Nashville Bits and Pieces

[smeagolsfree]

I can think of some other not so flattering rhyming terms too that would fit of late.

[billgregg]

6 hours ago, MontanaGuy said:

I agree with much of what you said but I'm not so sure about the taxes.  Texas doesn't even have a state income tax and California's state income tax is pretty hefty. 

The figures come from an appendix ("Total State and Local Taxes as a Share of Family Income") in a  downloadable ITEP report (PDF). Go to Appendix A on pages 26 and 27: https://itep.sfo2.digitaloceanspaces.com/whopays-ITEP-2018.pdf. In the attached screenshot I cut out all but the relevant states, but left Tennessee in for comparison.

They also break down each state's tax burden by tax type and income level in an interesting section starting on page 31. The difference is that Texas's sales tax is higher and California has a negative income tax for its poorest residents.

Edited August 20, 2021 by billgregg

[BnaBreaker]

*sigh*... sure glad these kids aren't being made mildly uncomfortable by that piece of soft cloth though... 

[MagicPotato]

6 hours ago, BnaBreaker said:

*sigh*... sure glad these kids aren't being made mildly uncomfortable by that piece of soft cloth though... 

Never understood how wearing a mask became political.... 

[MLBrumby]

What's wrong with the roof of Bridgestone Arena?  Looks "rough" and discolored. Maybe lighting or too much rain or ???

[smeagolsfree]

An article from the NBJ from one of their national writers and the main takeaway is the graph below and Nashville is no in the projected multi housing unit top 20 delivery leaders for 2021 which means we are not keeping up with demand and there is a lot of room to grow in our market.

There could be other meanings to this as well and speculation could be plentiful as to why we are not on the list, but if we are gaining population and the housing units are not being built, then there is a huge shortfall especially when we are still creating a lot of tech sector jobs.

I expect there will be a flurry of more Multi-housing announcements to come and the pace will have to pick up in order to keep up with demand.

https://www.bizjournals.com/nashville/news/2021/08/23/apartment-construction-yardi-matrix-alliance.html

 

 

[Rick Dalton]

2 hours ago, smeagolsfree said:

An article from the NBJ from one of their national writers and the main takeaway is the graph below and Nashville is no in the projected multi housing unit top 20 delivery leaders for 2021 which means we are not keeping up with demand and there is a lot of room to grow in our market.

There could be other meanings to this as well and speculation could be plentiful as to why we are not on the list, but if we are gaining population and the housing units are not being built, then there is a huge shortfall especially when we are still creating a lot of tech sector jobs.

I expect there will be a flurry of more Multi-housing announcements to come and the pace will have to pick up in order to keep up with demand.

https://www.bizjournals.com/nashville/news/2021/08/23/apartment-construction-yardi-matrix-alliance.html

 

 

Sounds like a good reason to build some residential skyscrapers 

[Luvemtall]

So, Smeagolsfree is that lava brewing going to erupt anytime soon ? Patiently waiting. 

[Mr_Bond]

On 8/19/2021 at 7:38 PM, billgregg said:

The figures come from an appendix ("Total State and Local Taxes as a Share of Family Income") in a  downloadable ITEP report (PDF). Go to Appendix A on pages 26 and 27: https://itep.sfo2.digitaloceanspaces.com/whopays-ITEP-2018.pdf. In the attached screenshot I cut out all but the relevant states, but left Tennessee in for comparison.

They also break down each state's tax burden by tax type and income level in an interesting section starting on page 31. The difference is that Texas's sales tax is higher and California has a negative income tax for its poorest residents.

Looking at the total tax burden, including sales tax, is a great way to understand what's happening here with the state-to-state migrations.  

I will add some economic reality to the numbers we see here.  When an economic downturn arrives, states that place a larger burden on the higher income earners are in deep trouble.  The income of the top 20% is much more subject to economic conditions because they are often business owners whose profits shrink during a recession.  States like California, Illinois and New York cannot keep a balanced budget during a downturn.

You may suggest that they borrow during the downturn and then pay it back when the economy recovers but that proposal has a few problems.  First, politicians who borrow money during a recession to maintain social programs and pensions for their constituents seem incapable of using increasing revenue during a recovery to pay off the debt.  As the economy recovers, they see the increase in state revenue as another opportunity to distribute goodies to their constituents.  Over the decades, they borrow but do not pay back.

