Nurturing nightlife in Music City

Lots of cities are known for their vibrant music scenes, but none more than Nashville, Tennessee.

Nashville's identity as Music City dates back more than a century. Queen Victoria reportedly once described Nashville as "a city of music" after hearing a performance by the Fisk Jubilee Singers, a Black choir from Fisk University. Nashville became the center of the country music recording industry in the twentieth century, and today it has 252 venues that showcase live music. More than 100 of those spaces are solely dedicated to music-one of the densest clusters of live music venues per capita of any place in the world. A few dozen independently owned and operated venues play an outsize role in cultivating the city's musical talent. Those independent venues are increasingly at risk amid a development boom and widespread gentrification.

That's according to a new report from PennPraxis-the applied research, engagement, and practice arm of the Stuart Weitzman School of Design-in collaboration with VibeLab, a Berlin-based consultancy group, and Culture Shift Team of Nashville. The Nashville Independent Venues Study, released this month, was commissioned by the Metro Council in 2021 amid the economic and cultural crises brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic. But the precarity of independent venues stretches back much earlier.

"The backdrop to this whole project is that Nashville is experiencing a massive, multi-decade economic boom," says Michael Fichman, associate professor of practice in the Department of City and Regional Planning program and a senior research associate at PennPraxis. "There's a very fast-moving real estate environment, and [venue operators] are concerned about their ability to stay in their properties. The workforce is concerned about their ability to remain in Nashville. Musicians are concerned that they're going to have to live further and further out in the county."

This story is by Jared Brey. Read more at Weitzman News.