Nashville adopted form-based code several years ago and is letting developers go nuts with tear-downs.  Dilapidated shacks throughout bad parts of the city now sell for $300k and are replaced by a pair or even four $400k+ houses.  Meanwhile a dozen apartment, condo, and hotel towers are going up in and around downtown.  Unfortunately, no upgrades to public transportation and no rail other than the pathetic Music City Star commuter line, which has a daily ridership of under 1,000. 

 

 

Directly across the street from the above photo...you can't afford this vacant building or any of the shacks visible in the background:

 

Same intersection, different direction:

 

 

This is probably $600-700k:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Very rare Ohio-type 19th century house:

 

 

Ohio on the left, the South on the right:

 

 

 

On the edge of the SoBro area...a wasteland of light industry that was the entire extent of the city prior to the Civil War.  No doubt there were some nice homes in this area that were demolished in the 1900s to make way for all of these brick garages and small warehouses. 

 

This derelict building is probably worth several million:

 

 

Approaching downtown...Broadway travels left to right in the dip you can see here.  The whole grid seems to have been oriented to this dip, which met the river at an easier grade than anywhere else in the area.  The original downtown is all located in the distance, on the north side of Broadway, but all of the post-2000 growth has been south of Broadway:

 

Looking toward The Gulch from SoBro...a new viaduct is under construction that will sort-of link these two areas.  Right now they're separated by a railroad yard. 

 

 

 

New, gigantic convention center:

 

You can't afford one of these apartments -- probably $3-4k/mo to live in this dump:

 

 

 

 

 

This cheap Hampton Inn went up first in this area, about five years ago, when land wasn't $500 sq/foot:

 

 

 

 

Schimerhorn Symphony Hall is in the middle...it was finished around 2006 or 2007 and was the only thing in the area for several years.  The other towers are all post-2010:

 

This was made into a pedestrian bridge around 2005~:

 

Totally empty circulator bus even as 60,000 leave the stadium...Nashville really, really hates public transportation.  Only half the ridership that Cincinnati gets.

 

Probably the most valuable surface parking lot in the South outside Atlanta, maybe:

 

 

 

New condo tower...the thing at right that looks like an old building being incorporated into the new is actually all new.  So it's a fake facadectomy:

 

Cincinnati's Bakersfield is here:

 

Another view of the fake renovated building:

 

View of the fake facade under construction:

 

 

 

 

 

This bland arch bridge was built around 2008 and leads to a widened street through the area called Korean Veterans Drive, or something like that:

 

One of the few single-family homes to be seen anywhere close to the downtown:

 

Probably the most interesting feature of the city's interstate highways system is this arch:

 

Tiny houses for sale in yupster neighborhood...priced between $80-100k:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Meanwhile...out in the boondocks...here is the gravel road where my parents live.  My dad got a house on 80 acres on both sides of this road + some farm equipment for dirt-cheap at the bottom of the recession...probably for less than what a 1-bedroom condo goes for in and around DT Nashville these days. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Interesting pics, thanks for sharing! I was in Nashville recently and while there were cool areas and interesting things to see, overall it just wasn't my kind of city. Areas like The Gulch next to downtown are nothing but brand new infill and tons of new glass apartment towers. Housing prices were astronomical. While I'm jealous of the amount of new construction they have going on, it kind of reminded me of Charlotte NC in that it all feels kind of soulless. Not much in the way of any "historic" fabric left in those areas.

 

 

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I was in Nashville earlier this year with a weekend trip with my girlfriend and I also visited in 2008 with a buddy when we were driving back from Alabama.

 

It really has boomed with new construction between those 8 years, the area we were was on the other side of the interstate from downtown, looking at a map it is called Music Row area.

 

It was mostly all auto dealerships with a hotel there in 2008, now they are building apartments all over there.  The hotel was $125 or so in 2008 and when I looked at the same hotel last time it was $260 or so, just crazy.  I'm pretty certain they are building a skyhouse in that neighborhood.

 

I would love to see that type of development in Ohio, but I much prefer Cincinnati.  Plus I really do not enjoy country music that much at all, but my girlfriend does, so we did have a good time. 

