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You're never too small to hit the big time

by Glenn H. Reynolds

I've lived in a lot of different places, both inside and outside of the United States. And of all the places I've lived, I've liked Knoxville the best. That's why I moved back here some years ago, and it's why I've stayed here stubbornly ever since.

It's also why I've never quite understood the seemingly hardwired inferiority complex that I see in so many Knoxvillians. People often feel that they have to make excuses for the place, as if it's somehow not up to snuff.

It's not the complaining that I mind, exactly (If you've read previous columns here, you may have noticed that I do a bit of it myself from time to time.). It's more the sense, displayed in a variety of ways, that of course things aren't as good here as they are in, well, other places that are more "big time."

Of course, when you go down the list of those other places, it's not so obvious why they're so big time. Asheville, N.C. is a nice little town, but it lacks all sorts of things that Knoxville has. I've heard Cincinnati held out as a model of sophistication in medium-sized cities, and it does have some nice things about it, especially in the bar-and-restaurant category, but I don't notice many Knoxvillians rushing to relocate to Cincinnati, and you can't put all the blame for that on the Bengals, or occasional police brutality.

Then there are the places that really are big time. Sure, there's a degree of excitement in places like New York and Los Angeles, with all the artists and creative people there that Knoxville can't match. On the other hand, the artists and creative people that I know in New York and LA spend a so much time and energy hustling to make their exorbitant house payments or apartment rents that they sometimes seem to have little left for actual creative work. (My one-bedroom apartment in Greenwich Village rented for considerably more than the payments on the house I bought when I first moved back to Knoxville. So did my wife's—a roach-infested conversion efficiency that featured a bathtub in the kitchen.)

None of this is to run down those places, which have charms all their own. It's just to point out that no place is perfect. Too many Knoxvillians seem to believe that, somewhere out there, in some mythical "big league," everything is better done, and better run, than it is here. I used to think that, too, but now I know better. Unfortunately, not everyone does, and that leads to problems. Sometimes it leads to a chip-on-shoulder boosterism, in which we look for big projects that will "really show them." Other times it leads people in Knoxville to put down other people in Knoxville, on the theory that anyone who's in a hick town like this one can't really be any good. You see a lot of this sort of thing among those who spend their time trash-talking local bands.

I remember a few years ago, when one of my students had a piece in the Los Angeles Times, and another law student said, "I can't believe anyone from Knoxville could have a piece in the Los Angeles Times! Actually, several people here have done just that, but what struck me was the automatic assumption that the big time was somehow out of reach.

It's not. In the words of Webb Wilder, "you're never too small to hit the big time." Knoxville is a delightful place to live, and it's full of lots of talented people doing interesting things. A lot of times, the problem is that more people out of town than in-town know about it (I didn't know we had 3,200 visual artists until I read it here in the Metro Pulse.). Nowadays, thanks to the Internet and assorted other technologies, you can live anywhere and be part of a big-time scene. If you're lucky, you might even get to live in Knoxville.

Glenn Reynolds is a law professor at the University of Tennessee, and writes for InstaPundit.com, MSNBC.com, and TechCentralStation.com.