Nashville Bits and Pieces

[BnaBreaker]

28 minutes ago, nashville_bound said:

This infuriates me and I reinforces ever negative opinion I have about strong-arm government/beaurocatic tactics...

Chicago's disappearing cars

 

Thousands Of Chicagoans Wake Up To Missing Cars – CBS Chicago chicago.cbslocal.com Thousands Of Chicagoans Wake Up To Missing Cars CHICAGO (CBS)–Imagine coming out of your house to go to work, but your car is nowhere to be seen. Thousands of Chicagoans have found themselves in this position over the last few months, but it’s not because they were parked illegally. In the dead of winter, a disappearing act is happening across the city.

City workers are allowed to tow vehicles in their way, leaving some car owners in the cold. Jordan Zeman discovered his car missing one morning. “My first immediate thought was, ‘it’s stolen,’ so I think I stood there for a while thinking, ‘what do I do now? Like do I call the police?’” Her mind racing, Zeman considered the city auto pound. Her missing car was puzzling because there were no warning signs in the Humboldt Park neighborhood where the car had been parked. “I thought I was nuts,” Zeman said. “I thought this was weird. I don’t know if this is something that happens to people?” She’s certainly not alone. Data shows 4,756 people came outside to find empty parking spots, during just the past three months. That’s about 52 cars moved every day by the city, according to data from the Department of Streets and Sanitation. Over a 90 day period, 444 vehicles were towed for a TV shoot. Recently on Leavitt Street, three cars went missing for “filming reasons.” but no signs warning drivers of restrictions were found posted on the street. In the same neighborhood, 600 vehicles were towed for “forestry” relocation. CBS 2 found  found some cars dropped more than three miles away. Data shows 516 cars were moved for “water management” work; 244 were moved for People’s Gas; and another 1,105 were simply classified “other.” Almost half of the relocations occurred between 5 and 10 a.m., the data shows. Zeman’s car wound up a few blocks away on Hirsch and Artesian—a headscratcher. “That was a huge relief,” she said. “Having no note and no indication of why it happened was really bizarre.” A spokesperson for the Department of Streets and Sanitation said moving cars is “absolutely necessary” to keep the city up and running. The city says vehicle relocations are usually done with advance warning, but emergencies sometimes pop up. There is not data to show how many cars were moved without notice. Sometimes there are signs posted to warn of city work but other times, cars are moved without warning.  If a car is moved, the city doesn’t provide a note, e-mail or call to inform the car owner. The city says motorists can call 311 or check their website. There are no fines for residents whose cars are moved. Lauren Victory

Yeah, this happened to a few neighbors of mine a few doors down for some reason or another. 

I mean, on the one hand I kind of get it to a certain degree, because most Chicago residential streets are lined on both sides by parallel parked cars at all hours of the day, so if something happened that required immediate attention, drastic action like that might be necessary just to keep a neighborhood from grinding to a halt.  I will say though that some of the reasons listed above are pretty far from "emergency" territory in my book... I mean, moved for "filming reasons?" Seriously?  I'd tell those TV producers that they can go .... themselves. 

I receive emails periodically that say things like 'the city will be conducting street cleaning during these hours on such and such streets, so please don't park there at that time' or ones that inform you of upcoming snow plowing, or something.  So, they do send out information at least some of the time, and I do see how it might be necessary to move a vehicle in a situation like that where an entire street couldn't be cleared of snow if a car was parked there due to the snow plow not being able to get through as a result.  

 All that being said though, it is absolute lunacy to me that the city doesn't inform you when they move a car.  I mean really, how are you supposed to know it wasn't stolen if they don't tell you?  That'd be quite a jarring way to start the day, to say the least!

Edited February 8, 2019 by BnaBreaker

[titanhog]

^^Yeah...I bet the Chicago PD appreciate all the calls they get from people reporting their cars stolen.

[grilled_cheese]

Here's a good one.  Lady parks car legally, public works then installs a no parking sign where she is parked and then she gets towed.

https://jalopnik.com/new-york-woman-gets-car-towed-after-no-parking-sign-is-1831641805

[MidTenn1]

A poster on  City-Data Forum broke down the 2017 foreign born population by city and ranking.

