[DaddYo]

This is my first post at the SP. I too am a refugee from the UP and the Nashville Charette. I hope I am allowed to offer counter opinions here that were not allowed at the UP or NC. Some of you might know me as Black and White, Doctor Esperanto, High Rise Hank or Suburb Supporter.

Hello Dave, Heckles, BNA Breaker, SkyscaperGeek and all my other friends.

Here we go:

The Nashville Planning Department has been telling us that we need to be more like Portland and Charleston to attract large corporation transfering their HQs.

Whithin the eight years of the current Purcell Planning Department Williamson county has attracted Nissan from LA over Portland and now the Verison HQ is locating to Franklin.

Should not the Panning Department reverse their policies to make Nashville less dense, diverse, mixed use, pedestrian, bike and public transportaion friendly? It seems like the big coporations and a majority of Nashvillians are moving to the surrounding counties to flee the heavy handed social engineering of the Purcell Planning Department.

It seems like nobody except the Plannning Department wants New Urbanism.

Downtown is becomming a bedroom community to Williamson County.

We can expect more of the same from Karl Dean if we are saddled with his election to the Mayors position.

[BnaBreaker]

To answer your question, sure we should do that, if you're only goal is to attract companies who desire a campus style locale.

Personally, although I feel there is a balancing act that needs to take place in order to create a business friendly environment, I find it repulsive when localities bend over sideways for the needs of companies. I want a city that is built for it's citizens, not for corporations.

So, to sum up, transforming Nashville into La Vergne might be a good thing for certain companies who are looking for a large amount of space, but there should be and are far more important and honorable purposes to city planning than to simply become as business friendly as possible.

[DaddYo]

I want a city that is built for it's citizens, not for corporations.
But isn't it the citizens that benefit from the corporations relocating to the cities where they live.

The Metro Planning Department has been telling us for years that the Communalistic policies that they have pushing on Nashvillians will bring in the corporations because that is what the employess of these coporations want. You know the standard - walkable, bikeable, diverse - blah, blah, blah.

What more honorable purpose does a Planning Department have than to provide for the welfare of its citizens by assuring that they have some place to work? If the major companies and the smaller companies that service them move to Williamson County then it is going to be awful hard for Nashvillians to walk to work.

The Purcell Planning Department has failed this city.

It seems like what the Purcell Planning Department has created a reverse suburb. Now the residential areas are downtown and people will commute to work in Williamson County.

[Hankster]

I, too, am disappointed that Verizon has chosen Cool Springs as their headquarters rather than downtown. But, they DID choses the Nashville area, that's thats significant. It may well be that Verizon would have chosen a suburban location no matter where they relocated. Whether we like it or not, the cost of locating in the suburbs is far cheaper than locating downtown, and it probably will always be that way. That single fact is the single most important driving force in all these suburban office relocations.

I wouldn't judge The Purcell Planning Department as harshly as you have. Most likely they could do more to attract these businesses to locate downtown. But would it be enough? That's hard to say.

[cabasse]

don't corporations usually tend to locate wherever their higher ups think most of their workforce are going to be living nowadays?

nashville's urban population is still burgeoning; it's not like the urban lifestyle has been popular for the last half a century. it is a recent thing, and it's going to have to become much more popular to make any sizable impact on the decisions make by the majority of corporate heads.

the last thing any downtown needs is suburban office campuses plopped down in them. (i certainly wouldn't wish it on nashville) if it's suburbs that corporations want (or think they want) right now, let them build them elsewhere, not further ruin the urban fabric of our cities. there are other ways to entice corporate heads to move to urban spaces in downtown, and destroying said urban space in the first place shows bad foresight. (look at peachtree center in atlanta for example - practically the ugliest part of its downtown 30 years after it was originally planned and built)

It seems like the big coporations and a majority of Nashvillians are moving to the surrounding counties to flee the heavy handed social engineering of the Purcell Planning Department.

this is almost certainly an objective statement; oversimplified in the very least.

[LA_TN]

You guys overlooked the bad part - 500 jobs moving from Grassmere Office Park (which is suburban/campus style along I-440) to Cool Springs. Verizon could have expanded at Grassmere or went to Elm Hill, Metroplex, etc. within Davidson Co. but instead opted for Cool Springs.

