Festival Lights in the Scruffy City

Abstract

Festival Lights in the Scruffy City J.A. Cooper The cover photo of issue 61.3 shows the relaxing, enticing patio space of Balter Beerworks in the urban center of Knoxville, Tennessee. The "Scruffy City" in the eastern part of the state has seen the rapid redevelopment of its downtown in the twenty-first century (Markley and Sharma 2016), and, as is common with such a process, a substantial and robust yet gentrifying local economy has taken root. Pictured here, Balter Beerworks is but one of the many establishments that have participated in the remaking of place and reconstruction of local identity in downtown Knoxville (Purcell and Moore 2019). Food and beverage tourism is a key component of these consumptive placemaking tourism processes (Sims 2009). Through these "tastescapes" (Su and Zhang 2020), tourists can seek relaxation and fun in an extra-ordinary atmosphere. Prominently pictured is an ornamental accompaniment to this festive urban space that has swiftly risen in popularity across the United States in the 2010s: decorative string lights. These lights make visually pleasing backdrops in venues such as city centers, breweries, ballparks, music halls, and weddings, and they also serve the practical function of lighting gathering spaces. While multiple lighting systems could accomplish the latter task, this variety of string lights has managed to emerge in spaces of frivolity nationwide. These string lights are not, however, passive additions to a space's décor but are rather active, material placemaking agents through the work they do to enhance a space's "enjoyableness." The Seattle Times (Dixon 2020) promoted these "stylish" decorations for "ambient lighting" in a subliminal recognition of how these artifacts of material culture proliferate the placemaking process (Gilbert et al. 2019). These lights work with an innocuous material banality (Mullins and Jeffries 2012) to illuminate a space often without its occupants consciously recognizing the subtle processes at work. Lighting can both transform space and inform our sense of place in "complex and multiple" ways (Edensor 2015, 331). The use of lights in urban and tourism spaces works in similarly subtle ways to create an atmosphere of festivity (Giordano and Ong 2017). These festival lights brightly signal a space of extra-normal fun and a getaway from the ordinary and routine where tourists can "relax, enjoy [themselves], and rejuvenate" (Rodríguez-Campo et al. 2020, 230). Across Knoxville, the South, and the United States alike, public and private entities are beautifying spaces with festival lights to entice tourists. However, we should critically consider the work that these festival lights do. The construction of new urban tourism spaces can easily be a contested process (Stors 2020). [End Page 197] Often in urban development and renewal, tourism plays a key role in culturally, economically, and socially defining space (Murayama and Parker 2007) in gentrifying ways that lead "to an appropriation or invasion of social space," often by white people (Smith 2007, 3). This cultural and property gentrification occurs when white people move to occupy areas traditionally inhabited and frequented by people of color in ways that "[raise] prices and [increase] real estate taxes" (hooks 2019, 75). Gentrification, especially in cities' downtowns, is reflected and proliferated through physical alterations to the landscape. Hipster establishments do this by engaging in a performance of authenticity by using décor such as festival lights to attract customers and tourists with an aura of uniqueness (Lovell and Bull 2018). Festival lights literally frame these cool, different, and post-able landscapes for tourists' social media performance of their authentic individuality (Smith 2018). When young, white tourists consume these experiences in spaces of urban redevelopment, they accelerate the pressures of gentrification (Cocola-Gant 2018). Knoxville has certainly seen gentrification in its downtown (Markley and Sharma 2016), and Balter Beerworks and similar local institutions have been active participants in this process. So, while festival lights do work to beautify and create tourism spaces of extra-normal fun, they also can be used in uneven ways that perpetuate gentrification in cities. These string lights have become active participants in illuminating authentic, festive tourism spaces for some while diminishing the prospects of stability and vitality for others. [End Page 198] J.A. Cooper University of Tennessee, Knoxville references cited...