I only show the categories that included Nashville.

Quote

Laos
1. Minneapolis MSA: 23,080 people
2. Sacramento MSA: 11,522 people
3. Fresno MSA: 11,436 people
4. Dallas MSA: 5229 people
5. Milwaukee MSA: 5155 people
6. San Francisco MSA: 5045 people
7. Los Angeles MSA: 4932 people
8. Seattle MSA: 4768 people
9. San Diego MSA: 4575 people
10. Nashville MSA: 3682 people
11. Atlanta MSA: 3619 people
12. Portland MSA: 3557 people
13. Stockton, CA MSA: 3023 people
14. Chicago MSA: 2937 people
15. Merced, CA MSA: 2535 people

Iraq 1. Detroit MSA: 52,252 people 2. San Diego MSA: 24,601 people 3. Chicago MSA: 12,287 people 4. Phoenix MSA: 9435 people 5. Los Angeles MSA: 9429 people 6. DC MSA: 6842 people 7. Dallas MSA: 6524 people 8. Nashville MSA: 5173 people 9. Houston MSA: 5060 people 10. Seattle MSA: 3490 people 11. NYC MSA: 2754 people 12. Atlanta MSA: 2526 people 13. Modesto, CA MSA: 2526 people 14. Sacramento MSA: 2382 people 15. Denver MSA: 1988 people

 

Somalia
1. Minneapolis MSA: 23,554 people
2. Columbus, OH MSA: 9118 people
3. Seattle MSA: 6674 people
4. DC MSA: 2952 people
5. Boston MSA: 2631 people
6. San Diego MSA: 2465 people
7. Atlanta MSA: 2255 people
8. Rochester, MN MSA: 2155 people
9. Nashville MSA: 2105 people
10. St. Cloud, MN MSA: 2034 people
11. Portland MSA: 2024 people
12. Dallas MSA: 1992 people
13. Houston MSA: 1417 people
14. Louisville MSA: 1290 people
15. Phoenix MSA: 1289 people

 

 

Sudan
1. DC MSA: 3896 people
2. NYC MSA: 2230 people
3. Dallas MSA: 2190 people
4. Phoenix MSA: 1427 people
5. Atlanta MSA: 1254 people
6. Denver MSA: 1143 people
7. Nashville MSA: 1117 people
8. Des Moines MSA: 1057 people
9. Baltimore MSA: 1051 people
10. Minneapolis MSA: 924 people
11. Greensboro, NC MSA: 916 people
12. Chicago MSA: 873 people
13. Los Angeles MSA: 752 people
14. Houston MSA: 743 people
15. Omaha MSA: 728 people

 

 

Egypt
1. NYC MSA: 48,457 people
2. Los Angeles MSA: 20,442 people
3. DC MSA: 8662 people
4. Nashville MSA: 7665 people
5. Riverside, CA MSA: 5606 people
6. Chicago MSA: 4891 people
7. Philadelphia MSA: 4037 people
8. Houston MSA: 4024 people
9. Dallas MSA: 4014 people
10. Boston MSA: 3850 people
11. Miami MSA: 3349 people
12. San Francisco MSA: 2994 people
13. Tampa MSA: 2717 people
14. Detroit MSA: 2709 people
15. Seattle MSA: 2247 people

 

 

Bahamas
1. Miami MSA: 13,380 people
2. Orlando MSA: 1770 people
3. NYC MSA: 1753 people
4. Atlanta MSA: 1271 people
5. Tampa MSA: 944 people
6. DC MSA: 676 people
7. Palm Bay, FL MSA: 652 people
8. Port St. Lucie, FL MSA: 614 people
9. Chicago MSA: 422 people
10. Jacksonville MSA: 417 people
11. Philadelphia MSA: 366 people
12. Nashville MSA: 324 people
13. Dallas MSA: 321 people
14. Boston MSA: 305 people
15. Cape Coral, FL MSA: 296 people

Egypt ??

Edited February 11, 2019 by PHofKS
Wrong web site linked to

[BnaBreaker]

I would think the Iraq number would be a lot higher.  According to some sources there are upwards of 15K Kurds living in Nashville, and Kurdistan is just one region of Iraq.  Kurdistan does encompass part of Turkey as well, but I think most of the ones that came to Nashville were Iraqi.  

