Developing Nashville
Christine Buttorf reports on an effort by the Bells Bend community to stop a planned development which would create a shadow downtown over the next 20 years in what could be considered the only rural portion left of Davidson County.
The community commissioned the plan which thinks the May family proposal is overly optimistic in their "if you build it, they will come" mentality towards attracting major industries to the area.
Personally, I like the idea of the proposed May Town Center on the surface, though the devil would be in the details. Would public financing be required? Could they secure businesses in advance? Would traffic be managed properly? I think all of these questions should be answered before a plan like this goes forward.
However, one argument in opposition to the proposal which I don't really think carriers much water, is the idea that Bells Bend should remain more rural in feel, as the last major area of undeveloped land in the county. I know some people think the rural way of life is great, and that is fine, but there are about 90 other counties in the state which offer a plethora of unused, rural land that would suit their needs just fine.
If we can't build up in Nashville because we want to save the asthetic of lower broad, and we can't build out because we want to preserve the community feel of certain areas of the county, we are just going to continue to lose new businesses and workers to outer lying areas, or other major cities in the Southeast.
Progress doesn't come without a price unfortunately, and while some would be put out by this proposed town center, it could lead to many new job opportunities for both outsiders moving in, as well as the chronicly unemployed in Northeast portions of Nashville. At the very least, the proposal should be diligently investigated and considered with an eye towards the future.
(h/t Enclave)
8 comments:
The only thing I don't get is how will people get to and from this thing? Otherwise, yeah, I agree with you that we need to make some choices about where growth is going to go. Does it go downtown and, if so, where? Does it go out in Bell's Bend and, if so, what are the implications of that? And if we don't grow, what happens?
I, myself, am confused by why there's not more development south of Broadway. Is the swinger's club really so popular that we can't put a high rise there?
we are just going to continue to lose new businesses and workers to outer lying areas, or other major cities in the Southeast.
I don't have a problem with that. Bigger isn't better. I liked the small-town feel of Nashville and I don't like seeing us become Atlanta in look and feel.
Well, to me, that's why we need to plan for growth and make sure that it happens in a way that's not Atlanta2.0.
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May Town feels very Atlanta 2.0 to me, in which May Town is to Downtown Nashville as the skyscrapers of Buckhead are to Downtown/Midtown Atlanta. In other words, nooooooooooo! I'd much rather continue to grow out from downtown in an organic fashion.
Think carefully, folks. What is the best possible use for this land? Sean is right, we've got plenty of rural land in Tennessee. Nashville also has a wonderful park system, accessible by mass transit, so if trees are Green, so is Nashville.
I agree that bigger is not always better, and government should guide growth rather than accelerate it, but let's accept Nashville's growth as inevitable.
A secondary urban center actually makes a great deal of sense. It will be possible to build a second, third, etc. urban focal point anywhere in the county,(at some political price), as urban living becomes the norm in the future.
When we go to build the city of the future, let's build it at Bell's Bend because any other location will be too small, or displace too many neighborhoods, which are like creatures in their own right, and should have some rights.
And let's not build it next year, or the year after. The whole city needs to brainstorm, research, and discuss this great venture for a decade. This is an incredibly great opportunity to create an urban center that is not a "mega walled community" or a "mall that you live in", but a whole new downtown that is accessible to everyone.
I'm not a good Green. They're agin' it.
we've got plenty of rural land in Tennessee.
"Don't it always seem to go
"That you don't know what you got till it's gone
"They paved paradise and put up a parkin' lot..."
The point isn't how much rural space is in Tennessee (and I'd argue that we're losing rural space rapidly, look at all the one-time farmland that is now Rivergate Mall, Cool Springs, and the towns of Brentwood and Bellevue).
The point is to have green space accessible to a major urban area. Green space is what makes a city "liveable." I say leave it green.
Am I the only one who remembers when Metro Center was going to be the "second downtown"? That sure ended up a disaster. It didn't work in MetroCenter and it's not going to work at Bell's Bend.
The MetroCenter analogy is spot on. Surrounded by neighborhoods that make big, out of town businesses nervous. CHECK. One way in, one way out. CHECK. "If you build it, they will come" mentality totally divorced from reality. CHECK.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not anti growth. Not at all. But I am anti cockemaney, contrived ideas.
The Mays and Tony G are, quite frankly, delusional.
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