 

My mom lived in Alabama for quite a few years about 2 hours south of Nashville.  Nashville is very southern once you get out of the immediate downtown area.  Just a different overall feel in the south compared to our more northern areas.  Though Nashville is booming it doesn't feel like a big metropolis or even close to as big as Cincinnati, though it is a bit livelier obviously as a huge area for bachelorette parties and the like.  I came away thinking Cincinnati could keep building on it's assets and have an entertainment district similar to Nashville and pull some of that larger diameter area tourism, because the city is much more interesting.  Maybe if p-funk music made a bigger comeback and some new music came out of Cincinnati, we could play off that heritage.  But for some unknown reason, country music is the hottest thing on earth.

 

It's funny since I am from Iowa and though not really a country boy by any stretch, I've spent many hours working on farms with horses and pigs, etc.  I think so much of country music is so cheesy and appeals to people who wish they were more country folk but they've lived in a larger metropolis their whole life and don't realize the lyrics to a lot of these country songs is so cheesy.  Most farm people in Iowa and the upper midwest listen to hard rock or 80's rock, though country still proves pretty popular in the bigger metros.  I do like the Chris Stapleton and Jason Isbell types, who have some soul to the music, but the rest of the contemporary country is just crap IMO and I can't stand listening to it

Interesting pics, thanks for sharing! I was in Nashville recently and while there were cool areas and interesting things to see, overall it just wasn't my kind of city. Areas like The Gulch next to downtown are nothing but brand new infill and tons of new glass apartment towers. Housing prices were astronomical. While I'm jealous of the amount of new construction they have going on, it kind of reminded me of Charlotte NC in that it all feels kind of soulless. Not much in the way of any "historic" fabric left in those areas.

 

 

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I too was in Nashville recently and totally agree with this comment. It was kinda cool for a couple of nights, but pretty superficial. I've no real desire to go back.

Thank you for the pics, it pretty much confirms my thoughts on the city. I don't understand the desire for Nashville at all but to each their own. My favorite pictures were of your parents farm. Such a beautiful natural landscape Tennessee has.

 

I don't understand the tiny house craze either, at least in urban areas.

That has to be the most expensive rents/real estate values for any city in the U.S. with little to no rail transit.

Hm, it's weird because I hear SO much good stuff about Nashville, but all the photos I've seen of it make it look pretty bland and uninspired.  I have a friend who just moved there, so hopefully I'll be able to get down and check it out in person sometime soon.  I'm not into country music at all, and I generally find Tennessee kind of...trashy/hillbilly which isn't my style.  I've heard there have been a ton of industry types moving to Nashville from LA and New York, which definitely seems to be affecting not only real estate values but the types of new construction the city is seeing, too. Are there any cool, bungalow style neighborhoods in Nashville? I heard the area by Vandy is pretty charming.

Hm, it's weird because I hear SO much good stuff about Nashville, but all the photos I've seen of it make it look pretty bland and uninspired.  I have a friend who just moved there, so hopefully I'll be able to get down and check it out in person sometime soon.  I'm not into country music at all, and I generally find Tennessee kind of...trashy/hillbilly which isn't my style.  I've heard there have been a ton of industry types moving to Nashville from LA and New York, which definitely seems to be affecting not only real estate values but the types of new construction the city is seeing, too. Are there any cool, bungalow style neighborhoods in Nashville? I heard the area by Vandy is pretty charming.

 

I lived there a while back and visit about every 2 years.  Because the city was so small before the 1960s, there is very little in the ways of pre-war housing neighborhoods. Not a very walkable city. The development is coming at a fast pace and density is increasing in the area between downtown and Vanderbilt. That said, it lacks character. Not much thought is given to streetscapes and sidewalks.

The newcomers are completely overrunning former black neighborhoods.  This is where you'll find all of the shotgun homes and bungalows that the house shows turn into yuppie palaces in 30 minutes.  The public housing isn't budging, obviously, but (white) people from California and elsewhere aren't hesitating to buy $500k houses directly across from 1960s barracks-style public housing complexes.  So on one hand, I suppose it's a good thing that a lot of white people aren't afraid to live in close proximity to minority public housing, but on the other hand, the explosion in property values is of no benefit to the poor whatsoever. 

 

That land my dad bought in 2009 or 2010 is a full 50 miles from downtown, so it's way out there.  Every few minutes there will be absolute silence for about 30 seconds, but then some sort of machinery, gunfire, or dog barking ruins it.  A single passing truck is a 2-minute episode.  You have to go WAY further out, like, to Montana or thereabouts, to get to a place that is truly silent.  One thing that is new is that with the popularity of gravel bike racing, bicycle clubs are now coming out to that area to train.  There is a network of gravel roads out there that is pretty extensive...you can definitely go 10 miles without hitting pavement.  Plus, there often aren't bridges, so you gonk right through creeks or there's this weird thing where they build a concrete pad in the creek so that you drive through the creek but on concrete at the same time. 