[nashvylle]

15 minutes ago, BnaBreaker said:

I would think the Iraq number would be a lot higher.  According to some sources there are upwards of 15K Kurds living in Nashville, and Kurdistan is just one region of Iraq.  Kurdistan does encompass part of Turkey as well, but I think most of the ones that came to Nashville were Iraqi.  

Yes, kurdistan isn’t recognized by Syria, Turkey, nor Iraq even though Kurdistan encompasses all three of those countries. 

[21jump]

I remember reading about 5 years ago that Nashville had the largest population of Kurds in the United States. I wonder how so many Iraqis wound up in Detroit?

[e-dub]

6 hours ago, 21jump said:

I remember reading about 5 years ago that Nashville had the largest population of Kurds in the United States. I wonder how so many Iraqis wound up in Detroit?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Middle_Eastern_people_in_Metro_Detroit

[Bos2Nash]

On 2/8/2019 at 4:04 PM, nashville_bound said:

This infuriates me and It reinforces every negative opinion I have about strong-arm government/bureaucratic tactics...

Chicago's disappearing cars

 

Thousands Of Chicagoans Wake Up To Missing Cars – CBS Chicago chicago.cbslocal.com Thousands Of Chicagoans Wake Up To Missing Cars CHICAGO (CBS)–Imagine coming out of your house to go to work, but your car is nowhere to be seen. Thousands of Chicagoans have found themselves in this position over the last few months, but it’s not because they were parked illegally. In the dead of winter, a disappearing act is happening across the city.

City workers are allowed to tow vehicles in their way, leaving some car owners in the cold. Jordan Zeman discovered his car missing one morning. “My first immediate thought was, ‘it’s stolen,’ so I think I stood there for a while thinking, ‘what do I do now? Like do I call the police?’” Her mind racing, Zeman considered the city auto pound. Her missing car was puzzling because there were no warning signs in the Humboldt Park neighborhood where the car had been parked. “I thought I was nuts,” Zeman said. “I thought this was weird. I don’t know if this is something that happens to people?” She’s certainly not alone. Data shows 4,756 people came outside to find empty parking spots, during just the past three months. That’s about 52 cars moved every day by the city, according to data from the Department of Streets and Sanitation. Over a 90 day period, 444 vehicles were towed for a TV shoot. Recently on Leavitt Street, three cars went missing for “filming reasons.” but no signs warning drivers of restrictions were found posted on the street. In the same neighborhood, 600 vehicles were towed for “forestry” relocation. CBS 2 found  found some cars dropped more than three miles away. Data shows 516 cars were moved for “water management” work; 244 were moved for People’s Gas; and another 1,105 were simply classified “other.” Almost half of the relocations occurred between 5 and 10 a.m., the data shows. Zeman’s car wound up a few blocks away on Hirsch and Artesian—a headscratcher. “That was a huge relief,” she said. “Having no note and no indication of why it happened was really bizarre.” A spokesperson for the Department of Streets and Sanitation said moving cars is “absolutely necessary” to keep the city up and running. The city says vehicle relocations are usually done with advance warning, but emergencies sometimes pop up. There is not data to show how many cars were moved without notice. Sometimes there are signs posted to warn of city work but other times, cars are moved without warning.  If a car is moved, the city doesn’t provide a note, e-mail or call to inform the car owner. The city says motorists can call 311 or check their website. There are no fines for residents whose cars are moved. Lauren Victory

I agree with @BnaBreaker that in some ways (emergencies) I understand this type of movement. I remember when I lived outside of Providence I had to work on a Saturday when it was a snow emergency and I came home to find that my roommate's and a buddy's car had both been towed. But that was during a snow emergency. In those cases there are no signs and no warnings of car removal. It is on the residents to look up on the city website for parking restrictions during the winter. I have never experienced "relocation" in the sense that the cars get picked up and moved around a couple blocks. If the city was moving a car with a tow truck, it was going to an impound yard and you were paying for both the hook-up and the storage fees. 

I would probably flip out if my car was gone in the morning. That being said I would also demand the city pay for my transportation to wherever my car was "relocated" to, even if it was just a few blocks away.

