The old logo had so much more character (if necessary, drop the “new” and just be “Gateway to the South.” The bright green was lively and eye-catching. I look at the new slick streamlined logo and say “so what?” The compass points north (as in “the way out of town”). It almost has a science fiction feel to it. Star Trekkie maybe? Pointing to a galaxy far, far away?

The colors (red white and blue notwithstanding) are dull, the lettering the kind of dime-a-dozen ordinary that matches the dime-a-dozen rubber-stamped designs of new homes, apartment buildings and condos sprouting up all over town and coming soon to a downtown near you. Drive into any large new development in the city and each home looks like every other home in color and style. This logo looks like any other ordinary low-budget business sign.

My second reaction was to ask “top spot for what?”
We have the Customs House Museum, periodic performances at APSU, the wonderful Roxy for community theater (I live in hope for the creation/opening of their arts center), and a few unique shops, eateries and galleries on Franklin Street. But my friends and I go to Nashville for everything from theater to ballet to symphony to movies to a large selection of fine non-chain dining to the Titans).

Memphis has Beale Street, great Jazz and terrific annual sci-fi convention. Chattanooga has its aquarium, among other creative developments. The Pigeon Forge region can keep families busy for days. Paducah (in KY) has its quilt museum and unique “art colony” development. What is it that makes us “Top?”

Clarksville might be the top spot for fast food restaurants, for movie theaters offering the most banal mainstream movies, for horrific traffic congestion, for Wal-Mart superstores, for the greatest number of pawn shops and title loan companies on a single boulevard, for car dealerships, for the most obnoxious bright orange fireworks shop in the country (now that’s blight!), for the largest designated area of so-called “blight” in the country, for unchecked housing development erected without addressing infrastructure issues …

Though I have met wonderful and inspiring people here, when I moved to Clarksville in 2004, I knew little about the city. When I wanted to explore, and introduce the city to a visiting friend, I called the Chamber of Commerce to inquire first and foremost about restaurants that offered our entertainment of choice: “fine dining” (i.e., a place with linen table cloths and candlelight, maybe a small jazz combo offering music etc). The Chamber spokesperson, sitting in an office which was then right next to the former Rose Garden restaurant, said “I don’t think we have anything like that here.” That response came with NO suggestions for anything. As a Clarksville newbie I thought “You’ve got to be kidding.”

When the Metropolitan Opera in New York City decided to offer worldwide screenings (Live in HD) performances, I wrote to our local theaters and asked if they would consider bringing these screenings (eight Saturday afternoons a year) to Clarksville. Not possible, they said, and not in our strategy. At $22 a head (Live in NYC it is $100-$150 a head), my friends and I are part of a CONVOY of Clarksvillians who regularly travel to Nashville where TWO large theaters are all but SOLD OUT for all of these shows. Of course, we take our dining and shopping dollars to Nashville too.

Before a city can call itself a “top spot” it has to be a “top spot.” Clarksville is nowhere near there. Given the length of time true and carefully considered redevelopment takes (10-20 years), it may get there, but I know I will be too old to enjoy it or will have moved on and out. Of course, slap-dash unchecked development comes faster but is far less appealing in the end. Slap-dash or development doesn’t merit the “top spot” designation.

When I think of the South I think of a certain charm and appeal, a certain culture and history that does not have to preclude progressive development but instead work hand in hand with it. The prior logo was much closer to that and had a certain warmth and a welcoming charm. The new logo lacks all of that and has no “connect” with what Clarksville is or aspires to be.

The only benefit to this new logo that I can see is the profit sign-making businesses will generate as they replace all the “Gateway” signs.