I suspect cost led to this decision and here's three reasons why:
1) Cool Springs companies, although they treat employees well, are notoriously cheap (yes, this is a subjective opinion - please bash me!)
2) Q. who knows where Duke Dr. is? A. off Seaboard Ln - low visibility (like current location) which fetches a cheaper price
3) Davidson Co. is more expensive - my company was considering relocating ~100 employees to office space in the Elm Hill area, but finally gave up because the price/sq ft was about the same, so it would not be cost effective to move

But still, I don't like giving away money, but until Nashville starts promoting areas like Elm Hill and Metroplex, then....... Look at American Healthways, Community Health, etc. - all went to CS for - you guessed it - tax incentives! Ditto for Nissan and Verizon. Any small town in America would hand over the keys to the city for opportunity like Verizon (1000 jobs x $40k average). Franklin did, maybe Purcell should quit daydreaming about the ghost ballet and, at the very least, attempt to earn his pay

[DallasTexan]

hmmm, communistic policies? Overregulation? In Nashville? Somebody's never been to the Northeast! ;)

[DaddYo]

this is almost certainly an objective statement; oversimplified in the very least.

not really. All you have to do is look at population movemnet numbers. Every county surrounding Davidson County is gaining population (Williamson at the most) while Nashville is losing population.

I am not alone in my opinion of the Communalist policies (I did not say Communist) of the Purcell Planning Depatment. The following is an email I received from an attendee at a recent community meeting held by the Planning Department to push their design regulation manual. In this meetng the Planners outnumbered the citizens and the citizens were treated rudely by the Planners (including the Planning Director) because everyone of the citizens were their to voice some complain about the Planning Department's policies or processess.

I do not live in East Nashville. Sully, I've lived in Connecticut, Philadelphia, LA and NYC.

________________________________________________________________

Thank you for sending me that. What a refreshing read. I can certainly see why your approach causes consternation among the unimaginative. I find it disconcerting that they planned this meeting, a) in the middle of a heat wave (which was perhaps unforeseeable) but b) in the middle of an election runoff which has been certain since the original slates were published. I am so busy with my candidate in the 24th District I can't see straight.

Going to these meetings downtown, paying for parking, etc., I would guess is as big of an inconvenience for all of the suburban neighborhoods as it was for us. At the first meeting, which involved "core" areas, not one audience member was from the core. We were all from my area. I think I remember you saying you live in East Nashville, which is not far from the library. But the vast majority of residents live far from downtown, so I think it was a bad idea for them to host there. I also think it was a bad idea for them to try to amass all residents who live in certain "constructs" to come together and make decisions when our real neighborhoods are so wildly divergent. I think it was designed to discourage public participation.

Our "Subarea 10" meetings were held at Hillsboro High School, quite close to our neighborhood, and were very well attended. They were equally as "ramming" in their new urbanism tactics then, but the preponderance of neighbors shut them down. They wanted to put Neighborhood Centers smack in the middle of our T-2/T-3 utterly residential 'hood. Back then, (2004) that was a T-4 objective. (There were no T-anythings then, they were just seeing if the balloon would fly.) The behemoth development that followed shortly after those meetings and violated current zoning grotesquely, was only presented to a tiny group of area residents, some of whom were bought out (on record). The only way they could bypass public opinion was to reduce the number of stakeholders.

I could go on and on, but the short truth is that the Planning Commission is completely unaccountable to anyone for everything that it does. They are out of control in every direction, and it has got to stop.

It has always been known that they were a rubber stamp for developers, but now they have morphed into some kind of internal, isolated dictatorship of style and density. It is scary. City Planning has not been open to the public for very long, and it has not been well received in our area...not that we don't participate, but that the Planning ideas are so wildly divergent from our current enjoyment levels, that people are disgusted. They don't want the Planners to tell them how they ought to be living when they work so hard to have the things and lifestyle that they have.

The Planners, in their infinite "New Urbanism" wisdom have yet to present the downside to their insistence on increased density-and-commercialism-at-any-cost philosophy... the neighbors do not agree, but are tired of trickery and deceit. We do not want increased crime or a 24-hour mentality. We can go downtown for that. And, there's that pesky matter of having no police protection..at all...in the 24th District. We are not interested in creating the need for more police. We don't have any now, and it seems kind of silly to create a crime opportunity just to get the protection we already pay for.

