Nashville is enjoying a period of unprecedented economic growth and prosperity, and is also earning national media coverage as America’s “it city.” But this wasn’t always the case. In 1989, Nashville was experiencing a significant downturn in economic performance, at a time when the rest of the nation was thriving. The Wall Street Journal published an article connecting Nashville’s poor performance to a lack of foresight.

The groundwork for our current boomtown status was laid in 1990, when a group of visionary community leaders created the Partnership, a regional economic development strategy. Since that time, Middle Tennessee’s economy has steadily climbed to new heights, creating the success story we have today. And we believe the past 25 years are just the beginning. Just like in 1989, we cannot expect to continue our growth without a strategic vision.

Yesterday, we unveiled an ambitious, complex and robust five-year economic development plan that will lead the way for continued long-term prosperity in the Nashville region.

The new strategy focuses on three key strategic drivers that will not only build on our achievements, but will also identify areas of progress and critical need to ensure the region’s future economic vitality. These are economic prosperity, talent development, and maintaining Nashville’s quality of life/sense of place. We know we’ll need to get all three of these right to remain competitive with the top metros we benchmark against: Austin, Raleigh, Charlotte, Indianapolis, Atlanta, Tampa and Louisville.

Because Middle Tennessee is a regional, 10-county economic engine, and because the Partnership was built on a regional approach, we will maintain our commitment to effective regionalism as the underpinning of everything we do. This includes collaborating with our regional partners on “big-picture” issues such as transportation solutions, educational advances, legislative agendas, and economic development. 

The Nashville area has a highly diversified economy and is in an elite competitive set of metros aggressively pursuing the best jobs and top talent. Accordingly, we identified five target industry sectors where we will focus our economic development efforts. These targets are our core competencies – they have a significant existing presence in our region, and they represent the greatest opportunity for job and wealth creation over the next five years.

The industry sectors are:

  • Corporate services
  • Health care management and information technology
  • Advanced manufacturing
  • Distribution and trade
  • Music and entertainment

How will we know we’re hitting the mark? Throughout the five-year cycle of this strategic plan, we’ll maintain a scorecard that measures the following key indicators:

  • Job growth
  • Wage growth
  • Growth in gross metropolitan product
  • Population growth
  • Congestion index
  • Rising levels of educational attainment

Partnership is more than just a set of economic development targets. It’s an approach to building and maintaining prosperity that leverages the assets of our entire region to compete on a national scale. We want the next 25 years in Middle Tennessee to be just as successful and prosperous as the previous 25 years have been, and we’re not slowing down.