Make Kingsport Great Again: A Blueprint To a Better Future

Too many meth heads. Too many people dealing drugs. On top of that, we are building far too many multi-residential buildings which are government subsidized. Lynn Garden, which used to be just a normal community, has been over-run by drug users and their suppliers. Why is that? They have a subsidized housing project which is unbridled. In short, our resources are being stretched thin. Massive amounts of taxpayer money is being spent to support those who have no investment in our community and also have no incentive to work.

Kingsport used to be THE hub for retail and restaurants in the region. People came here to shop and eat. During the Christmas season, Fort Henry Mall’s plethora of shops hosted thousands of people per hour. Now FHM is host to Rural King. No offense to Rural King, but people aren’t streaming into Kingsport for a shopping mall with a farm supply store. We have squandered our large scale, retail potential.

Now, it isn’t all terrible. Downtown Kingsport has seen a resurgence in restaurant offerings. It is night and day better than it was thirty years ago when its small canyons were desolate. Maybe that is our way forward? Downtown Kingsport certainly has the “bones” to be great. We are certainly seeing innovation in that area of town. But we can’t have any more four year projects which close streets in front of flourishing businesses.

So, I am guessing that you want to know what I would do to fix this? Glad you asked.

1. Diversify our economy. First, let me state that I am thankful for the thousands of jobs which Eastman Chemical offers. I am concerned, though, that we have lost Kingsport Press, the glass plant, the foundry, and Wellmont. We have not replaced those jobs. We need to look at adding additional manufacturing and tech sector jobs. If it were me, I would court SpaceX, automotive companies, data storage companies, software giants, Amazon, drone production, etc. The founders of Kingsport thought big. We need to emulate them
2. We MUST build more neighborhoods for middle and upper class families. I am not talking just a neighborhood of 100-200 units. I am talking multiple developments of 300-400 units. Build them along the I-26 and I-81 corridors where those interstates offer fast and plentiful road infrastructure to handle that type of growth. In each of those neighborhoods, we need to have a small maintstreet which offers each community walkable (or short drive) access to eateries and shopping. Reference Bend, Oregon, and how they have built additions to their communities. Build those neighborhoods, and we will have the tax base to build great works.
3. I was talking to a city leader last year. He said that his employees didn’t live in Kingsport, and in fact, refused to live here. Why? Our community has lost its vibrancy. We need more festivals and gatherings for young people. In short, we have become boring – a retirement and bedroom community. That used to not be the case.
4. We MUST build more high-end apartments and condos. With residential housing being currently so expensive, many young people have no place to live here. If you look at Knoxville, TN, right now…they are building high end mulit-unit housing as fast as it can be built. Go look at Cumberland Avenue.
5. We MUST elect leaders who are forward thinking and don’t run our city like a retirement home. Harsh but true. If we are to take Kingsport into the future, we must elect thinkers, economists, planners, and visionaries. They don’t have to be the best speakers, but they must have a resume’ of creating growth.
6. Get the meth heads and drug dealers out of this city. If we have to close down subsidized housing complexes, then let’s do it. We can offer affordable housing to the tenants who don’t have a track record of criminal violations. The big concern right now is that Kingsport is not attracting talent. The bigger concern, however, is that conversely we are actually attracting hardened criminals who are creating sectors of town which police forces are afraid to enter. In a sense, those drug dealers are creating mini-Juarezs, places which are run by kingpins and not city government. It is time to take our city back.
7. Give the No-Kings protestors a protest spot in some remote corn field in Carters Valley. Nobody wants to live in a city with crazy Marxists. They don’t represent us, and they don’t represent democratic people.
8. Until I am blue in the face, I will continue to state that our capital project money for building new schools must be spent in future neighborhoods where we can attract professionals and their families. While I firmly believe that all children should have equal learning opportunities…if we don’t build our tax base with new professionals, we simply are going to run out of money to build new schools in other places which have little to no tax base. Use new schools to seed new neighborhoods like we did in Edinburgh -that is the model we should use. Build those neighborhoods along our interstates. How are we not leveraging the fact that our city sits along two massively important interstate systems?
9. Build a university with a STRONG online component. Make sure it has a strong liberal arts component. I should have a college for the arts. It should have computer programming and engineering campuses. If you wanted my opinion, I would start by placing it downtown in the vast parking lots along Sullivan Street. I want to see a college stadium/arena where people can eat downtown, and then walk to watch a soccer match, basketball game, baseball game, or football game. Universities bring young people into communities. They inherently force us to think outside the box. I am tired of our best students leaving, because they have no higher ed opportunities here. Build it, and they will come….seems to be an appropriate adage for this.
10. Make the Greenbelt like Central Park in NYC. And I think we are trying to do maybe that – good thing. Make it unique. Make it inviting. You can’t have drug dealers and mules using it to shuttle drugs across the city under the nose of authorities. Build beauty into its bones.
11. We can never, ever shut down our city again like we did during COVID – like never. It cost us so many jobs.
12. Make sure that we have a food supply of locally grown food. This world is a crazy place. We need to guard against famine just like Joseph did. We need to make sure that we protect farm land on the outskirts of the city which grows and cultivates food for our grocery stores. Many growing cities forget to do this.
13. Create urban spaces such as community gardens, small parks, and provide nature within the suburban and urban landscape.
14. Build transportation systems which can move people across our city. Closing Jared Drive was just dumb. We had no replacement for the loss of that artery. Our transportation systems need to be forward thinking. Roads will need to support both electric and combustion vehicles. In a perfect world, we would create rail systems as we begin to grow. Can you imagine rail which connected all of the TRI and then also connected us to Knoxville….people could commute from long distances.
15. We need schools which teach thinking and creativity along with a good foundation of skills which help access those higher levels of learning. Data driven school systems are not sought out by middle-upper class families. In order facilitate schools which value thinking, we need to encourage private schools to continue to move into our area. This will diversify our learning options and cultivate competition between various school systems. Our school systems need to attract the best educators from all over the country. Computer programming skills and physics have never been more important.
16. Leverage our natural resources. We have a beautiful river and mountains. We are close to great fishing and hunting opportunities. We are close to great biking, hiking, and camping options. People will move here just for those alone
17. A word of caution….Now, I am not saying we should become a people who seek just wordly possessions. We need Godly men and women to lead this resurgence. Democracy should be the rule, and marxism rejected at all turns. The pitfall which many growing communities have fallen into…they grow and then attract Leftists who upend the entire community once they move there. We don’t want to become Portland, Oregon, or Minneapolis, MN. We can grow and not embrace immorality. We must be a place where the rule of law is the norm, and grace is handed out when necessary.
18. We need a legit and well trafficked news channel. It can be legacy media or online. Both JC and Bristol have one. We used to have one. We need to market ourselves. We need a platform to generate and push content about Kingsport to the 250,000 people of TRI and beyond.
19. This one will be unpopular with some. I am not a huge fan of regionalism which places Kingsport second or third behind Bristol and Johnson City. Too often, these “partnerships” have led to jobs and services lost for the residents of Kingsport. I want Kingsport to become the leader in innovative economic and community growth. We used to be that. Let’s make Kingsport great again. In the great wisdom of Ricky Bobby, “If you ain’t first, you’re last.”
20. In order to accomplish 1-18, I would build and employee a panel of advisors who are the innovators and drivers of economic growth in our city. I certainly know a few. Want to be smart? Hire people smarter than yourself. Put them in a room, and listen. I talk to one or two of these folks every day. They know what to do. They know how to move us forward and consolidate our gains.