[Rockatansky]

16 hours ago, BnaBreaker said:

Kurdistan does encompass part of Turkey

Portions of Iran and Syria as well.

9 hours ago, 21jump said:

I wonder how so many Iraqis wound up in Detroit?

Dearborn has a considerable population of Middle Easterners.

[Guest]

Good article..Nashville gets a minor shout-out...

https://www.wsj.com/articles/where-you-should-move-to-make-the-most-money-americas-superstar-cities-11544850010?mod=e2fb&fbclid=IwAR1ZV0-lAkLsvEot_Ndqsl_hhoZfLyF9jhnU7h-Iu-fI6du3OYvvdoq52Oc&fbclid=IwAR0o4KFxS1exRjbV9_EFCUZXlbGVH_7suZX3B1l95cfQDdP5TzzmNL1rHlg&fbclid=IwAR15bYCtuzqzBhokSZajJGSMfcAJe-MomsAp9nh1S8QfgtRJeDn_KU-Qq9M

Where You Should Move to Make the Most Money: America’s Superstar Cities

A tech-driven concentration of talent since the 1980s has helped the rich get richer. But it has also sharpened an urban-rural divide that, some say, threatens growth.

Christopher MimsDec. 15, 2018 12:00 a.m. ET

The latest example of this is Apple announcing this past week a billion-dollar investment in a new campus that could ultimately accommodate up to 15,000 employees in a city already red hot with talent (Austin, Texas). That follows Amazon’s recent choice to put its two new headquarters in existing superstar cities (New York and Washington, D.C.). 

When economists talk about “superstar” anything, they’re referencing a phenomenon first described in the early 1980s. It began as the product of mass media and was put into overdrive by the internet. In an age when the reach of everything we make is greater than ever, members of an elite class of bankers, chief executives, programmers, Instagram influencers and just about anyone with in-demand technical skills have seen their incomes grow far faster than those of the middle class.

In this winner-take-all economy, the superstar firms—think Apple, Google and Amazon, but also their increasingly high-tech equivalents in finance, health care and every other industry—appear to account for most of the divergence in productivity and profits between companies in the U.S.

As firms cluster around talent, and talent is in turn drawn to those firms, the result is a self-reinforcing trend toward ever-richer, ever-costlier metro areas that are economically dominant over the rest of the country. Ironically, the internet that many of the firms power isn’t helping. While it was supposed to erase distance, it can’t yet replace high-quality face-to-face communication required for rapid-fire innovation.

Members of the Federal Reserve, among others, have warned that the rise of geographic inequality and a deepening urban-rural divide threaten growth in the U.S. This has led some to declare that rural America is the “new inner city,”plagued by poverty, drugs and “deaths of despair.” Similar patterns of migration of wealth to cities appear to be playing out all over the world.

Rising FortunesThe best-earning metro areas have seengrowth in average annual wages acceleratemore quickly than cities in the rest of America.Index of average annual wagesSource: Brookings Institute analysis of BEA dataNote: Index with 0 level set to 1969. Metro rankingsare determined each year of the data.

Top 2% of metrosMedian metroBottom third of metros1980’95’10100120140160180

For most of the 20th century, this divide did not exist.

“Something changed in 1980,” says Mark Muro, a senior fellow and director of the metropolitan policy program at the Metropolitan Policy Program at the Brookings Institution. “What happened was the introduction of the PC.” He adds, “Until about then, metros were becoming more like each other. Incomes were converging, and industries were becoming more distributed across place.”

From the early 1970s through the 1980s, companies like IBM , Digital Equipment Corp. and Apple used mainframes, minicomputers and eventually PCs to make companies—and the first technologically adept superstar workers—more productive. Mr. Muro calls it the first wave of the “digitalization” of work. 

The internet was supposed to lead to a golden age of distributed workforces. In some ways it did: The proportion of workers who do their jobs remotely is now at least 20% and growing. 

But superstar firms continue to insist that their top-performing employees cluster in global headquarters or at least regional offices, costs and congestion be damned.

