While spending the evening at the Sheraton last night, I decided to do some research on Nashville's population at the Central Library the next morning.
The topic in question?
Did Nashville suffer the same population decline as other cities across the nation during the last half of the twentieth century? I have always wondered this about Nashville and set out to find the truth.
These are my findings.
Here is the graph illustrating population growth of the city. For those who don't know Nashville, the large spike in population from 1960 to 1970 was due to the fact that the city of Nashville consolidated with Davidson County in 1963.
1900: 80,865
1910: 110,364
1920: 118,342
1930: 153,866
1940: 167,402
1950: 174,307
1960: 166,287
1970: 448,003
1980: 477,811
1990: 510,784
2000: 569,891
After contacting the head librarian of the Nashville Room at the library, we found maps and archives of pre-1963 Nashville. I looked at the pre-consolidated city limits of Nashville and discovered that in 1960, the city of Nashville encompassed 33.5 square miles, and had a population of 166,287. The city proper had a density of 4,964 people per square mile (Oh, to have that density again...).
Reading through the books that were found, I noticed that there was a population drop of 8,000 from 1950 to 1960. Quite intriguing.
1950: 174,307
1960: 166,287
Here are two quotes from the book:
"The pattern of growth indiciated by these figures is consistent with the national pattern -- that is, diminishing growth in the central city, even decline, and a mushrooming of the county outside..."
"Without consolidation, Nashville is dead..."
This is one of the maps from the book that showcased the old city limits:
Reading on, the librarian and I found the ZIP codes of pre-consolidated Nashville. They are still the same today and follow the old city boundries. The ZIP codes of pre-consolidated Nashville are:
37201, 37203, 37204, 37206, 37212, 37213, 37219. 37228.
Bingo. Now that we found those numbers, all we had to do was add the population together of the ZIP codes today and compare them to the 1960 numbers.
Adding up the numbers, we found these results for the year 2000:
37201 - 1,167
37203 - 12,718
37204 - 11,024
37206 - 27,751
37212 - 18,547
37213 - 137
37219 - 830
37228 - 331
The total of the old city in 2000?
72,505.
That's decline of 101,802 people from the high population in 1950. I was shocked. I expected a drop, but nothing of that magnitude. Hoping that things had changed since 1990, I pulled the 1990 Census numbers and compare them to the 2000 numbers. Unfortunately, there were 1,315 more people in the old city in 1990
Conclusion:
I can only draw one conclusion from my studies: Nashville did indeed suffer the same decline as other cities in the country, but it was masked by the fact that the city consolidated with the entire county, thus appearing as the city grew. If Nashville hadn't consolidated, it would have been MUCH smaller today.
Sources:
Nashville Metro - The Politics of City/County Consolidation
Nashville Central Library Nashville Room Archives
Tennessee Almanac 1960
Please note that this isn't a bash. I was just curious about it and thought I would share my results...