2020 was another big year for insanely overpriced and ugly infill homes in Nashville.  On November 29 I walked around Germantown, a formerly sort-of historic neighborhood northwest of the Tennessee State Capitol.  It has maybe two dozen surviving homes that are similar to German Village in Columbus.  Nothing at all like an entire surviving block, let alone a full neighborhood like...real cities. 

 

This is pretty much it.  Like, this house, and a few others scattered around a 7x7 block area. 

 

Overwhelmingly, the original houses looked like this:

 

And most of these have been replaced since 2010 by stuff that looks like this:

 

This area is also punctuated by very small public housing duplexes and 3-families that were built around 1970 on the site of single-family home tear-downs:

 

Okay so here is everything else I photographed during a 90-minute walk in no particular order...

 

 

 

 

 

 

Looks like a big single-family, right?

 

Nope, it's a secret side-by-side duplex, but each side is probably considered a single-family home by the city/county and banks:

 

 

 

 

This was an anomaly...not sure if a single developer built both buildings or what:

 

Three units...condos?  Apartments?  One of those triplexes we were told were going to go up like weeds in Minneapolis and save it from itself?

 

 

Two units? 

 

A holdout:

 

 

 

 

An actual music-related business:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I saw these weird connections a few times:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Meters plus janky sidewalk:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks. It’s not even 7am and I’ve used up all my WTFs for the day...

I don't think there is another city that tries as hard, but so consistently misses the mark on urbanism.  You can see the marketing for those townhouses- "Sophisticated urban living in the heart of the city.....yada, yada!"  But nearly all of them have at least something off.  The biggest thing is that the lot size is real awkward for townhouses- some of them wouldn't be so bad if they were on a Cleveland/Cincy/Columbus sized lot.

A neighborhood filled with junk-i-tecture. Its awful.

3 hours ago, roman totale XVII said:

Thanks. It’s not even 7am and I’ve used up all my WTFs for the day...

 

Imagine walking around these neighborhoods and getting your mind blown every 50 steps. 

 

I don't think I mentioned that 70-80% of the original homes have been torn down since 2010 in the Nashville neighborhoods where the new form-based code enabled this developer frenzy.  Scroll around The Nations or any number of other neighborhoods and the are almost zero 900 sq foot "starter" homes from 1940 remaining.  Nearby you'll see entirely intact neighborhoods of the same vintage where the zoning is not in effect and so teardowns are rare and they're never replaced by 2-4 houses. 

 

 

 

This is really awful. I went to Nashville last year and had a good time, but it felt like a city in transition, and one that was transitioning to this bland infill and electric scooter rubbish. There were still some cool neighborhoods and charming suburbs. I hope they will be able to hold on.

I can picture some of these kind of shots being used on signs at protests in places where people care. Like if this was going on in Clintonville or German Village for sure.

7 hours ago, X said:

The biggest thing is that the lot size is real awkward for townhouses- some of them wouldn't be so bad if they were on a Cleveland/Cincy/Columbus sized lot.

 

That was my exact thought going through. Some of the newer builds are interesting and I could imagine a cool neighborhood with a lot of similarly scaled townhomes. E.g., I kinda like the skinny colonials although they're set way back.

 

Does anyone know what the zoning laws are like in Nashville? I'm trying to imagine the zoning framework that allows a lot of this to exist in a city that has enough growth and economic prowess to be picky about what gets built.

10 minutes ago, LlamaLawyer said:

Does anyone know what the zoning laws are like in Nashville? I'm trying to imagine the zoning framework that allows a lot of this to exist in a city that has enough growth and economic prowess to be picky about what gets built.

 

Zero architectural board review or need for variances:

https://www.cvilletomorrow.org/articles/nashville-planner-on-form-based-zoning

 

The code was adopted in February 2010, at the bottom of the real estate crisis, and the ability to split lots and throw up as many as 4 homes where just one stood before ignited the near-complete leveling of the dozen or so neighborhoods where the code took effect.  Literally thousands of homes were razed between 2015 and 2020, all of them "starter" homes.  So Nashville today has basically zero "starter" homes remaining.  It's an affordability disaster.  

 

It also did nothing whatsoever to improve walkability since everyone still drives everywhere.     

 

As maddening as GV can be with its no no no to development, this is the reason the review boards exist.  

