New City Resources

Culture, according to Webster’s Dictionary, refers to “the sum total of the beliefs, accomplishments, and behavior patterns of a group of people.” Culture captures the way in which our collective actions develop into habits, rituals, values, worldviews, and lived-out aspirations.

Each metropolitan area can be associated with a unique set of overarching cultural themes, along with many subcultures. Describing the culture of Knoxville¹ is akin to asking the proverbial blind men to describe an elephant: Point of view is everything. Looking at the big picture, Knoxville is a suburban culture with an Anglo-American ethos (with Caucasians making up 88% of Knox County residents).² That we live in the shadow of the Great Smoky Mountains and on clear days can enjoy their natural beauty seems to exert a certain influence upon us all. We enjoy four distinct seasons and the social rhythms associated with a university town.

Like most mid-size cities in America, we are a car culture, producing cataracts of malls, storefronts, and shopping centers. The roar echoing through the heart of Knoxville is the concrete confluence of two of the busiest roads in America, Interstates 75 and 40. Except for a few large corporations, Knoxville’s culture of small businesses fosters a stable local economic environment. The mantra here of “neither boom nor bust” carries over into a conservative approach to money and most everything else–especially art, education, politics and religion. As may be expected on the border of the Deep South, church buildings-mostly Baptist-are everywhere. We are a hard-working and optimistic people principally concerned to provide for our families, but also predisposed to hospitality and compassion.

Knoxville culture plays itself out across city-county lines in clusters of socially, economically, and racially homogenous neighborhoods that extend north along Broadway, south on Chapman Highway, east along Magnolia Avenue, and west down Kingston Pike. With varying degrees of pride and prejudice we self-identify in terms of East, West, North, or South Knoxville. “The Strip” fixes people near the University. “Downtown” has recently re-emerged as a distinct place on Knoxville’s cultural map. These designations connote not only geographic locations but distinct cultural identities within the larger culture of Knoxville, bearing unique commercial, political, social, educational, and religious histories.

Tribalism may be too strong a word, but there might be something to the theory that our regional DNA includes the Scots-Irish penchant for in-fighting. Instead of cooperation, sometimes we encounter territorialism, suspicion and entrenchment. Our cross-cultural devotion to the Large Orange is the one tie that binds us all, through seasons of plenty and of loss.

Yet deep within the soul of our city-like every city-there is a longing for purposive unity, a coherent identity reflective of indigenous assets, a common commitment to a cause larger than our sectional self-interests and more meaningful than UT sports. In this vein, six years of progressive governance under a conscientious City Mayor as well as a sustained push for downtown renewal feels like a fresh, historic wind of civic achievement, corporate unity, and cultural advance. A new spirit of collaboration is at work here, and a genuine sense of excitement and unprecedented hopefulness are in the air.

Will this momentum give way to ingrained cultural habits of sectionalism and pride? Or will God’s people prophetically engage and renew the culture by building on biblical foundations of faith, hope, and love?

1. “Knoxville” in this context includes the larger metro area inclusive of Halls, Farragut, Seymour, and Strawberry Plains.
2. U.S. Census Bureau, 2007 American Community Survey, http://factfinder.census.gov.