Mr_Bond

For all the complaints we may have about MarketStreet (no names will be mentioned here, you know who you are), their creation of The Gulch as a neighborhood deserves all the credit and profit that they earn. Before anyone saw the potential of downtown Nashville (and could do something about it), they did.

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.

True, and the landscaping crew at Belmont are excellent. The wife and I may drive down there to see this up close.

In 2010 one of my investment clients, who was worth $5M to $10M, asked me why I bought a condo in The Gulch. I told him why and I told him the best thing he could do with his extra cash was to buy the office building he was renting downtown. He had lots of extra cash because he was still nervous about the Great Recession / Global Financial Crisis. His landlord had asked him if he wanted to buy the building. He would probably be up 10X today.

On Saturday I saw a small shovel on site at the 910 8th Ave S development, the kind that would be used to tear down one story buildings. Has a demo permit been pulled here yet? Does anyone have an update on this project?

I can't tell what kind of tree they planted in the middle but I really hope they paid attention to the selection. So many landscapers just pull from their list of go-to trees and don't put enough thought into it.

He had that look like "I've run in a lot of races. It's what I do." You can kind of tell the newbies from the veterans.

Here are some pics from the BNA 5K on the Runway. I picked up my race packet on Friday at 815 Hanger Lane. And bought some swag. When I go out for a run in The Gulch, all the tourists will think I'm cool. Below the stop sign it reads, "DO NOT PROCEED. CONTACT ATC." There was another sign on the first gate we drove through that read, "Violators will be arrested and prosecuted." The rain stopped right we arrived around 6:45 AM and it started again around 9:30 AM as we were leaving. Thank the good Lord! This pic gives some perspective to where the race start line and other tents were set up at the south end of the runway. Parking was on grass which quickly turned to mud to the east of the south end. @Sean blackdog posted a map of where the parking was. This pano really gives you some perspective. The south end is to the left and you can see down the 2R runway to the right. The tower is almost in the center and the terminal is to the right of center. The big yellow X flashes consistently and there's another one at the other end of the runway. These keep planes from inadvertently landing on this runway. You can see the cranes at the terminal to the left of the X. For some reason, people wanted to get their pics in front of the X. The race course was the actual runway and taxiway. To the side of the course were signs giving interesting facts about this runway. The letters in this pic, "R" and "2", are 20' wide by 60' long. There are 256,000 square feet of paint on the runway and taxiway. One said that this runway can accommodate an Antonov An-225 cargo plane (I hope I remembered that correctly). A little more perspective of one of the lights on the side of the runway with the terminal in the distance. You can see three white stripes in this pic. At each end of the runway are twelve stripes like those that go all the way across the runway. Twelve stripes means the runway is 150' wide. A shot looking north down the runway. Notice the big numbers on the side of the runway, 7-6-5-4. Landing on 2R from south to north, the numbers run from 8 down to 1. If the plane goes past 1 it will run off the runway. If landing on 20L from the other direction, the numbers also run from 8 to 1, meaning that the 7 in this pic has a 2 on the other side of it. This shot was taken from the south side of the tents looking south. You can see the red metal supports that house the pre-runway lights for planes landing on 2R. To give you some perspective about the size of the light, I set my water bottle next to it. The dog is a 4 month old Russian Tsvetnaya Bolonka named Truffle and he weighs about 6.5 pounds. He is the perfect dog. And to wrap things up, this is me pre-race getting some encouragement from Truffle. No, he did not run with me but he is very fast. He's more of a sprinter than a long distance runner. Finally, it wouldn't be a Nashville road race without a celebrity sighting. This is not a good pic but the man has a long, full beard and when he walked past me after the race he said, "I'm pretty tired. I think I'll go home now."

It warms my heart to see the sedum on top of the Music City Center.

This topic came up with a friend recently when discussing the Jefferson Street area. Rising property values caused underinsurance. When the tornado hit, many were forced to sell because they could not afford to rebuild. Some type of zoning overlay would have been agreed to by the property owners in years past but didn't happen. Call it a lack of forethought and leadership. That overlay would have helped some of them to rebuild.

Driving into town from Bellevue last night around 8:00 PM this tower was the brightest object on the skyline. It looks amazing! What a great addition to our city!

I drove out to the airport this morning to pick up my packet for the race in the morning. There were at least 10 trucks of various types on 2R/20L making the final preparations for the ribbon cutting in the morning at 7:30. My wife and I will try to get some cool pics for this thread.

I agree with you. I meant the comparison to be a bit of fun. Looks like I also contributed to getting the comments flowing.

If @titanhog were here, she might post something like this...

Well said. I've talked to several wealthier people who moved to Tennessee from Illinois and, to a person, they said there were two main reasons: they got a big pay raise because their taxes are much lower here, and they like this weather much better. A third reason has been created because the migration has been happening for awhile: they have family in the area.

It hearkens back to the days of the company town and the company store.

If they will switch back to the Flank Hotel rendering, all will be well.

I hope they're going to replace that beautiful urban garden on the roof.

If you like the Ferrero Rocher Regions Bank, you will LOVE Howard Auditorium at my alma mater, Oral Roberts University. To give you some perspective, it seats 1,000 people.

To paraphrase Milton Friedman, there's no such thing as free parking. The owner of the building looks at all the costs of owning and operating and charges lease rates accordingly. He may tell the tenant, "If you move it, I'll give you free parking," but he knows his cost structure and will adjust his lease rates as needed.

A city is a living entity made up of many members. The freedom of humans to do as they wish with their lives and their money means that they will find a way to deal with the obstacles put in front of them, including zoning regs. If the people of an area are controlled too much by government, they will go somewhere else (legal and illegal immigration, asylum seekers, people currently leaving high tax states, and on and on throughout history). Fortunately, it is human nature to want to maintain good relationships with those around us. Also, there is a morality to the free market that is created by the fact that business owners must be trustworthy in order to maintain an ongoing stream of revenue. By my lights, our desire for relationship, our need to be trustworthy, and our ability to flee bad government suggests to me that less regulation is preferred over more. Yes, we need some regulations but less is more and they should always be structured as to keep builders from harming the public in the long term, not toward someone's vision of how things ought to be. The law of supply and demand always works. We can't wish it away with zoning regulations. Pricing signals the activity of market participants. Period. If we force via regulation the price of a good to be lower than the market price, demand will rise and suppliers will not be motivated to produce more. This is what has happened with 'rent control' units in NYC. Also witness what has been happening in Venezuela under the price controls of a socialist government. So, step out the way and let the market participants demand housing and supply housing. Get rid of the 'small Southern city' regulations and let the builders build.

Spot on! And each of us must play our part to keep it respectful and informative. Grit and respect will keep UP a great place to hang out.

Welcome to the forum! I don't know the answer to your question but someone here probably does. Anyone?

@markhollin, we know that the city is growing rapidly when you create a new thread about an 11 story, 304 unit residential building along the Church Street corridor in Midtown, and no one makes a comment for a week. Thanks for your work anyway.

2R/20L has just finished a 15-month complete overhaul per FAA regulations. The ribbon cutting on the new runway is this Saturday morning, followed by the BNA 5K on the Runway race. See y'all on the runway this Saturday!