Facebook ’s new office is literally the world’s largest open-plan workspace, even though workers generally hate them. Apple’s new HQ in California was designed from the ground up to force people to bump into each other and collaborate. Amazon could have saved a bundle by creating an entirely virtual “HQ2.” After all, the—mostly online—tools for identifying tech talent work anywhere, and can spot a great coder in Arkansas or India.

But even the most modern communication technologies are limited: They can’t carry as much information as a real-life, face-to-face collaboration. Slack, email and instant messaging are famous for their inability to convey tone, and the resulting crossed wires.

The internet can’t yet replace the face-to-face communication required for rapid-fire innovation.

The more a firm is dependent on innovation—that is, leveraging technology to be the absolute best at what it does—the more intense the collaboration of its superstar employees. Famously, Google’s only two “Level 11” engineers (on a scale of 1 to 10) code by sitting next to one another, staring at the same screen and working on a single keyboard. 

Technologists who employ both remote workers and people collected into an office have debated and analyzed the phenomenon at great length. Their own experience boils down to this bon mot from venture capitalist Marc Andreessen: There’s a “huge premium to being 10% better at executing,” meaning that while it can be a pain to bring workers to a central office, it’s worth it even if it leads to an incremental gain in productivity.

Johnathan Nightingale, former vice president of Firefox at Mozilla, has pointed out that while remote work can be sustainable, anything that slows down a startup in the critical first few years can mean losing to a faster competitor. Whether or not this is the case, it’s become such an accepted way of thinking in tech that companies—even big ones that only “think like a startup”—obey it as if it were a law.

Attempts to turn cities outside of Silicon Valley into superstar cities by making them tech hubs have met with mixed success. Metro areas succeed when they capitalize on their existing talents. One reason Amazon chose Nashville, Tenn., for a big regional office, says Mr. Muro, could be that it’s already a hub for medical IT and digital patient records. 

Using data from time-use surveys conducted by the federal government, Mr. Muro and his colleagues created an index of every metro area in the U.S., ranking them by how much workers in each use computers to accomplish their jobs. This yields a measure of the digitalization of every job, industry and city surveyed. 

The results include both exactly what you would expect—Silicon Valley is No. 1—and some illustrative surprises. Salt Lake City, home to the “Silicon Slopes,” is No. 12 on the list, right behind the tech hub of San Francisco and ahead of tech-happy Seattle. Austin, where Apple is expanding, is No. 9 on the list.

Let’s Get Digital

Top 12 U.S. metropolitan areas in 2016 by mean digital score, according to Brookings Institution analysis of federal data

• San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, Calif. 
• California-Lexington Park, Md.
• Huntsville, Ala.
• Boulder, Colo.
• Durham-Chapel Hill, N.C.
• Trenton, N.J.
• Washington D.C.-Arlington-Alexandria, Va.-Md.-W.Va.
• Boston-Cambridge-Newton, Mass.-N.H.
• Austin-Round Rock, Texas
• San Francisco-Oakland-Hayward, Calif.
• Ann Arbor, Mich.
• Salt Lake City

Unlike other rankings, from real-estate prices to venture-capital investment, the Brookings index shows us not only which cities have done well and become unaffordable. It also shows which still-affordable ones should, by the superstar logic, do well in the future.

Not everyone agrees that technology is a primary driver of geographic inequality. Stacy Mitchell, co-director of the nonprofit Institute for Local Self-Reliance, argues that many of these trends are better explained by changes in policy, which since the early 1980s have in many distinct ways given large companies free rein to merge, dominate markets, pursue government subsidies and tax breaks, and in general grow larger at the expense of small, medium and local businesses. 

“In particular, the 1982 merger guidelines are very specific in that the only thing that matters [when considering antitrust] is economic efficiency, which is translated into consumer welfare and low prices,” she adds.

The cities with the most startups and investment tend to see more business formation, but a long-term challenge lurks: If a superstar city becomes too large, the service workers who aren’t benefiting from the boom will be priced out. In the end, this might limit the size of these cities—at least until many of those workers are replaced by robots.

—For more WSJ Technology analysis, reviews, advice and headlines, sign up for our weekly newsletter. And don’t forget to subscribe to our Instant Message podcast.