Second, and this reason is partially related to the first, states with large deficits during a recession are seen as riskier by the investors who would loan them money.  Their income streams are more volatile and, therefore, less appealing to the lender that wants a steady stream of debt repayments.  The reason I say that reason two is related to reason one is that a state led by the politicians described in reason one create and expand benefits that must be distributed every year, even during recessions.  So the expanded benefits of reason one create a deeper deficit during a recession.

These economic realities apply to all of us - states, counties, cities, families, individuals, nonprofits - regardless of political persuasion.

[markhollin]

5 hours ago, smeagolsfree said:

An article from the NBJ from one of their national writers and the main takeaway is the graph below and Nashville is no in the projected multi housing unit top 20 delivery leaders for 2021 which means we are not keeping up with demand and there is a lot of room to grow in our market.

There could be other meanings to this as well and speculation could be plentiful as to why we are not on the list, but if we are gaining population and the housing units are not being built, then there is a huge shortfall especially when we are still creating a lot of tech sector jobs.

I expect there will be a flurry of more Multi-housing announcements to come and the pace will have to pick up in order to keep up with demand.

https://www.bizjournals.com/nashville/news/2021/08/23/apartment-construction-yardi-matrix-alliance.html

 

 

Hmmmmm...whomever did their research on this was WAY off when it comes to Nashville.

Utilizing your development map, I found these numbers:

Multi-family residential projects just in Davidson County that have either already opened this year, or will by year's end will total 15,177 units in 120 developments.

For 2022 that total in Davidson County alone will be around 21,845 in 144 developments.

For 2023 that total in Davidson County alone will be 21,724 in 77 developments (and, of course, many will be announced soon that will swell these numbers even further).

When it comes to individual single family homes and single family home subdivisions, the numbers have to be well in the thousands in Davidson County this year alone, and substantially more in surrounding counties. 

[Urbanman]

Long time follower, first time poster.

Two questions:

1. Does anyone have a map of Nashville’s city limits before consolidation?

2. What would the city’s population and density be today within those limits?

[MLBrumby]

Mark, that's the first thing I was wondering when I saw the numbers given for cities in the list.  I think a lot of those publications have not shown much credibility in their rankings. I always look at their methodologies first, then determine whether they're trustworthy. Looking at the wide difference between first and second... and the rest is the first alarm in my mind. DFW is on fire (no doubt), but I can't see it being that far ahead of everyone else. Those who pay attention to my rants here know I'm a stickler to research on permits and a few other data points. I didn't see that in the footnotes for this list. That said, I'm suspicious about the numbers given in this list too. 

[ruraljuror]

34 minutes ago, Mr_Bond said:

The income of the top 20% is much more subject to economic conditions because they are often business owners whose profits shrink during a recession.  

Would you mind sharing your source for this info? Seems like most of the data I've seen indicates that young people and more economically vulnerable populations are the ones that get hit hardest during economic downturns. 

Also, just to make sure we're on the same page, am I correct that the threshold to enter the top 20% of income earners is only about $130k per household currently? Also, it's my understanding that only the top 10% most successful business owners are able to pull out that much  (~$130k) from their business in a given year, but correct me if I'm wrong of course. 

Assuming those figures are in the ballpark, I'm curious at what income level do you think taxes should be raised in order to fund social services during a downturn? Or do you think cutting social services during economic downturns is the better way to balance the budget since the business owners are bearing more of the direct burden from the downturn itself?

[MLBrumby]

21 minutes ago, Urbanman said:

Long time follower, first time poster.

Two questions:

1. Does anyone have a map of Nashville’s city limits before consolidation?

2. What would the city’s population and density be today within those limits?

Good question that I can't answer. I'm sure one of our historians can provide a lot of insight.  I believe the old city limits approximate the Urban Services District of the Metro Nashville government map. It has been expanded since 1960 but I don't know where/how (lots of growth to the south). I think one approach you can take is to start with county-wide population in 1960 which was 400,000 (pre Metro "consolidation").  Metro was passed in 1962 and went into effect in 1963, which triggerd a lot of urban flight. FYI: the amount of Nashville citizens in Davidson Co. then was about 56%).  The population has increased "only" about 300K since then or about 75%. I don't think most of that growth occurred in the older limits of the city.  Given that the bulk of the growth in the county occurred outside the old city limits, I'd say less than 20% (guess) of the population would be in the old city limits (at least till 2010).  I think people are still trying to grapple with where the growth since 2010 has occurred.  So tossing this out there... I'd say the population in the old city limits would be around 60-80,000 over the 1960 population of 170,000. So swagging it, I'd guess about 240,000-250,000.  

