If Nashville is a welcoming city, why are so many of its residents struggling?

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20-05-2025

Over the last two weeks, with ICE agents and Tennessee highway patrol officers arresting and detaining hundreds of undocumented immigrants, metros government has repeatedly emphasized one key message:
Nashville is for everyone.
It's a honorable position to take, and one that is incredibly important in this era of dividing and ostracizing, when it seems that many on the right want nothing more than to Make America Whiter Again—both demographically and culturally.
Yet two key reports released this week reveal that Metro's messaging is, honestly, just that: A message. A narrative. An approved talking point or soundbite meant to be repeated, even if not realized.
Indeed, all may be encouraged to come to Nashville, with its leftist sensibilities. But whether those who come will be afforded the same opportunities and advantages of all other residents remains another story altogether.
After all, Nashville is still struggling to care for the people who already live here, and whose families, in many cases, have been here for generations.
On May 14, the National Community Reinvestment Coalition, an organization that advocates for economic justice, released a study examining gentrification rates across the country, from 2010 to 2020. In its findings, Nashville exhibited the most "intense" gentrification of any American city.
Put differently, from 2010 to 2020, there were more historically Black neighborhoods transformed into predominantly white enclaves in Nashville than anywhere else in the U.S.
Here in Nashville, we tend to call this 'progress,' or 'growth.' We get excited about the new restaurant helmed by the James Beard Award-winning chef, now open in another one of Nashville's historic neighborhoods. And we bemoan the hikes in property taxes and costs of living now impacting the city's more affluent residents, those who are being shoved aside by the influx of moneyed out-of-towners.
But never do we acknowledge that a lot of folks were already priced out of this city—their city—decades ago.
Opinion: It will take strong leadership to address gentrification and affordable housing
Also on the 14th, Metro Social Services released its annual 'Community Needs Evaluation' report, its yearly analysis of Nashville's socioeconomic health. The theme of this year's report: There's a 'High Cost to Low Wages,' and, well, you can probably guess the demographics of the Nashvillians who most frequently face that reality.
Those low wages don't just make it hard to cover bills. They impact every aspect of life—from health outcomes (low-income workers are more likely to suffer from chronic disease and die prematurely) to education (low-income earners are also more likely to be zoned for underperforming public schools).
If you're keeping track, you may be starting to piece together the cyclical nature of marginalization. Low-wage earners are often confined to neighborhoods zoned for Nashville schools, which will drastically increase the likelihood of their children also working low-wage jobs.
Moreover, a neighborhood full of low income, Black and brown earners is also likely to have depressed property values—the kind of smoke signal that beckons to overzealous developers and the buyers of those properties, the ones happy to plant roots and Black Lives Matter signs in 'transitioning' neighborhoods in order to get the greatest return on their investment.
But the people forced out, low-income earners as they often are, aren't just pushed out of their homes. They're often pushed out of the city.
Mayor Freddie O'Connell attended the Metro Services-hosted event to mark the release of the 'High Cost of Low Wages' report. He also spoke before the presentation and subsequent panel, noting that the average Black and Hispanic residents of Nashville cannot afford to buy a home in 99% of the city's neighborhoods.
It's a startling truth, and one that runs directly counter to his earlier assessment that, 'broadly speaking, Nashville has been an amazing success story.'
I wrote recently about O'Connell's eagerness to tout the record-high graduation rates of Metro Nashville Public Schools during his State of Metro address. The idea that the number of graduating Nashvillians is higher than ever, and therefore some indication of district success and student achievement, may be accurate. But it's not completely honest.
The statistic doesn't reveal how, for many students in this majority-ministry district, those diplomas are little more than certificates of participation. Those students aren't prepared for the careers or post-secondary studies that will allow them to buy a home in their hometown—or, at minimum, to break or avoid a cycle of low-wage living.
More: How many in Nashville earn less than a living wage? New report details the 'high cost of low wages'
But it is the kind of thing you say when you lead a city that is more concerned about optics than reality. It's no different than saying that Nashville welcomes everybody, even though it hasn't done a good job caring for the citizens who've been here all along.
'Those of us in policy areas, we generally know these things because we're always getting reports, we're always getting questions about income,' said State Rep. Harold Love, D-Nashville. 'But to see the numbers in this report, I think, really brings it home because the data is the data. And you can look across the city, look at the football and hockey and soccer teams, and it gives an illusion that it's a different city.
'But then, when you look at the data, you really get to see what is underneath that beautiful skyline.'
Andrea Williams is an opinion columnist for The Tennessean and curator of the Black Tennessee Voices initiative. She has an extensive background covering country music, sports, race and society. Email her at [e-mail] or follow her on X (formerly known as Twitter) at @AndreaWillWrite and BlueSky at @andreawillwrite.bsky.social.
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Reports reveal truth that Nashville's 'It-City' status hides | Opinion