PanethosCan Nashville survive “The Austin Effect?”
Unbridled growth that overwhelms a city. That’s “The Austin Effect” in a nutshell. That same unbridled growth comes with serious consequences. Many of these were fully documented in the 2024 book Lost In Austin: The Evolution of An American City.
In short, overwhelming unchecked growth can lead to the wholesale loss and/or destruction of those special that make a city (Austin in this case) a desirable place to live in the first place. Among others, these include the cost of living; the laid-back atmosphere; the music scene; and the local, the historic architecture, and the homegrown places to shop and dine. Instead, Austin has become the poster child of homogenized development, gentrification, traffic, and living costs run amok.
NASHVILLE SKYLINE 2015 (top) VERSUS 2024 (bottom) – Source: reddit.com
Austin is certainly not the first example of this, but it is the most recent and among the best known. Today, in 2025, Nashville is experiencing similar exponential growth. Growth that threatens to overwhelm the city and destroy many of its similarly unique and special features. The music scene, the history, the handsome neighborhoods, the vibe, etc. One can hardly turn their head without hitting a construction crane. The skyline is literally filled with them. As one who had not been in Nashville for several decades, its was alarming to witness extent of new development going on there while visiting over several weeks this summer.
SAME NASHVILLE STREET FIVE YEARS APART – Source: instagram.com
Whether Nashville can escape “The Austin Effect” is unclear because so much has already changed. The city may already be past the point of no return.
- Driving around Nashville during day is cumbersome, if not impossible on the freeways. While visiting this summer, we routinely used the city surface streets instead and for the most part found them much more tolerable.
- The skyline of Nashville is so rapidly changing that if you blink, another skyscraper might popup in the interim. Some of these buildings are impressive. Others…run of the mill. No doubt, whoever is the tinted blue glass salesperson for Middle Tennessee is very very wealthy.
- Many neighborhoods in and around the heart of the city have already or are in the midst of rapidly changing and gentrifying. East Nashville, our personal favorite, is definitely in the crosshairs next with the new Titan’s stadium nearing completion and Oracle’s planned corporate headquarters campus on the east shore of the river. Its noteworthy that Oracle first moved its headquarters to Austin before quickly pulling up stakes for Nashville.
- The Nashville Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) grew by 86 people a day in 2023 and is expected to grow by another 28 percent between now and 2040 to well over 2.8 million.
- According to the Nashville-Davidson Planning Commission’s Affordable Housing Dashboard, rent burden has fluctuated anywhere between 43 percent and 52 percent since 2012. Given that 30 percent is the barometer for affordability, Nashville’s rent burden is quite high. Owner-occupied housing cost burdens have remained more affordable as they have varied between 19 and 27 percent over this same time period.
“Overall, Nashville’s cost of living is slightly above the national average by 4.7%, making it an appealing large U.S. city. Housing costs are almost exclusively the driver of these higher costs, which are 17.1% above the national average. Two other categories contributing to the higher cost of living are transportation (0.7% above the national average) and groceries (2% above the national average).”
Source: apartmentlist.com/renter-life/how-much-is-rent-in-nashville-tn
- The music scene seems strong when one walks the many honky-tonks along Lower Broadway, though it’s not clear if new acts and artists can afford to actually reside anywhere near the city. Also, these honky-tonks seem to becoming more celebrity sponsored and funded instead of organically homegrown independent venues. That in itself is a huge concern for a city whose identity is tied so closely to its music scene.
- Some artists are lamenting the loss of old Nashville. Hayley Williams in her upcoming new solo album includes the following lyrics within the track, “True Believer:”
“Tourists stumble down Broadway
Cumberland keeps claiming bodies
All our best memories
Were bought and then turned into apartments
The club with all the hardcore shows
Now just a greyscale Domino’s The churches overflow each Sunday greedy Sunday morning
I’m the one who still loves your ghost
I reanimate your bones
With my belief
I’m the one who still loves your ghost
I reanimate your bones
‘Cause I’m a true believer
The South will not rise again
Til it’s paid for every sin
Strange fruit, hard bargain
Till the roots, Southern Gotham“
Source: musixmatch.com
Meanwhile, back 2022, singer Tristen (Gaspadarek) decried the loss of independent music venues in the city. At a show shortly before the closure of the Mercy Lounge, she said the following:
“Growth is not always progress, money is not meaning, and amenities are not culture,” she says, as the crowd cheers. But we’re going to be alright – cause we’re just going to move out and out and out … and soon we’ll all be living in Alabama.”
Source: wpln.org
Granted, these are but a handful of observations and the winds of change are always fickle. That said, anyone visiting Nashville for the first time or for a renewed visit can hardly come away with any other impression than growth is rampant.
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