Edited August 23, 2021 by MLBrumby

[Bos2Nash]

1 hour ago, Urbanman said:

Long time follower, first time poster

Welcome to Forum Urbanman! Look forward to you participating in conversation and possibly making it out to a meetup or two.

[BnaBreaker]

1 hour ago, Urbanman said:

Long time follower, first time poster.

Two questions:

1. Does anyone have a map of Nashville’s city limits before consolidation?

2. What would the city’s population and density be today within those limits?

Welcome Urbanman!  I'm not sure what the answer to the second question would be, although I'd agree with the estimate @MLBrumby made above.  As for a pre-consolidation map, this one isn't very detailed, but I think it does a good job of outlining how the borders broke down.  Although it would take some time, I'm sure someone could get an answer to your first question using the maps below, and this tool from the 2020 Census which breaks everything down by Census Tract (you have to zoom in for it to break the map down): https://mtgis-portal.geo.census.gov/arcgis/apps/MapSeries/index.html?appid=2566121a73de463995ed2b2fd7ff6eb7

 

Here's another map that shows the city's boundaries through the various stages of annexation.  If you compare it with the map above, it appears as though just prior to consolidation the city annexed large swaths of land, including the areas in the map above labelled "Richland," "woodmont-Green Hills-Glendale," "Airport," "Woodbine Radnor - Glencliff," and parts of Inglewood.

Edited August 23, 2021 by BnaBreaker

[smeagolsfree]

2 hours ago, markhollin said:

Hmmmmm...whomever did their research on this was WAY off when it comes to Nashville.

Utilizing your development map, I found these numbers:

Multi-family residential projects just in Davidson County that have either already opened this year, or will by year's end will total 15,177 units in 120 developments.

For 2022 that total in Davidson County alone will be around 21,845 in 144 developments.

For 2023 that total in Davidson County alone will be 21,724 in 77 developments (and, of course, many will be announced soon that will swell these numbers even further).

When it comes to individual single family homes and single family home subdivisions, the numbers have to be well in the thousands in Davidson County this year alone, and substantially more in surrounding counties. 

These are 2021 completions.

[Nash_12South]

I like “Dupontonia”. 

[PaulChinetti]

That’s funny I had never heard that name before before until recently. 
 

Dupontonia is now Lakewood. Dupontonia has quite the ring to it though doesn’t it. 

[UTgrad09]

3 hours ago, Urbanman said:

Long time follower, first time poster.

Two questions:

1. Does anyone have a map of Nashville’s city limits before consolidation?

2. What would the city’s population and density be today within those limits?

1. I have been looking for a comprehensive one for quite a while. I haven't had a chance to look, but I'm wondering if there might be something in the Nashville Room at the Main Library downtown.

2. Without the map, it is tough to give anything other than a rough guess.  I am going to attempt to use the 2020 Census Tracts to line up with the map that @BnaBreakerposted. I can tell you this....the density is probably going to be a lot lower than you think. I found a link that gives the population, area, and density to the top 100 US cities through history. Nashville was actually pretty dense and compact (by Southern standards) back in the day. Kind of the opposite of how it is perceived now. But changes in a number of dynamics (household size, slums, urban renewal, etc., it will actually take some time to reach that same density over that area again (despite all of the highrise residential buildings). Gentrification usually has a negative impact on population density (at least at first) because of generally smaller household size. But eventually the unit density will overcome that.

Nashville Population and Density by Census (US rank in parentheses)

1920 - 118,342 (56) - 18.0 sq mi - 6,575 ppsm

1930 - 153,866 (51) - 26.0 sq mi - 5,918 ppsm

1940 - 167,402 (50) - 22.0 sq mi - 7,609 ppsm (city limits got smaller?)

1950 - 174,307 (56) - 22.0 sq mi - 7,923 ppsm 

1960 - 170,874 (73) - 29.0 sq mi - 5,892 ppsm

1970 - 448,003 (30) - 507.8 sq mi - 882 ppsm

https://www.census.gov/library/working-papers/1998/demo/POP-twps0027.html

 

*gets to work on map*

[billgregg]

5 hours ago, Urbanman said:

1. Does anyone have a map of Nashville’s city limits before consolidation?

A 1950 Jersey Farms-branded map "compiled and drawn by city and county planning commissions". Doesn't show the annexations in the last four or five years before consolidation, but does have a lot of detail (and these city limits were unchanged for several decades): https://teva.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/p15138coll23/id/10093/rec/30

I haven't found a good online map of the city from the period 1958 to 1963.

 

Edited August 24, 2021 by billgregg

[UTgrad09]

3 hours ago, BnaBreaker said:

 

Soooo.....I got busy with the map and the Census tracts.