When I envision Kingsport in thirty years, I see tall buildings along I-81 and modern businesses along I-26. I see a modern city. I see downtown Kingsport continuing to become a gathering place for people. I see a cross section of society in its people. I see parks and festivals and thriving churches.

Some will scoff at this, and say it cannot be done. Those are the folks who we don’t need running this community, and we have way too many of those folks running things. Well, right now we are witnessing the opposite of proper city growth. We are witnessing the rapid degradation of our community. If we aren’t careful, we are going to become a rust belt community which is just a “has been” and relishes in glory days gone by.

But we have a choice. We can become visionaries who not only just survive but thrive. Or we can perish quietly into the history books. A city which had all the potential in the world when it formed, but couldn’t galvanize itself into something greater. Or…we could become a city set upon a hill.

We don’t have to go down the road to degradation. We can turn and become a great city. We need to encourage people to run for office who seek economic and real estate growth. We need to encourage people to run for office who can convince great minds, businesses, developers, and visionaries to invest in Kingsport.

Change is inevitable. Change for the better is a full time job. ~ Adeli Stephinson

Start by doing what’s necessary; then do what’s possible; and suddenly you are doing the impossible. ~ St Francis of Assisi

Light makes photography. Embrace light. Admire it. Love it. But above all, know light. Know it for all you are worth, and you will know the key to photography. ~ George Eastman