What cities are "peers" of Nashville?

[Justiceham]

Charlotte and Austin for sure. Louisville is too small to be considered a peer city, but there are similarities in the layout of the cities with heavy influence on manufacturing and five lane highways. Indianapolis and Columbus come to mind as well, although they are larger rustbelt cities. Portland, Cincinnati, and Pittsburgh are incredibly more urban in their cores than Nashville. 

[UTgrad09]

Charlotte and Austin for sure. Louisville is too small to be considered a peer city, but there are similarities in the layout of the cities with heavy influence on manufacturing and five lane highways. Indianapolis and Columbus come to mind as well, although they are larger rustbelt cities. Portland, Cincinnati, and Pittsburgh are incredibly more urban in their cores than Nashville.

 

How is Louisville too small? Louisville has a bigger urban core than we do (as it was a considerably larger city at the turn of the century). If Louisville is not a peer city to Nashville because it is too small, then Charlotte is arguably not a peer city because it is too large. We are almost exactly between Louisville and Charlotte in terms of population.

 

Aside from that, Louisville is a geographic peer (like Memphis and Birmingham). While I like to look up at the cities that are ahead of us, I don't think we should be discounting cities that are smaller than us as not being peers. Peers can be of similar city size, culture, development patterns, growth rate, geographic location, or status.

As I laid out in post 3, I think there are a handful of larger peer cities, and a handful of smaller peer cities.

You could also make an argument that Knoxville and Chattanooga are peer cities on some level because of a similar culture and the sharing of the same state and its resources. And sometimes we can learn a lot from our smaller buddies...such as how well Chattanooga has transformed its downtown and waterfront.

[Hey_Hey]

 And sometimes we can learn a lot from our smaller buddies...such as how well Chattanooga has transformed its downtown and waterfront.

 

I would definitely agree about learning from Chattanooga in terms of its waterfront development. They have done a phenomenal job in making the downtown parks accessible, interesting, and heavily used.  We could also learn a thing or two from Chattanooga regarding high speed internet. 

[Justiceham]

 

How is Louisville too small? Louisville has a bigger urban core than we do (as it was a considerably larger city at the turn of the century). If Louisville is not a peer city to Nashville because it is too small, then Charlotte is arguably not a peer city because it is too large. We are almost exactly between Louisville and Charlotte in terms of population.

 

Aside from that, Louisville is a geographic peer (like Memphis and Birmingham). While I like to look up at the cities that are ahead of us, I don't think we should be discounting cities that are smaller than us as not being peers. Peers can be of similar city size, culture, development patterns, growth rate, geographic location, or status.

As I laid out in post 3, I think there are a handful of larger peer cities, and a handful of smaller peer cities.

You could also make an argument that Knoxville and Chattanooga are peer cities on some level because of a similar culture and the sharing of the same state and its resources. And sometimes we can learn a lot from our smaller buddies...such as how well Chattanooga has transformed its downtown and waterfront.

Chattanooga has more people living downtown than Nashville, but can you really compare a metro of 500,000 to one of 1.7 million? You have to consider the entire metro, not just downtown. If that were the case, then Chattanooga and Charlotte would be peer cities too. Do all of the cities share similarities, culture, political, social, and economic development patterns? Yes. Are they all peers? Depends on what you define as a peer city.