7 Ideas Nashville Wants Other Cities To Copy After Their Leaders Come To Town

Nashville gets to show off the city this week to 4,000 elected officials and mayors from across the country who will be in town for the National League of Cities annual conference. So how do city leaders choose what to highlight?

Think of it as a gigantic field trip across Nashville — and the students, this time, are visiting city leaders. They’ll see the booming Gulch neighborhood, visit the multicultural programs at Casa Azafran, and meet the artists at the gritty Fort Houston co-working space.

These places rose to the top as officials decided what best represents Nashville to the world. Former Metro Councilman Ronnie Steine — with 20 years experience with the League of Cities — says these places were chosen to stimulate ideas.

“There’s some bragging to it, but in that bragging, you also have the opportunity to learn more about what it is you’re doing, and what you could do better,” Steine says. “As you have folks looking at it for the first time, their questions alone are invaluable to us … that reflection is always important to improve, because there’s nothing that we’re doing as well as we want to do it.”

7 Big Ideas

It’s common for conference-goers to go back home and copy the programs that stood out. Here are a few that will get close attention this week (
see the entire schedule here).

1. Like
   when President Obama visited last year, attendees will see how Metro Schools’ “Academies of Nashville” model connects students directly to employers by bringing hands-on learning into schools.
2. The “From Vacant To Vibrant” tour highlights urban infill developments and creative reuses of old buildings, including the 100 Oaks Mall, the Gulch neighborhood, and the public housing revitalization on
   Rolling Mill Hill.
3. Metro government agencies and non-profits will explain how Nashville responded to the 2010 flood.
4. Supporting “creatives” and entrepreneurs figures prominently into several events. Visitors will see Isle of Printing letterpress shop, a bike shop, and the Edmondson Park sculpture park on Charlotte Avenue. They’ll also go to Fort Houston.
5. The
   city’s efforts to be more welcoming to “new Americans” come together in large part at a single building:
   Casa Azafran on Nolensville Pike. Visitors will see how several non-profits are housed under one roof.
6. Former mayor Karl Dean called ”
   Limitless Libraries” his single favorite project while in office, so it gets prominent billing this week. The partnership between the public library and the school district allows students to check out any book in the city from their school libraries.
7. Last but not least for policy wonks, Steine expects a large attendance at a session dedicated to the functioning of the
   consolidated Metro Government. He says urban cities and their surrounding counties often have tense relationships, so Nashville will show off what it believes to be a more efficient form of local government.

Nashville Learns, Too

Over the years, Nashville has borrowed ideas to improve greenways and afterschool programs. The event last year in Austin set a template for affordable housing and car-sharing.

“We pick up a lot of good ideas, but it also helps us evaluate what we’re doing here in Nashville,” Steine says. He says
 the sheer number of ideas during the four-day event can overwhelm.

“Everything from the newest in park benches to how to budget your city better and all those things,” Steine says. “For a council member walking through there, it’s a little like [overdosing] on ideas.”

Nashville last hosted in 2002, so recent projects will get attention, including crime-reduction efforts.