An Analysis of the Population Math Driving Nashville’s Housing Debate Nashville's Housing Plan - economics updated
Nashville's Housing Plan: 1.3 Homes for Every Man, Woman, and Child?
Data Analysis Report:
September 10, 2025 -Updated economic notes October 2, 2025
Deconstructing the Flawed Population Math Driving Nashville’s Housing Debate
Before you can solve a problem, you must first be sure you’ve measured it correctly. Nashville’s plan to build a staggering 91,000 new housing units isn’t based on a direct population forecast, but on a jobs-growth projection that is then converted into a required population.
Here’s the punchline: this method results in a projected need to house 175,000 new individuals. Yet, the State of Tennessee’s own official demographic forecast for Nashville is just 69,181 people. When the city’s core premise is more than double the state’s official projection, it’s a fundamental discrepancy that demands we check the math.
The Core Discrepancy: Two Competing Projections
The 91,000-unit housing goal is based on a projection of 175,000 new residents. This forecast stands in stark contrast to the state’s most credible demographic research center.
Data Source
Projected Population Growth in Davidson County (by 2034)
Unified Housing Strategy (HR&A Advisors) +175,000
University of Tennessee Boyd Center +69,181
Source: Metro Nashville Unified Housing Strategy; UT Boyd Center for Business & Economic Research, 2020-2034 Projection.
This massive discrepancy is the central reason Nashville’s housing target demands re-examination.
The Official Story vs. The Proposed Solution
Amid the top-down push for zoning reform in Nashville, the official narrative used to justify it doesn’t align with the facts on the ground. While the city’s Unified Housing Strategy correctly identifies an affordability crisis for working-class and low-income families, the proposed solution in the Housing and Infrastructure Study is a single, radical fix: a purely supply-side approach. This is the belief, enabled by the Metro Council, that the crisis can be solved simply by upzoning the entire city to build anything, anywhere, as fast as possible.
The Real Strategy and Objective
However, a closer look reveals a different strategy at play. The approach appears to be to manufacture a crisis to justify a sweeping overhaul of zoning, with the clear objective of eliminating single-family and low-density neighborhoods. This is essentially a rebranding of the earlier, controversial NEST initiative, now repackaged under the banner of removing “restrictive zoning.”
The Flawed Justification
To sell this overhaul, the enabling resolution (RS2024-288) is built on a stunningly flawed assumption: that single-family homeownership is dominated by white households. Yet, the study’s own data reveals the exact opposite: Black and Hispanic families own a substantially higher percentage of homes in majority single-family areas than their white counterparts.
This entire narrative conveniently bypasses a comprehensive update to the General Plan, ignores the current reality of “the best buyer’s market in the country,” and uses faulty data to justify its premise. It raises a fundamental question: Is this solution designed to meet Nashville’s actual needs, or is it serving a different agenda entirely?
Key Findings
Nashville’s entire housing strategy hinges on a single projection: that Davidson County will add 175,000 new residents by 2034.
This projection is 2.5 times higher (more than double the growth) than the forecast from the state’s leading demographic source, the UT Boyd Center for Business & Economic Research, which projects only 69,181 new residents in the same period.
Actual job growth in Davidson County is tracking at only 12% of the pace required to meet the city’s projection of 175,000 residents.
The city’s calculation appears to overlook a critical local dynamic: 56% of people who work in Davidson County commute from other counties, meaning the region absorbs the majority of housing demand from new jobs.
Analysts’ Note: Metro Planning indicates that the case above is “not convincing” and that their outcomes are derived by a different methodology. This review provides a comprehensive and transparent account of our test of the Consultant’s summary numbers. This analysis requests that Metro Nashville provide the UHS/HR&A forecast with the same transparency, with an explanation from the consultant to test the fact-based, math-based hypothesis submitted. We have shown you ours… ultimately, good consultants enjoy showing their work, and peer review is good for the soul; it improves public policy. Regardless of the method, the outcome delta should not be greater than the gap between downtown and the county line at rush hour.
Reality Check 1: Job Growth vs. Projections
Population growth is driven by job growth. To attract 175,000 new residents, Davidson County would need a sustained economic boom far exceeding its current pace.
The Pace Needed for UHS Target: To hit the 175,000-resident goal, the county would need to add roughly 17,500 jobs per year.
The Actual Pace (2020-2024): After accounting for the pandemic downturn and recovery, Davidson County’s net job growth has averaged 2,049 jobs per year.
Please Stop Being Presumptuous: by K. Pow (this is a link)
K’s substack addresses the question: Is the economy booming? Also see reality check number four below.The UHS target of 175,000 new residents, based on projected job growth, assumes an ever-climbing, breakneck-speed economy. According to my calculations, we are currently falling short of the forecast by 88 percent. To be clear: we have only achieved about 12 percent of the projected job creation, not for the future, but as of today. And by the way, this also tanks your Choose How We Move forecast, another sales pitch that relied on multi-county (regional) data, presented as Davidson County. So, again, for our elected officials, “why the rush”?
Four years into the forecast period, on-the-ground economic data does not support the projection that is driving city-wide housing policy.
Reality Check 2: The Commuter Factor
The number of jobs created in Davidson County does not equal the number of homes needed in Davidson County. With 56% of the workforce commuting from surrounding counties, the direct housing pressure on Nashville itself is dramatically reduced. When this commuter rate is applied to actual job growth since 2020, it translates to a need for a much smaller, more sustainable number of new housing units within the county.