 

The Koch Bros mounted a campaign and defeated the AMP BRT plan last year, so for the moment, there is nothing going on with public transportation construction-wise, but there is talk that a tax will be placed on the ballot for light rail and vastly increased bus coverage.  But light rail is going to be a mess because I don't see how they're going to do it without widening various arterials to enable dedicated lanes. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

That land my dad bought in 2009 or 2010 is a full 50 miles from downtown, so it's way out there.  Every few minutes there will be absolute silence for about 30 seconds, but then some sort of machinery, gunfire, or dog barking ruins it.  A single passing truck is a 2-minute episode.  You have to go WAY further out, like, to Montana or thereabouts, to get to a place that is truly silent. 

 

 

HARLEYS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! All rural areas teem with HARLEYS!

Oh and those shows where the yuppies take over a shotgun house in a black neighborhood... the yuppies will sink $35K into the kitchen, then proceed to eat every meal out. That kitchen had thousands of meals cooked in it when it was modest, yet now that the kitchen is worth more than the whole house and land were worth in 2003 it will only be used to have people over for a drink.

Oh and those shows where the yuppies take over a shotgun house in a black neighborhood... the yuppies will sink $35K into the kitchen, then proceed to eat every meal out. That kitchen had thousands of meals cooked in it when it was modest, yet now that the kitchen is worth more than the whole house and land were worth in 2003 it will only be used to have people over for a drink.

 

It's amazing how none of this stuff mattered until those cable shows all appeared. 

 

Also, a lot of those shows were shot in the South.  That's partly because production is way cheaper in the south than it is in California or the Northeast -- many of the low-level cable shows (true crime stories, house shows, angry women shows like Snapped) everyone is familiar with are actually produced in Knoxville, TN.  My brother works for a company there that does a ton of shows for the Oprah channel, Discovery, Spike, etc.  So that's why the southern shotgun and bungalows became trendy -- it's simply where so many of those shows were shot.  I moved back to the north right before all those shows hit, and I don't recall anyone giving a damn about those houses when I was there.  People rented them and we had parties but they were just cheap little houses with no basement.  Now people fight over them.   

People started caring because nearly every kitchens built from WWII to around 1990 was a pile of cheap crap with the occasional nice appliance early on. Culture shifted to the kitchen being a space for everyone, not just the heteronormative housewife and was better connected to the living spaces. This meant people wanted them to look nicer since they were more critical to more parts of life. It wasn't because of cable TV.

I guarantee if I have a crap fridge that has a poster of The Boz on it people will remember my kitchen more than someone with a $3000 fridge.

And? Some people want their spaces and the things in them to be designed and thought about instead of slapped together with cheap crap from Home Depot.

Nashville's downtown is quite urban and street-widths are generally small.  I think the recent boom in Nashville mirrors that of Austin and Raleigh, except Nashville is more interesting urban-wise than those two other capitals IMO.

Nashville's downtown is quite urban and street-widths are generally small.  I think the recent boom in Nashville mirrors that of Austin and Raleigh, except Nashville is more interesting urban-wise than those two other capitals IMO.

 

The really weird thing about DT Nashville is that because the "avenues" are all so narrow -- typically just 50 feet between property lines as opposed to 63 feet in Cincinnati -- it gives the impression that Broadway is much wider than it is.  Nashville's Broadway is only 100 feet between property lines whereas Cincinnati's Central Parkway is 150~ feet.  They *could* squeeze light rail in a center reservation onto Broadway, but you really want at least 110 feet to do that.  Plus, the only "wide" street doesn't cross the Cumberland River and really couldn't without doing a lift bridge.  So much of the congestion in Nashville is caused by the way that so few of the arterials travel logically into an across the downtown, but not in a charming way that creates interesting intersections.  Rather, it just sucks. 

 

I also forgot to mention in a previous post that it has been repeatedly studied and there is no way to economically do a subway in Nashville because the city sits on a strange geologic feature known as the "Nashville Dome".  This means the ground you walk on is at most 10 feet above super-hard bedrock, so if they want to do a tunnel they have to dynamite it.  Supposedly no existing TBM can penetrate the rock economically.  Plus, they'd have to dig pretty deep under Broadway in order to also pass under the river, so 1-2 downtown stations would be very deep, which ads to the expense of their construction.