"Ohio is such a red state dump, I can't wait to move to a REAL place with CHARACTER like Nash-Vegas."

Can somebody explain the Nashville hype to me?  I really don't get it.

Edited December 3, 20204 yr by TH3BUDDHA

^ Somebody might, but it won’t be me. I know a young woman who is from Cleveland and is in the midst of moving there. She gushes about the place like it’s some kind of Shangri-la, yet can’t come up with anything more than “it’s great!” when pushed to be more specific. 

1 hour ago, Cbusflyer said:

As maddening as GV can be with its no no no to development, this is the reason the review boards exist.  

 

Exactly, because of places like we see in these pictures Columbus can't have nice things.

I...just...can't...

 

2 hours ago, TH3BUDDHA said:

Can somebody explain the Nashville hype to me?  I really don't get it.

 

The weak argument I hear about Nashville's popularity in attracting businesses is Tennessee's low taxes.  Well, the taxes aren't low, they're just different (high property tax and hotel taxes) and regressive (state sales tax at times acts like a VAT, i.e. taxing both the ingredients in restaurant food and the finished product).  And why aren't Memphis, Chattanooga, and Knoxville also booming since they're also in a state that endlessly advertises its lack of an income tax? 

 

 

 

 

 

3 hours ago, TH3BUDDHA said:

Can somebody explain the Nashville hype to me?  I really don't get it.

 

the only real explanation

 

Great photo tour. I visited Nashville pre-COVID and the absolute lunacy of the neighborhoods in the city drove me mad. I tried to find a historic neighborhood to check out, but evidentially there really are none besides Downtown. I do recall driving through a nice neighborhood with 1920s era craftsman type houses somewhere north of Downtown though. But besides that, the city has some of the craziest new developments I've ever seen. It's not even that the new developments are all bad, it's just that there is absolutely no uniformity. The haphazardness of it all makes it look like they just started slapping down giant modern townhouses in the middle of Bexley, West Virginia or something....

 

 

Also, what's with the hype over The Nations? I drove through it and it looked no different than your average meh Ohio neighborhood to me. There's just something so oddly unsettling about streets like this, but this is basically how all of Nashville looks now. Is it the architecture? The lack of sidewalks? The weird parking spaces in the front yards? The V-Shaped driveway?

Edited December 4, 20204 yr by Dblcut3

I go to Nashville a few times a year per work (in normal years). It has some redeeming qualities, like an identity. It’s not a phony city like Charlotte that doesn’t really know who it is and people really only move there for weather, detaching themselves from their Midwest roots or something else superficial.  I appreciate Nashville’s history with music, whiskey, and fun.  But you are correct, the transition has gone poorly.  First, they have done a very “south” job at meeting demand for basic services like hotel rooms and food. You want a hotel room, pony up $400 a night. You want a piece of hot chicken, be prepared to wait an hour. I think are some pretty areas south of downtown and I like East Nashville, I find the housing stock charming there.  I’m not into the downtown thing, just not like I’m not in Vegas or New Orleans either. So that’s certainly a dumb reason to move somewhere.  The weather is decent.

 

my overall assessment is I *would* live there, but it’s not uprooting my life to move there if I didn’t have to

The South used to have cheap motel rooms like Admiral Benbow or Red Carpet Inns. Charlotte was pulling a lot of people in the 2000s due to Bank of America but that didn't turn out as planned.

16 hours ago, Dblcut3 said:

Great photo tour. I visited Nashville pre-COVID and the absolute lunacy of the neighborhoods in the city drove me mad. I tried to find a historic neighborhood to check out, but evidentially there really are none besides Downtown. I do recall driving through a nice neighborhood with 1920s era craftsman type houses somewhere north of Downtown though. But besides that, the city has some of the craziest new developments I've ever seen. It's not even that the new developments are all bad, it's just that there is absolutely no uniformity. The haphazardness of it all makes it look like they just started slapping down giant modern townhouses in the middle of Bexley, West Virginia or something....

 

 

Also, what's with the hype over The Nations? I drove through it and it looked no different than your average meh Ohio neighborhood to me. There's just something so oddly unsettling about streets like this, but this is basically how all of Nashville looks now. Is it the architecture? The lack of sidewalks? The weird parking spaces in the front yards? The V-Shaped driveway?