[Lexy]

This is my first post at the SP. Should not the Panning Department reverse their policies to make Nashville less dense, diverse, mixed use, pedestrian, bike and public transportaion friendly? It seems like the big coporations and a majority of Nashvillians are moving to the surrounding counties to flee the heavy handed social engineering of the Purcell Planning Department.

It seems like nobody except the Plannning Department wants New Urbanism.

Downtown is becomming a bedroom community to Williamson County.



Oh boy, you are going to have a hard time convincing anyone on this site that your opinions are the right thing. LOL!! Especially with that first paragraph. Eitherway, welcome and I hope you stick around. But Nashville needs to remain competitve nationally, even if that means helping sell a corporation on the idea of moving to...GASP....Cool Springs.

We all need to understand that the city of Nashville does help, along with the state, in recuriting corporations to Cool Springs just like they help recruit them to central city Nashville. Why? Because it's all about a tax base.

[nashvol85]

The Nashville Planning Department has been telling us that we need to be more like Portland and Charleston to attract large corporation transfering their HQs.

Whithin the eight years of the current Purcell Planning Department Williamson county has attracted Nissan from LA over Portland and now the Verison HQ is locating to Franklin.

If a corporation wants to build a campus-style office building in the Nashville area, let's face it, they probably won't locate it in Davidson county. First of all, it isn't cost efficient to build a low or midrise building on a large amount of land downtown. At least these corporations are moving to the Nashville area, which contributes to the entire region's economy.

I doubt Nissan or Verizon would have located in any downtown...so let's be glad they chose Nashville metro.

Should not the Panning Department reverse their policies to make Nashville less dense, diverse, mixed use, pedestrian, bike and public transportaion friendly? It seems like the big coporations and a majority of Nashvillians are moving to the surrounding counties to flee the heavy handed social engineering of the Purcell Planning Department.

That is the most asinine thing I've ever heard...even if it is sarcasm.

Downtown is becomming a bedroom community to Williamson County.

Riiiiight...Davidson county isn't adding any new jobs or anything. Oh, and aren't they converting the 430 ft. 500,000 some-odd sq ft Pinnacle into condos??

We can expect more of the same from Karl Dean if we are saddled with his election to the Mayors position.

Would you rather have a slimy two-faced shyster like Baaaaab Clement running our fine city?

[DaddYo]

If a corporation wants to build a campus-style office building in the Nashville area, let's face it, they probably won't locate it in Davidson county.
No kidding. It’s not because companies don’t want to build downtown, it’s because they aren’t allowed to build in the exurbs of Davidson County thanks to Purcell and the Purcell Planning Department.
They and their workers also have to pay more property taxes to finance the Purcell Planning Department’s effort to make Nashville like Portland, OR, build and maintain sidewalks all over town that nobody walks on and establish urban growth boundaries that drive up the cost of land everywhere. On top of that they have to send their kids to private schools and pay to have their future workers racially and politically radicalized, uneducated in the basics and well educated in self-expression.
Companies don’t want to locate downtown because the workers they want to attract don’t want to live downtown. If I were running a large company I would rather locate where I could attract stable, family oriented workers. I would not want to locate where my work force was more concerned with extending their college-years partying in what amounts to private sector dormitories.
Nissan and Verison did not choose Metropolitan Nashville and Davidson County. They choose Williamson County . And, I know that a majority of the workers at those companies are choosing to live in Brentwood.
Funny how Nashville urbanites shun Williamson County until they lose out to Williamson County and then somehow Williamson County becomes part of “Metro”
That is the most asinine thing I've ever heard
I assure you that I am quite serious. I’ll thank you to not characterize the validity of my opinions. Admin, please remind this forum member of the Terms of Use he agreed to when registering for this forum.
Can you provide statistics that shows Nashville adding more jobs per resident than is Williamson County?
Would you rather have a slimy two-faced shyster like Baaaaab Clement running our fine city?
Yes I would. I would rather have someone interested in bettering our city that another Yankee carpetbagger pushing the very planning policies that caused the destruction of the Northeast. We already have one Yankee who raped our city for eight years and is now returning to the Northeast to brag about how he saved the dumb growth Southerners from their ignorance. We don’t need another one.
I expect Clemet to win and start to reverse the damage done to this city by Purcell and the Planning Department. I hope he budgets the Planning Department in half. That is why I’m voting for him.

