Project Thread/New Construction/Photo du jour/Const. CAMs

[titanhog]

20 minutes ago, e-dub said:

So ~400 square miles, thank you!  I wonder what the current population of pre-consolidation Nashville is today and how it compares to Memphis.

I think that's a decent estimate...just by eyeing it.  We should also consider that if that land was flat like Rutherford or Wilson, Davidson (Nashville) would easily have another 200k residents within the limits because there would be many people who live in the suburbs who would love to live that much closer to downtown.

Edited June 12, 2019 by titanhog

[CenterHill]

3 hours ago, titanhog said:

Nashville wasteland... unpopulated beauty

Fixed that for you.   LOL

[titanhog]

1 hour ago, CenterHill said:

Fixed that for you.   LOL

I was being facetious.  I don't want anyone to think I was being serious about it being a wasteland. 

Edited June 12, 2019 by titanhog

[UTgrad09]

3 hours ago, e-dub said:

So ~400 square miles, thank you!  I wonder what the current population of pre-consolidation Nashville is today and how it compares to Memphis.

That's a fairly tricky question from the start.

First of all, pre-consolidation Nashville was relatively tiny. Relatively meaning compared to a lot of other Southern cities at the time. People talk about small the city limits of present day Boston and San Francisco are (48 and 47 sq miles, respectively)...1950 Nashville covered just 22 square miles (smaller than present day La Vergne) and had a population of 174,307 (7,923 ppsm).

To put that into context with our Southern peers:

rank city,st......pop area density

22 Dallas city, TX.......... 434,462 112.0 3,879

26 Memphis city, TN......... 396,000 104.2 3,800

30 Louisville city, KY...... 369,129 39.9 9,251

33 Atlanta city, GA......... 331,314 36.9 8,979

34 Birmingham city, AL...... 326,037 65.3 4,993

38 Fort Worth city, TX...... 278,778 93.7 2,975

42 Miami city, FL........... 249,276 34.2 7,289

45 Oklahoma City city, OK... 243,504 50.8 4,793

48 Norfolk city, VA......... 213,513 28.2 7,571

49 Jacksonville city, FL.... 204,517 30.2 6,772

56 Nashville city, TN....... 174,307 22.0 7,923

70 Charlotte city, NC....... 134,042 30.0 4,468

73 Austin city, TX.......... 132,459 32.1 4,126

74 Chattanooga city, TN..... 131,041 28.0 4,680

It's really a fascinating list. You can see how cities changed over time. Check out this link.

As we know, Nashville didn't vote to go Metro for another 13 years. And it's interesting what happened during those years....

The 1960 Census showed Nashville with a decrease in population of 3,433 (-2.0%) despite an increase in land area of 7 square miles (+32%). This is full-on white flight. The short version of the story is that Nashville had all of the city services, but had a crumbling tax base, and Davidson County had a burgeoning tax base, but not enough services. Metro was the solution, or compromise, depending on one's perspective. Back in that time, annexation laws were very different, and so a city could pretty much expand at will. Right before the vote to form a Metropolitan government passed, the city was annexing huge swaths of land, so technically speaking, "pre-consolidation Nashville" may have been 100 or so square miles. I can't find an exact number. But the white flight annexation started between the 1950s and 1960s in Nashville. Memphis took a big leap between the 1940s and 1950s.

A lot of cities lost a lot of inner city population to white flight and urban renewal. A lot of Northeastern and Midwestern cities never recovered that population. A lot of Sunbelt cities simply annexed enough land (which was developed in a more suburban style) to cover the inner city losses, and then some. Cities like Nashville and Jacksonville became Metropolitan, and kind of did it all at once. Cities like Memphis kept doing it until they ran out of areas to annex. It's a similar result in the end -- masking urban population losses.

Ok, so maybe that was a little tangent -- but I think it illustrates the picture, and might help explain what I have to say next -- that the "pre-consolidation" boundaries of Nashville are likely less populated than they were in the 1950s. And Memphis's boundaries likely tell the same story. So it's an apples to oranges comparison from the get-go, but I don't think comparing the historical boundaries of either city is going to produce the result anyone might think it will.

6 hours ago, BnaBreaker said:

Nashville: 526 square miles

Memphis: 324 square miles

If we're being technical, Nashville is 475 square miles -- Davidson County is 526.

