Ten years ago when I arrived in Nashville, there were no party buses, no electric scooters and no Major League Soccer team. The New Year’s Eve bash was still held on Broadway. The city’s population then was smaller than Memphis.
The prior year, The New York Times labeled Nashville an “it” city. Nashville was taking off as a major municipality and today it is one of the most dynamic cities in America along with the region around it, but that growth and change have come at a cost, mainly an affordability crisis.
That is why it is significant that Metro Nashville-Davidson County Government and Vanderbilt University formed an innovation alliance this year.
Citizens might ask, how does the Nashville Innovation Alliance affect their day-to-day and quality of life? Is this just an academic exercise or will it translate to real gains for every-day Nashvillians?
At its core, this alliance is about ensuring that Nashville stays healthy, growing and competitive and can also live up to elected leaders’ promises of making prosperity accessible to more than just wealthy residents and investors.
This alliance involves commitments from the top. Mayor Freddie O’Connell and Chancellor Daniel Diermeier have put their word and reputations behind this effort and have opened themselves up to public accountability, which means this initiative will receive support, resources and commitment.
'Inclusive prosperity' is about ensuring that Nashville’s boom isn’t limited to only wealthy people
For years, I have written about and advocated for Nashville to adopt an “inclusive prosperity” approach to its policies because too many people have fallen behind economically as the city boomed and the cost of housing skyrocketed over the last decade.
Let’s review some of the data comparing 2014 to 2024:
- The population grew from 670,102 to 712,334 – up 6.3%
- The average cost of a single-family home was $204,000 compared to $506,750 today – up 148%
- The average monthly rent was $1,080 compared to $2,295 today – up 113%
- Median income grew from $48,195 to $71,767 – up 36%
(Sources for Data: Wall Street Journal), Forbes, Greater Nashville Realtors, RentJungle, U.S. Census, Federal Reserve of St. Louis)
This Nashville Innovation Alliance is about ensuring that Nashville’s momentum continues and remains attractive to residents, visitors and businesses while avoiding the declines of municipalities including the Rust Belt or San Francisco due to economic factors, the exodus of people and big companies or pandemics.
Nashville's prosperity depends oncreating inclusive, accessible and affordable housing
At the Nashville Innovation Alliance Innovation Ecosystem Forum on July 29 at the Conrad Hotel in the Midtown neighborhood, Diermeier and O’Connell spoke on a panel led by famed academic and urbanologist Richard Florida, who was hired by Vanderbilt this year as a visiting professor.
In 2017, I interviewed Florida for a housing series related to his book “The New Urban Crisis” and he wrote extensively about “inclusive prosperity” being key to creating sustainable, healthy cities.
These three drivers are key to ensure the success of 'innovation cities'
Post-COVID pandemic, several cities continue to struggle, but Nashville’s downtown was named the fastest to recover, according to a 2023 report presented at the International Downtown Association’s conference.
During his opening remarks at the July 29 forum, Diermeier identified “three drivers of success” for innovative cities: Local lifestyle, partnerships with elected officials, and innovation clusters that usually involve collaboration with a research university.
After the forum, I had the opportunity to interview the mayor and chancellor. We discussed the purpose of the alliance and also delved into the topics of urgency, creating an innovation mindset, connecting people to each other and making this initiative inclusive.
Diermeier asserted that “innovation needs to be inclusive" and O’Connell added that the alliance “isn't just a purely academic and municipal exercise; it’s going beyond that.”
Check out our Q&A below, edited for clarity and length.
Vanderbilt chancellor and Nashville mayor explain the purpose of the alliance
Plazas: One thing that you both had mentioned is the issue of urgency. And the question is, what are your ideas or thoughts of how do you create that urgency? What is needed right now to make that happen?
Mayor Freddie O’Connell:
Even going back to when I was on Metro Council, we could see as Chancellor Diermeier arrived, some things that Vanderbilt was doing to account for some of the challenges that the city is facing with their campus community. They wound up being housing and transportation-related but also changes to curriculum. And I think for us, that's why this partnership makes a lot of sense. Vanderbilt's been demonstrating leadership on some of these fronts for a while, but I think of it as there is a clock ticking on the East Bank.
We also have this kind of extraordinary opportunity with transportation and infrastructure that also has a clock ticking on it. We've had some time pressure for the Catalyst Fund. So there's, there's kind of, there are some natural time clocks happening with a lot of the challenges we're facing that are helpful for urgency from the city's perspective.
Then, I think too about this unique moment in time with where some of our technology-based economy is beyond just healthcare and how we can think about that from workforce development, but going way earlier than that – some of the early childhood initiatives that are in play successes in K-12, how this connects to a multi-college and university scenario, the way that we've embraced Nashville State, I think in a way that has not really been the case previously. And then having a major research institution as partner here. I think all of those things contribute to urgency.
Chancellor Daniel Diermeier:
So, I look at this also from a kind of competitive point of view. So, one thing that that has been to me influential was Daniel Doctoroff of who I know from when I was (at the University) of Chicago was the vice mayor of New York and at Bloomberg. He said, “You know, cities are living things and, and either you're growing or you're declining. And what you do as a city is you compete for people, for capital and for visitors.”
And right now we have a lot going for us. And in part that's because of all the work that has been happening here. But I think it's also true because traditional centers of innovation are in crisis.