[BnaBreaker]

I assure you that I am quite serious. I’ll thank you to not characterize the validity of my opinions. Admin, please remind this forum member of the Terms of Use he agreed to when registering for this forum.
Can you provide statistics that shows Nashville adding more jobs per resident than is Williamson County?

Oh stop. You of all people are in no place to lecture people about adhering to message board Terms of Use.

Yes I would. I would rather have someone interested in bettering our city that another Yankee carpetbagger pushing the very planning policies that caused the destruction of the Northeast. We already have one Yankee who raped our city for eight years and is now returning to the Northeast to brag about how he saved the dumb growth Southerners from their ignorance. We don’t need another one.
I expect Clemet to win and start to reverse the damage done to this city by Purcell and the Planning Department. I hope he budgets the Planning Department in half. That is why I’m voting for him.

Please, at least read one book on the subject of urban planning and the history of it before you go rambling on about it as if you know what you're talking about. Your sheer dumbfounding ignorance on this subject just shocks me.

I love how you base all of your opinions in tired, played out conservative talking points that have little basis in reality and have been proven false time and time again. I know it's a pain in the ass to have to alter your opinions, and if you're too lazy to do that then that's fine by me, but why keep pestering everyone else with them?

As I said before, your informed and level-headed input is more than welcome, but you always have to go off on these ridiculous tangents about "yankee carpetbaggers" and those 'damn liberals that wanna take yer freedoms', and it gives us all very clear insight as to why you've been banned from every other forum. Can't you just behave yourself?

Out of curiosity, why on earth are you a member of an urban development forum if you despise the concept of it so much?

[nashvol85]

DaddYo....you "know" all of this information, yet you can't provide any hard facts or proof? Sorry, but I don't trust what you think you know. You aren't exactly what I would call a credible source.


Should not the Panning Department reverse their policies to make Nashville less dense, diverse, mixed use, pedestrian, bike and public transportaion friendly?

Yes, yes, let's just turn Nashville into one huge sprawling low-rise suburb...all in the name of taking more jobs from Williamson County!!

Where in the hell do you come up with this stuff?


Trust me....Nashville ain't hurtin' because of what Williamson County is doing. If you haven't noticed, Davidson County has outgrown Williamson County since 2000. Purcell isn't my idea of a great mayor, but I would rather have 12 more years of him than have 4 of Bob Clement.

[nashvol85]

I love how you base all of your opinions in tired, played out conservative talking points that have little basis in reality and have been proven false time and time again.

Please. This guy is an insult to conservatives. I'm a conservative.

[DaddYo]

Oh stop. You of all people are in no place to lecture people about adhering to message board Terms of Use.
I re-read the Rules of the Forum and there is nothing there about personal attacks on others members so I guess you are in the clear to call me names and deride my opinions.

I don't have time to respond in kind in the first place and I'm just not as mean-spirited in the second place.

I have read many book on urban planning spanning the time period before and after the New Urbanist social engineering. What is the latest book you have read on the subject?

I recently finished "Sprawl - A Compact History" by Robert Bruegman. Have you read it? Your outddated global warming based, communalistic, heightened consciencenes, top-down planning therories are the ones that are outdated. While you are at it, read "Unstoppable Global Warming Every 1,500 Years" by Fred Singer and Dennis Avery. Bruegman exposes the left's urban planning political agenda and Singer/Avery exposes the left's climate change political agenda.

Do you even work in any field realted to planning or architecture? You don't even live in Nashville so your opinions are meaningless. You can't vote here.

I am free to post any opinion here I wish. You do not have the right to tell me what I can and can not post. You do not have the right to judge the quality of my posts or require that I "behave myself".

If you are too scared to read opinions that do not agree with yours then I suggest you not read my posts at all.

I don't despise urban development. I despise the Purcell, New Urbanist, Communalistic, Smarther-than-you Growth, Global Warming Panic BS than passes for urban planning but is really just plain social engineering designed to try to institute failed hippie communalism.

[DaddYo]

DaddYo....you "know" all of this information, yet you can't provide any hard facts or proof? Sorry, but I don't trust what you think you know. You aren't exactly what I would call a credible source.

If you haven't noticed, Davidson County has outgrown Williamson County since 2000.

Educate yourself, then talk to me about credibility.

http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/47/47187.html

http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/47/47037.html

[-=skywalker=-]

You know, for someone that claims to be well read you sure do have a lot of typos. Perhaps you should learn how to use the spell checker before posting your rants and raves.