Reality Check 3: The Conflation of Data with Low-Income Households that Require Subsidies
But here’s the shell game: buried within that 91,000-unit forecast is a separate need for 20,000 homes for our lowest-income families. These are homes that require deep subsidies, the kind that a market-rate “Missing Middle” plan is not designed to deliver. In fact, we have a current deficit of 15,000 of these subsidized units today.
This conflation of need is deeply misleading. By bundling the 20,000 subsidized units into the total forecast, the city is using the needs of our most vulnerable residents to justify a market-rate building boom that won’t actually serve them. To have an honest conversation, these two numbers must be separated. The 20,000 subsidized homes are a public responsibility that cannot be solved with a market-rate-only solution.
Reality Check 4: The Market Correction
The “if you build it, they will come” approach has led to a structural oversupply of homes, and according to analysis from Kenny Capital, the market is already correcting. Housing inventory in the Nashville metro area is now near pre-pandemic highs.
As a direct result, the construction sector is contracting. The data show that residential specialty contractor jobs are in a year-over-year decline, a clear sign that the building boom is reversing, as the demographic demand isn’t sufficient to sustain it. This directly contradicts the narrative that an urgent, massive increase in housing supply is needed.
Potential Story Angles for Reporting
The Tale of Two Forecasts: Why is Nashville’s entire housing strategy built on a private consultant’s projection that is 2.5 times higher than the state’s official forecast? Who benefits from planning for a city of 175,000 new residents when the state’s top demographers only predict 69,000?
Planning for a Phantom Commute: Metro’s housing plan seems to ignore a key Nashville reality: 56% of its workforce lives elsewhere. Is the city rushing to rezone neighborhoods to house workers who will likely never live here, while overlooking the needs of current residents?
The Shell Game: How are the 20,000 subsidized homes desperately needed by low-income families being used to justify a market-rate building boom that won’t serve them? This angle investigates the conflation of data and the “political decoy” you mentioned.
Quotable Soundbites 🎤
By Chris Remke
Nashville’s housing strategy is a paradox: our youth are priced out and inventory is already piling up, yet the official solution is to build more of what the market clearly can’t afford. You can’t solve an affordability problem with a market-rate supply-side solution that ignores who can actually pay the bills.
The city’s plan is like trying to solve a food shortage by stocking the grocery shelves with wine and cheese. It’s a high-end solution for addressing basic needs.
Focusing on a 91,000-unit target creates a phantom problem of overall supply, while ignoring the real, documented crisis of 20,000 deeply affordable homes needed for the people who already live and work here.
Nashville’s plan allocates 1.3 new homes to every new man, woman, and child moving here or born in the city. Congratulations, your newborn now has a starter home and an investment property. This magical math only works if you believe the highways dead-end at the county line and the concept of commuting is a myth. It’s not a housing plan; it’s a winning lottery ticket for developers, and taxpayers are footing the bill.
“The entire foundation of Nashville’s housing strategy is built on a number that is 2.5 times higher than the state’s own forecast. We are planning for a version of Nashville that the data says won’t exist.”
“You can’t solve a problem you’ve misdiagnosed. The data shows the premise for a massive, market-rate building boom is flawed, and pursuing it will create policies that harm the very people our elected officials claim to prioritize.”
The Prophecy of Profit: Deconstructing Nashville’s Population Panic
The entire premise of this top-down rezoning effort is built on a manufactured panic, a crisis that clashes directly with the reality on the ground. At the very moment Nashville is experiencing its softest housing market in over a decade, with record-high apartment vacancies, we are being told that radical, sweeping change must be rushed through. So, what’s the rush?
This contradiction exposes the true objective. It creates a bizarre paradox: the data shows younger buyers are being priced out and housing inventory is already near pre-pandemic highs, yet the city’s only proposed solution is to build even more of the same. Remember, to work on “the crisis” (unconflated) for affordability home between are $300,000 and $450,000 are requied, and the city is placing its polical capital on expensive dirt (“you can’t build affordably on expensive dirt’).
The goal isn’t to solve a present-day housing emergency for current residents, but to use the specter of a future crisis to lock in profitable, developer-friendly zoning for the next market upswing. If this is truly about an urgent need for our lowest-income families, why is the lion’s share of the effort focused on systematic rezoning and not how to protect existing affordable homes and apartments?
So which is it? A city-altering overhaul on the scale of The Nations? Or, as we’re now being told, just a few new tools for the toolbox with nothing to see here?
Full graphic of the University of Tennessee - Boyd Center Data
About the Author:
Christopher Remke [AIA ret], Linked, L.L.C., Real Estate Programs Analytics with Capital Projects Strategy Support, Advisory, Leadership and Strategy Advisory, Capital Projects Navigation and Mapping for Opportunities, Risks, Critical Paths, Sequencing, and Foundations First Advisory.
Chris also serves as President of Save Our Nashville Neighborhoods (SONNinc.org). SONN believes that people are the community, and community should be at the heart of the planning process.
SONN’s approach is centered on:
Fostering Stakeholder and Policy Maker Understanding: Creating workshop-style forums where neighbors and planners can LISTEN and work together to co-design solutions.
Centering Neighborhood Voices: Ensuring the people most impacted by housing policy, particularly working-class families, have a primary role in shaping it.
Building Consensus: Moving beyond top-down directives to build a shared, data-driven understanding of Nashville’s true housing needs, leading to more durable and equitable policies.