 

 

While we're on topic, this is from the Metro 2020 budget...

Urban Services District (Nashville only) - 498,423 people, 197.8 sq mi (2,520 ppsm)

General Services District (remainder of Nashville + satellite cities) - 194,164 people, 327.4 sq mi (593 ppsm)*

*Hermitage, Bellevue, and parts of Southeast Nashville aren't included in the USD. You could probably include 600,000 in the USD and still maintain close to 2,300 ppsm.

[BnaBreaker]

Absolutely fascinating info @UTgrad09!!!  Thank you so much for putting that all together.  It really helps to put things into perspective for sure.  The Urban Services District number, in terms of population, density, and overall area, is probably the closest we can come to a 'true Nashville' data set.  

[markhollin]

14 months ago (courtesy of NashLapse):

 

[Bark At The Sun]

On 6/10/2019 at 1:48 PM, Sean blackdog said:

Tower crane collapsed in Dallas. Not Nashville. 

Cranes are supposed to withstand 140 mph winds. So what caused the deadly Dallas crane collapse?
https://www.cnn.com/2019/06/10/us/dallas-crane-collapse/index.html

About 6 years ago, there was a garage expansion at the City Center Tower.   Had to dig in my archives to find these photos, but got a good closeup of this crane tower.

[GregH]

The skyline looked good last night from the top of Shelby.

[nashvylle]

great shot!

[MLBrumby]

But there should be a sidewalk all along that street. For shame! 

Dare I even say anything about those $#!++% telephone poles? 

Edited June 12, 2019 by MLBrumby

[smeagolsfree]

There should be sidewalks along a lot of strrets in Urban Nashville ,but 50 years ago or whenever they formed Metro, they didnt know how to spell sidewalk.

[GregH]

There actually is sidewalk on both sides, it's an extra-wide buffer there.

[titanhog]

What's weird is that in almost every town in America (I'm talking even small towns of 2-3000 people), the older parts of town have sidewalk infrastructure from long ago...but then there's almost a line where sidewalks ended when newer homes were built in later years.  There was an obvious moment in history where American cities stopped building sidewalks in just about every community.

[Baronakim]

A few more pics today of a lot of cranes.  Two of the terms for a gathering of cranes (birds) is a construction or a dance of cranes.  While the phrase 'a construction of cranes' is perhaps more appropriate for tower cranes, but I prefer the imagery of 'a dance of cranes'>  What do y'all think?  Oh yeah, this is the Great Blue Heron that lived  around the beach cottages I stayed at a couple of weeks ago.... fed him leftover bait mackerel from my fishing excursion.

 

 

Edited June 13, 2019 by Baronakim
pic didn't load fully

[AsianintheNations]

3 hours ago, Baronakim said:

Two of the terms for a gathering of cranes (birds) is a construction or a dance of cranes. 

Cool, never knew that! 'Dance' is definitely more elegant imagery.

Speaking of birds .. a terrifying number of them live around Vanderbilt where I work. Here they look something like mascara on the railing on the roof, after being shooed from the trees on the other side of the street where they used to live.

And more on topic, here's a shot of downtown just before dawn from Vanderbilt's helipad (the crane in this photo definitely dates it)

 

[markhollin]

TBT: 2010 looking westward along Demonbruen from The Encore tower (courtesy of Pixel Chrome).

[Bark At The Sun]

Demonbreun Street Bridge 2006........photo via Bell Construction

[jmtunafish]

Bridgestone Arena (or whatever it was originally called) when it was first built compared with today.  Well, not "today" today since the bottom picture still shows the old convention center.  Images from the Predators Facebook page.

Edited June 13, 2019 by jmtunafish

[donNdonelson2]

I miss those upward spotlights-they were like Batman’s six beams in the night! 

[MLBrumby]

Wish I had bought a building on Lower Broad when that first picture was shot. [sigh]

[OnePointEast]

Per The Tennessean

[Mr_Bond]

Welcome to the forum, @AsianintheNations.

[markhollin]

Looking west on Commerce St:

 

[markhollin]

Looking west at Riverfront Park and Broadway:
 

[TNinVB]

On 6/13/2019 at 12:37 PM, donNdonelson2 said:

I miss those upward spotlights-they were like Batman’s six beams in the night! 

They still use them.