Nashville Rises due to Cooperation and Competition

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A consensus has formed among Middle Tennessee leaders that cities and counties need to work together more closely, but many critical decisions still have to be made before regionalism moves from a political promise to reality.

Nashville Mayor Karl Dean and other local elected officials have said they want to cooperate on a range of issues that cross city and county lines — traffic, air pollution, water and sewer rights.

These have grown in importance as the Nashville area's population has swelled from slightly more than 1 million in 1990 to more than 1.4 million today.


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But while the region's leaders say they support more cooperation, they differ over some fundamental questions:

• Should Nashville and its suburbs give regional authorities more power to make basic decisions, such as where and when roads should be built?
• Should the suburbs help pay for downtown Nashville's cultural and civic institutions, which benefit the entire region?
• Is competition within the region for company headquarters, factories and jobs good or bad?


Read the entire article in the Tennessean newspaper.