 

Yeah, there seems to be little to no investment in neighborhood infrastructure even when basically all the homes have been replaced with new construction. 

On 12/2/2020 at 8:09 AM, X said:

I don't think there is another city that tries as hard, but so consistently misses the mark on urbanism.  You can see the marketing for those townhouses- "Sophisticated urban living in the heart of the city.....yada, yada!"  But nearly all of them have at least something off.  The biggest thing is that the lot size is real awkward for townhouses- some of them wouldn't be so bad if they were on a Cleveland/Cincy/Columbus sized lot.

 

So much of the architecture looks like something you might see near the beach in San Diego, but weirdly mixed with something out of Colorado with random Southern influences.  Putting aside that it really looks out of place in Tennessee, it's all made worse because there is just something not quite right about the designs themselves.  The mix of styles is bad enough, but then they are just poor versions of an already bad mix.  Then you combine it all with terrible infrastructure planning and it's just all hideously ugly.

On 12/2/2020 at 9:55 AM, jmecklenborg said:

 

Imagine walking around these neighborhoods and getting your mind blown every 50 steps. 

 

I don't think I mentioned that 70-80% of the original homes have been torn down since 2010 in the Nashville neighborhoods where the new form-based code enabled this developer frenzy.  Scroll around The Nations or any number of other neighborhoods and the are almost zero 900 sq foot "starter" homes from 1940 remaining.  Nearby you'll see entirely intact neighborhoods of the same vintage where the zoning is not in effect and so teardowns are rare and they're never replaced by 2-4 houses. 

 

 

 

 

I'm a big proponent of ending single-family zoning, but at the same time, I'm also a big fan of historic preservation.  There is a time and place for adding density to an existing neighborhood, but not at the expense of the existing neighborhood, if that makes sense.  An example would be the hotel project in German Village or the Giant Eagle site redevelopment in Schumacher Place.  There are no historic teardowns involved, they're mostly replacing parking lots, and especially with the hotel, respecting the surrounding architecture with their designs, regardless of what the NIMBYs think.  You have to find a balance between infill, density, design and historic preservation, and I think Nashville fails on every point.

33 minutes ago, jonoh81 said:

 

I'm a big proponent of ending single-family zoning, but at the same time, I'm also a big fan of historic preservation.  There is a time and place for adding density to an existing neighborhood, but not at the expense of the existing neighborhood, if that makes sense.  An example would be the hotel project in German Village or the Giant Eagle site redevelopment in Schumacher Place.  There are no historic teardowns involved, they're mostly replacing parking lots, and especially with the hotel, respecting the surrounding architecture with their designs, regardless of what the NIMBYs think.  You have to find a balance between infill, density, design and historic preservation, and I think Nashville fails on every point.

I am a fan of historic preservation too, but not strict historic preservation. I look at the South Park neighborhood in Dayton as a perfect example of this. It was a historic neighborhood that was built by NCR for their employees back in the day. The concept was directors lived on the same street as managers who lived by the factory workers. You have a very high density and there were a number of very large victorian houses next to more modest homes with a bunch of 2-3 room shotgun houses making up about 2/3 of the neighborhood. As gentrification hit the neighborhood, many of the Victorian and mroe mid-level homes still commanded demand, despite the neighborhood, but the vast amount of the shotgun houses were deteriorated and blighted and were mostly obsolete to what the market demanded. There was a demand to fix some of them up at which case a certain number should have been preserved, but many others should have been cleared to allow newer homes built to the same neighborhood character to be built. This would have helped the neighborhood much better I believe and provide a product that people want today while at the same time, encouraging continued investment in the historical properties in the area. I think the neighborhood could achieve so much more if there could be allowed selective demolition and redevelopment without disturbing the character and charm of the neighborhood.

1 hour ago, jonoh81 said:

 

Yeah, there seems to be little to no investment in neighborhood infrastructure even when basically all the homes have been replaced with new construction. 

 

It' hard to believe but they haven't buried the power lines in some of downtown Nashville, let alone these neighborhoods.  Many streets in the newly densified neighborhoods don't have curbs or sidewalks and the power lines and telephone placements are crazy.  There are still power lines in much of Cincinnati's historic neighborhoods but they never look as bad as these.