But this can change very quickly. I mean, one way to think about this is, in 2019, San Francisco arguably was the most exciting city on the planet or one of the most exciting cities on the planet. And, a few years later, it's in a deep crisis. So, my sense is when you have a lot of momentum, when things are exciting, when the fundamentals are right, when the willingness is there, you’ve got to strike when the iron is hot. And you can't just assume that things are just going to continue positively like they have before.
We have so much going for us, but we need to take these different components, bring them together and create something special. And I think that life doesn't always present you with opportunities. We have one right now and so we need to take full advantage of it.
Plazas: How do you create an innovation mindset, especially at a time when people feel anxious about the housing situation, which you and I have talked about quite a bit, Mr. Mayor. How do you think you can effectively do that to a citizenry that is looking for guidance from institutions like Vanderbilt or the city?
Mayor Freddie O’Connell:
I think sometimes there is a way in which innovation still happens at smaller scales. I have been really impressed by some of what I've seen with the Nashville Black Market, for instance, and the Nashville Black Art Market. They've each charted their own paths, but one of the founders of that was actually on a recent chamber leadership study mission to Phoenix. And it's so interesting to see when their ecosystem is set up, you've got a lot of people that have taken advantage of technology and can accept payments in a whole bunch of different ways. And so they've managed to really drive down that cost of going to market and so that they can take something, figure out what scales and do it, in an environment where we partner with them with things like the Nashville Farmer's Market access and then they can still do popups. But it's a place where the city has actually facilitated a little bit of a platform for that.
I know Vanderbilt has worked quite intentionally over the past few years to improve on the other end how research-based academic-oriented innovation actually reaches market and specifically might have a way to stay in Nashville. So that you've heard Chancellor Diermeier speak to some of the statistics that they've had historically, but I think there's a mutual interest in bending that curve so that graduates, students, faculty, all feel like those ideas may actually find purchase here in the city.
Plazas: What are some of the techniques that you've found that help drive those conversations forward on cross pollination and connection?
Chancellor Daniel Diermeier:
I think that one thing that we have really going for us is that this is a community attracts people who want to bring their dream. And whether that dream is to be a great musician, to be part of a band or whether you want to have start in a restaurant or a new food truck or something like that. So there is, I think, a great spirit of coming here because you want to follow your dream already.
I think that the thing for us is just to do more and to connect the pieces that we already have in place to, if you will, increase the connective tissue. And for us, this was really crucial. So one example we've talked about and the mayor has talked about is that we want to be a partner with the city on finding solutions to some of these pressing problems.
We have world class experts on transportation. Hey, can we work on that? We have students that are very creative, that love to work on these type of projects. How can we leverage that in order to have a positive impact on our community? So, I think we have a lot of ingredients already. We have the mindset, it's really intentionally thinking about how do we have more connections, how we create institutions, how we create ways for people that can find ways to interact more intentionally so that these unexpected connections can occur.
So I don't think there's anything systemic that we're missing here. It's more like, let's do more, let's be bolder, let's be more imaginative, and let's create more opportunities for people to do great things together.
Plazas: How can we include people who may not feel that they know how to enter these spaces?
Mayor Freddie O’Connell:
I think we have certainly seen the pressure of growth impacting Nashville, but we've also seen that spirit of collaboration operating at different scales. And so organizations like Corner to Corner are here specifically trying to help people come into this. And it, it may not be the same kind of person who is showing up at the Entrepreneur Center. But this is really about, hey, you know, my mom had a killer recipe, I want to expose it to more people and there may be a pathway for real growth out here. And I think that kind of thing, just letting people experiment, finding maybe a second source of income and looking for flexibility where a lot of people can pool resources so that maybe no individual person is having the entire cost of doing business put on just their shoulders.
I think you've got right now this really interesting moment in Nashville where the ingredients are in that room and lots of other rooms, if you find the right connectors, and this is what's been so interesting about working with Dr. (Isaac) Addae, is there may be levels of exposure that we can be very intentional about. And I think that's in some ways the, the purpose of this alliance and why it isn't just a purely academic and municipal exercise; it’s going beyond that.
Editor’s note: Isaac Addae is the Nashville Mayor’s Office manager of entrepreneurship and economic development
Chancellor Daniel Diermeier:
Let me add a couple of things to that. I love it that we have a focus here on, I'm going to call innovation criteria at all levels. It’s about somebody that has an idea for a new retail outlet or a new service or a new restaurant or something like that, which we are supporting that as well. So, I would call it like innovation or creativity at all scale.
And then the second thing, I know the mayor has been very focused on it and I think it's really important is that innovation needs to be inclusive. And I think that’s something that you can learn from other communities that has not always been the case.
And to be intentional about that – to think about how do we make sure that the people who have been here for a long time and with different skills and different backgrounds can participate in that – is really important. And there I think we have to be thoughtful because that doesn't always happen by itself and we have to make sure that we remove barriers for people to participate so that they have an opportunity to participate in the development of the city, and that the whole community benefits.
David Plazas is the director of opinion and engagement for the USA TODAY Network Tennessee. He isan editorial board member of The Tennessean. He hosts theTennessee Voices videocastand curates theTennessee VoicesandLatino Tennessee Voicesnewsletters. Call him at (615) 259-8063, email him atdplazas@tennessean.comor find him on X at@davidplazas.
