Nashville, Tennessee
The South's Great Musical Exchange
Whereas Memphis is the City of Blues, Nashville is Music City, with a culture and setting steeped in musical celebration covering the expansion of Country and Pop. Nashville is not much bigger than Memphis in terms of population, but in terms of density, it is on a different level, with a much larger and developed urban core. That being said, it is not New York City or even Washington, DC--there are undeveloped plots adjacent to some of its most impressive features, such as those within the Music City Center, and traditional rail lines running through the approximate center of the city at grade.
The plan for Nashville is to capitalize on its novel modern features and replace the aging remnants with a modern solution. Rerouting, building over top of, and replacing the rail lines with above and below grade alignments would vastly improve the walkability of Nashville's core in relation to its nearby neighborhoods, while facilitating the North, South, East and West alignments required for Nashville as part of both the Redline and the Mideast Railway. The openness of the central core provides unique opportunities for central "last mile delivery" intermodal solutions, in a fashion akin to Chicago's 20th century Merchandise Mart.
The proposal for Nashville is one of the more involved project proposals, as it seeks to seamlessly integrate an expansive rail complex into the fabric of the urban core--facilitating direct tourist visitor access to Music City Center's attractions, and crafting the kind of welcoming Southern hospitality while giving the history and modernity of music its due. The aim of the station complex is to make it a model of modern transit development solutions, with opportunities for work, play, and living accommodations. Nashville is self-aware in terms of its Greek and Roman roots, providing opportunity for a return to classical architectural themes and expressive construction methods.
