuable that fiscal conservatism is to…
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The time Broad Street shrank.
Yesterday’s post explained the evolution of Sevier Avenue and noted that Broad Street is the break point for east-west demarcation in Kingsport. A current firefighter astutely observed that the streets in Nelsontown along today’s Gibson Mill Road have east-west monikers–Gibson Street, Millpond Street, and Windsor Street–and asked if Broad Street used to extend to Stone…
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Lowe’s on Main Street was a low point in Kingsport’s history
That’s just my opinion, but it seems desperate to allow a modern blue & white striped metal building to be built partially obstructing the historic Train Station. That’s what it looked like in 1970 when I was growing up. Come to think of it, we didn’t go to Main Street much. I remember my mom…
Kingsport Spirit 