[DaddYo]

You know, for someone that claims to be well read you sure do have a lot of typos. Perhaps you should learn how to use the spell checker before posting your rants and raves.
This is how I can tell when I have gotten through the thin veneer that protects the urbanists/global warming alarmist facade.

When you have nothing left to defend your position - pick on spelling. It always comes right after the name calling.

you need to pay more attention to what I am saying then my spelling.

I know it must be tough to have the entire justification of your being calling into question but it is time to move on. Read some contemporary books. Throw off the yoke of PC hippydom. The 60's are over and all of your revolutions are the subject of jokes.

You didn't change the world in the 60's and you aren't going to change it now.

[-=skywalker=-]

This is how I can tell when I have gotten through the thin veneer that protects the urbanists/global warming alarmist facade.

When you have nothing left to defend your position - pick on spelling. It always comes right after the name calling.

you need to pay more attention to what I am saying then my spelling.

I know it must be tough to have the entire justification of your being calling into question but it is time to move on. Read some contemporary books. Throw off the yoke of PC hippydom. The 60's are over and all of your revolutions are the subject of jokes.

You didn't change the world in the 60's and you aren't going to change it now.

OMG dude, you seriously need a life. You don't even know me and I haven't said diddly shit about you or your opinion. Just saying that you should use the spell checker, I read your posts and found a lot of spelling errors. For one, isn't it VERIZON?

Anyway, you're entitled to your opinion though you'll be hard press to find anyone on a skyscraper/urban forum to agree with it. Personally, I prefer a good mix of both urban and suburban living in a city. Too much sprawl or too much density is not a good thing in my book, give people the choice to decide what lifestyle they want. Some people want to live in a high-rise with greats views of the skyline, others may want to live overlooking the 9th hole at the local golf course. The signs of a great city is one that can offer multiple living standards for people to choose from.

Also, I don't know what's up with the hippy talk. The 60's, when was that?!?! I wasn't even around then, but I'm here now. I'm not a hippy by any means, in fact I am a 27 y/o engineering student who wants to build his dream home on the 9th hole at the local golf course (RTJ Hampton Cove).

What you got to realize, not everyone agrees with what your preaching, especially in this forum. If you feel this strongly about Nashville's developement, you are free to move. I personally hate Middle Tennessee, so I did something about it earlier this summer...I moved back to Huntsville, AL because this city fits my lifestyle better...plenty of golf courses, mountains, lakes, Tennessee River, etc. Maybe a change of scenery will benefit you too, otherwise as I've been told before..."If you don't like it, leave it"!

[blueraider86]

Wow, I see Michael Poindexter is back! Hey Michael, I thought you were banned from Nashville Charrette only for 6 months?

Glad to see you are just as angry as you were as Black and White, and High Rise Hank.

[DaddYo]

Wow, I see Michael Poindexter is back! Hey Michael, I thought you were banned from Nashville Charrette only for 6 months?

Glad to see you are just as angry as you were as Black and White, and High Rise Hank.

Yes, I am back. It is typical to see you come back after I’ve come back. I wondered how long it would take for you to stalk me back here. It is also typical that you would characterize my postings as “angry”. You seem to be the one pissed enough to stalk me and attempt to control my opinions by revealing my real name.

I could care less about the length of my banishment from Nashville Charrette. They, like you, are only interested in those that agree with their political agenda and ban anyone who disagrees. When I joined the Nashville Charrette I didn’t know it was a primarily a gay forum.

Sorry, I don’t agree with your gay agenda so you won’t be hearing from me on the Nashville Charrette.

It looks like your only opportunity to harass and stalk me will have to be here.

[nashvol85]

Educate yourself, then talk to me about credibility.

http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/47/47187.html

http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/47/47037.html

Don't you remember when the census bureau said "oops, my bad...we underestimated Davidson County's population by about 30,000 for 2005, but it won't show up on the 2006 estimate because that's already been completed"?

Williamson 2000 - 126,638
Williamson 2006 - 160,781

change - 34,143

Davidson 2000 - 569,891
Davidson 2005 - 607,413

change - 37,522

If Davidson grew by the same average in 2006, its population would be somewhere around 615,000, a change of over 45,000.


You reading the census quickfacts doesn't exactly make you "credible"...but anyways, you're banned, so it doesn't matter.

[BnaBreaker]

Haha, he's banned again. This might be a new record. lol