The Plan of Nashville: Avenues to a Great City - Softcover

Christine Kreyling; Mark Scimmenti; Gary Gaston; Randal Hutcheson; Raven Hardison; Andrea Gaffney; Nashville Civic Design Center

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0826514596 ISBN 13: 9780826514592

Publisher: Vanderbilt University Press, 2005

Synopsis

The Plan of Nashville is a community-based vision of how the urban core of Nashville should look and work in the 21st century. The purpose is to help the central city hold its place in civic life.Since Nashville assumed a metropolitan form of government--merging city and county--there have been almost a hundred plans that dealt with some aspect of the center city.

This plan is different.The Plan was conceived and orchestrated by the Nashville Civic Design Center, which is committed to the practice of urban design. This three-dimensional discipline integrates streets and buildings, land use and transportation--a new approach for Nashville.

As a private not-for-profit, the center listens with independent ears and speaks with an independent voice. Previous plans by Metro government departments and their consultants were constrained by politics and patronage, by available funding or the need to solve specific problems.

Another significant difference from previous plans is the area of study. The Plan of Nashville is not an island bound by the noose of the interstate loop. The Plan integrates downtown with the areas that frame it via the spoke roads that are the historic entries into downtown.

Rather than taking a top down approach, the design center organized the process of listening to the community. Over 400 citizens attended a series of workshops in downtown and the surrounding neighborhoods to express their opinions and draw their dreams. The center's staff translated the results into a series of maps and illustrations, with explanatory text--that articulate a three-dimensional vision for the city that will serve as a litmus test for current and future development.

About this title

About the Author:

Christine Kreyling is the author of The Plan of Nashville and co-author of Classical Nashville, both published by Vanderbilt University Press. As the architecture and urban planning critic for the Nashville Scene, she received three awards from the American Planning Association for the best writing in the nation. Kreyling was one of the founders of the Nashville Urban Design Forum and the Nashville Civic Design Center.

Review:

"Cities are made, not born. A metropolis or town doesn't grow spontaneously, like broad-leafs in the lawn. A city is a willed artifact, embodying the evolving intent of the people who live in it as they react to specific conditions: geography and topography, climate and technology, demographics and economics, history and politics."

About this edition

• Publisher: Vanderbilt University Press
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 0826514596
• ISBN 13: 9780826514592
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 234