Caveat: The Census tracts do not match the map lines exactly, but they are pretty close. Close enough to make some approximations. The tracts are also listed in land area to 1/10th of a square mile, so over the 60+ tracts sampled, there may be some rounding differences. All in all, I think it's a pretty good snapshot -- and I was actually pleasantly surprised.

 

1952 Nashville boundary - 24.2 sq mi - 117,752 population (2020) - 4,865.8 ppsm <----notice that the source I linked had the 1950 Nashville land area at 22.0 sq mi.

1962 Nashville boundary - 69.1 sq mi - 236,020 population (2020)- 3,415.6 ppsm <----I can't find the source right now, but I remember that Ben West had annexed land to about 70-75 sq mi, which was one of the factors that forced the vote on consolidation. I did not include the airport or Radnor Yards in my figure (low population areas -- plus the airport has expanded greatly). 

1) I would be very interested to see what the population was of the 69.1 sq mi in 1962. The 2020 population is about 56,000 less for the 1952 limits. The 1962 limits were about triple the size (but the interior city was shrinking rapidly).

2) It will probably take about 20 years to add the 56,000 people back to the old 1952 boundaries....but man oh man will it look impressive.

3) Originally, the city boundaries served as the Urban Service District. That has been expanded a number of times over the years (including very recently).  In the latest copy of the Metro budget, it lists the USD as having 498,007 in 197.8 sq mi (2,517.7 ppsm) and the GSD as having 196,137 in the remaining 327.4 sq mi. (599.1 ppsm).  This actually makes the GSD as populous as Sumner County in about 60% of the land area. Those numbers are based off of the 2020 estimates, I believe. If you plug in the 2020 Census and assume the proportions are the same, then that brings the USD population to about 513,289 in 197.8 sq mi (2,595.0 ppsm) and the GSD population to about 202,595 in 327.4 sq mi (618.8 ppsm).

[dragonfly]

On 8/16/2021 at 9:28 PM, samsonh said:

 It’s the same type of frustration blue states feel towards subsidizing the red states. 

I think I've said it on here but I'm going to say it again. This debate about what is in the above quote is a phony one for one major reason: Reserve currency status of the U.S. dollar. This is missed by most of the elitist politicians and pundits that are addicted to their reasons for looking down on their cultural inferiors and just love to group said inferiors into a selection of ridiculed states. Well here is one of those inferiors pointing out the standard elite ignorance: most economists put the value of reserve currency status at $1.2 trillion ~ $1.5 trillion*. Guess what - if it weren't for the prominence/prestige of the U.S. military (currently threatened from within) and its operational maintainence of safety on the high seas, the dollar would not be the world reserve currency. The same thing accompanied the rise of the British empire when the pound sterling enjoyed that status and is now a sort of junior reserve currency to ours, making London the financial capital that it is. So if you don't' mind a little bit of logic, this says that The DOD, funded by $760 billion per year, is an astounding profit machine for the U.S. economy. The state of Texas with numerous large military bases and defense contractors is typically ridiculed by the elite on their lists of states on the dole but the joke is on them, they think that all of the cost of the military spending in Texas is just welfare, when that spending may be returning as much as 200% of its cost back to our economy. I mean really where do you think the conventional simplistic analysis on this originates other than bIgotry? Mature people should grow out of simplistic views of the world. Or you would think. I would prefer not to bring this up again, but if I see the fallacy repeated, I'm going to link to this post.

* Reserve currency status confers a built-in demand for U.S. dollars, coupled to the world population growth. Which helps to allow a seemingly endless expansion of the money supply by the Fed to cover endless deficit spending on our real welfare state programs.

Edited August 24, 2021 by dragonfly

[UTgrad09]

It's totally okay to not respond to every political post made here. There are many times I choose not to respond to something, even if I strongly disagree with it, because it will derail the topic.

It becomes back-and-forth bickering; doesn't typically involve Nashville specifically, doesn't typically result in any sort of common understanding or compromise, and often results in some name-calling or other inappropriate board behavior.

 

So please, I urge all of you of all political persuasions, the next time someone says something you disagree with (at least on a national or global politics level), just let it go. You don't have to prove a point, and you won't be cluttering up topic threads with unrelated material.

 

Thank you. Back to your regularly scheduled programming.

[markhollin]

12 hours ago, smeagolsfree said:

These are 2021 completions.

The article and graph states "Number of units each market is expected to deliver in 2021."  So they are WAY off as far as Nashville proper is concerned, not to mention the metro area.