Write to Christopher Mims at [email protected]

[21jump]

8 hours ago, e-dub said:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Middle_Eastern_people_in_Metro_Detroit

Thanks for the link, I had no idea of their presence up there.

[e-dub]

2 hours ago, 21jump said:

Thanks for the link, I had no idea of their presence up there.

Sure thing. I wish we had Lebanese joints down here, they're EVERYWHERE in Metro Detroit. They always load you up on very thin pitas with a spread/sauce/magic called Toum, too. WHEW.

[etimer13]

12 hours ago, e-dub said:

Sure thing. I wish we had Lebanese joints down here, they're EVERYWHERE in Metro Detroit. They always load you up on very thin pitas with a spread/sauce/magic called Toum, too. WHEW.

 

Maybe not as casual as what you're seeking, but for great Lebanese food we do have Epice.  

[CenterHill]

13 hours ago, e-dub said:

Sure thing. I wish we had Lebanese joints down here, they're EVERYWHERE in Metro Detroit. They always load you up on very thin pitas with a spread/sauce/magic called Toum, too. WHEW.

We have epice in 12 South.  

[OnePointEast]

I'm not sure if this has been posted here before.

[Buildtall]

Not sure were to post this. When I was on interstate passing the stadium today I noticed drilling going on in the parking lot by the Quality inn hotel, it’s the parking lot between Titans stadium parking and interstate  just off Shelby ave. I think I remember something about a 7 or 14 story hotel here. 

[e-dub]

10 minutes ago, Buildtall said:

Not sure were to post this. When I was on interstate passing the stadium today I noticed drilling going on in the parking lot by the Quality inn hotel, it’s the parking lot between Titans stadium parking and interstate  just off Shelby ave. I think I remember something about a 7 or 14 story hotel here. 

Is this what you're referring to?

 

 

[markhollin]

Wood Partners out of Atlanta--one of the nation's largest apartment developers--is opening a Nashville office.  They aim to start multiple apartment projects within the next 12-14 months.  3 of the last 4 years the company was ranked as the third-largest apartment developer in the U.S. by National Multifamily Housing Council.  Construction began on more than 5,000 Wood Partners units in the course of 2017 alone.

More behind the NBJ paywall here:

https://www.bizjournals.com/nashville/news/2019/02/13/giant-apartment-developer-plants-flag-in-nashville.html?ana=e_mc_prem&s=newsletter&ed=2019-02-13&u=blTR7Dj233GiBQ74JyYK0Q09b4ecfd&t=1550065425&j=86642041

[smeagolsfree]

Here is a link to there website. They seem to be a heavy hitter.

 

https://www.woodpartners.com/

https://www.woodpartners.com/properties/?search=all-properties

[Buildtall]

23 hours ago, e-dub said:

Is this what you're referring to?

 

 

Yes that’s it. Thanks

[Pdt2f]

On 2/10/2019 at 5:54 PM, PHofKS said:

A poster on  City-Data Forum broke down the 2017 foreign born population by city and ranking.

I only show the categories that included Nashville.

Egypt ??

I’ve met quite a few Egyptians living in Nashville, mostly Christians. One woman I met was in a plane on her way to a vacation in the US, and when she arrived she saw that the revolution that overthrew Hosni Mubarak had started. She wisely decided that Egypt probably wasn’t going to be safe for Christians much longer and started the asylum process while she was here. Her and her husband have done well for themselves here, beautiful family. 

[dReAmWiELdEr]

This is great and appreciated, but I do wish there had been at least one shot of the entire skyline.

[Nashville Cliff]

2 hours ago, Pdt2f said:

I’ve met quite a few Egyptians living in Nashville, mostly Christians. One woman I met was in a plane on her way to a vacation in the US, and when she arrived she saw that the revolution that overthrew Hosni Mubarak had started. She wisely decided that Egypt probably wasn’t going to be safe for Christians much longer and started the asylum process while she was here. Her and her husband have done well for themselves here, beautiful family. 

I remember a fairly large rally by Coptic Christians from Egypt outside the main library a few years ago to raise awareness about the abuses and hardships faced by that group in Egypt. 

[FrankNash]

I've noticed that a high percentage of hotel workers in Nashville are Egyptians.