Nashville’s housing boom isn’t helping affordability 

Nashville is in the middle of a record-setting home construction boom, but affordability keeps slipping further out of reach. Zoning reforms have accelerated new housing production, yet most of what’s being built is priced well above what working families can afford. The theory that expensive new units will eventually “filter down” to affordability isn’t holding up. In reality, housing costs are ratcheting up, not down.

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What is worse, the housing most accessible to those in need — older homes, modest rentals, and naturally affordable units — is being lost faster than it is being replaced. This loss hits hardest for households ranging from moderate to extremely low incomes (those earning below 80% of the Area Median Income, or AMI), where Nashville’s need is growing the fastest. The erosion of low-cost housing is the real crisis. Due to redevelopment and the resulting displacement, the city faces a double blow: rising demand — not from population growth, but from higher-income earners moving into transitional neighborhoods once they are upzoned and deregulated for investor-led development — and simultaneously shrinking inventory for those who need help the most. Nashville’s most recent Unified Housing Strategy study (2025) reports a loss of 27,000 “affordable units” for earners between 30% and 60% of AMI between 2010 and 2023.

The housing needs of households below 80% AMI are not being met by densification strategies that prioritize areas most profitable for the private market — a dynamic that incentivizes builders to focus there. Nashville ranks second in the nation for new housing production within a five-mile radius of the city center since zoning reform began in 2010. Continuing this trend will only accelerate gentrification and displacement of those most in need of a solution. A focused strategy is required for this population. Diluting that focus in an effort to satisfy investor-developers results in progress for neither.