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Louisville and Nashville among the South's best cities |
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Read why Louisville and Nashville rank among the 9 best cities in the South.
Nashville’s built form fares quite well among the South
THE CITY PAPER (Nashville, TN) - Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, Miami. Is Nashville the South’s next city of national influence? Based on its diverse economy, collection of colleges, state capital status, central location, natural beauty and interesting mix of people, there is potential.
But what about Music City’s built environment?
Within the past three years, I have visited and thoroughly explored the urban cores of eight medium-sized cities in the greater South. The octet includes Birmingham, Charlotte, Fort Worth, Jacksonville, Louisville, Memphis, Orlando and Tampa. Each, to an extent, is vying to achieve “first-tier city” status along with other mid-major southern cities not listed here.
After a recent visit to Birmingham, or “The Ham” as many locals in Alabama’s largest city endearingly call it, I decided to compare the manmade fabric of the eight cities, plus Nashville, using 10 categories:
Following is a breakdown (with runners-up listed alphabetically):
Vintage building stock
The winner: Louisville.
The runners-up: Birmingham and Memphis. The other six simply don’t even come close.
Building density
The winner: Louisville. It best rivals the old-school Northern cities in terms of density and vibe.
The runners-up: Birmingham and Memphis. Fort Worth gets props for its building-compact central business district, but it’s not enough to get a full nod.
Distinctive tall buildings
The winner: Charlotte. For mid-rise and high-rise design, Charlotte has catapulted itself past second-tier Southern cities. The runners-up: Nashville and Orlando.
‘Midtown’ or ‘secondary downtown’
The winner: Memphis.
The runners-up: Birmingham and Nashville.
21st century architecture
The winner: Charlotte.
The runners-up: Orlando and Tampa.
Eclectic mixed-use district out of the central business district The winner: Tampa. Tampa’s architecturally significant Ybor City (visualize a smaller French Quarter) is vastly unlike, and superior to, all the other cool districts found in these cities. Tampa also has the charming Hyde Park Village and the cosmopolitan South Howard Avenue (SoHo).
The runners-up: Birmingham and Louisville. Birmingham’s Five Points (with fabulous traditional architecture and fueled by pedestrian-heavy UAB) and Louisville’s Bardstown Road/ Cherokee Park/The Highlands (nothing like it in the South) also are big league. A close fourth is Orlando’s Thornton Park.
Orderliness
The winner: Memphis. The Bluff City’s streets and neighborhoods are amazingly consistent regarding housing types, building setbacks, signage, sidewalks, curbs, mailboxes and utilities. Anal-retentive types rejoice.
The runners-up: Birmingham and Louisville.
Skyline
The winner: Charlotte. The Queen City boasts of the striking 871-foot-tall Bank of America Corporate Center and numerous other glistening towers.
The runners-up: Louisville and Nashville. Louisville nicely combines old and new structures with stately bridges spanning the impressive Ohio River. Music City’s skyline stretches and curves, with hills and the Cumberland River offering a variety of eyecatching vistas.
Civic/cultural buildings
The winner: Nashville. With the Schermerhorn, Parthenon, Sommet Center, Country Music Hall of Fame, Main Library, LP Field, Tennessee State Capitol, Frist Center, Hume-Fogg High School and countless structures found at various colleges, Nashville almost dominates this category. The runners-up: Fort Worth and Louisville.
Combination of built, natural forms
The winner: Jacksonville.
The runners-up: Orlando and Tampa. If you’re keeping score, Louisville earns six mentions, with Birmingham (five), Memphis and Nashville (four each), and Charlotte, Orlando and Tampa (three each) trailing. From that point, I rank Jacksonville with the eighth-best built environment and Fort Worth ninth.
William Williams is a citizen observer of Nashville’s manmade environment. Contact him at
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