Nashville once led the nation in community-centered planning. But today’s zoning push follows a national playbook—fast, top-down, and bypassing the people it claims to help.

In 2015, Nashville adopted its most ambitious planning initiative in decades: NashvilleNext. This comprehensive effort was built on years of outreach, transparent dialogue, and inclusive participation. Over 18,500 residents were engaged in shaping a shared vision for the city. The process included more than 400 public meetings, forums, surveys, and workshops, demonstrating a deep commitment to the core planning principle of serving the public interest. It wasn’t just about where to place homes or offices, it was about policies that support the people who live and work in Nashville, especially those navigating the daily realities of low or modest incomes. Nashville supported methods to increase property densities.

Compare that to the 2025 zoning reform push. Today’s effort has taken shape not through widespread community collaboration but through a nationalized template—one that emphasizes crisis language, accelerates timelines, and sidelines neighborhood voice. While some council members may be uncertain or hesitant, others, influenced by special interests and momentum, have been shaped by national housing agendas—and reinforced by political incentives to act quickly. The result is a cascade effect: a fast-moving, consultant-driven effort that positions zoning as the crisis fix-all, with little space left for neighborhood input. Rather than beginning with outreach or local visioning, this movement started with legislation and density targets, advancing a playbook that benefits well-funded donors more than the residents most in need.
 

This is a profound break from planning ethics. According to the American Institute of Certified Planners (AICP), ethical planning should aspire to relevant protection and community engagement:

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• Public Participation: Provide opportunities for meaningful public involvement in the development of plans and programs that may affect them.

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• Social Justice: Encourage expanding opportunities for all persons, with a special responsibility for those who are disadvantaged. 

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• Design Excellence and Preservation: provide an emphasis on excellence in design and endeavoring to conserve and preserve the integrity and heritage of the natural and built environments.  

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The American Planning Association (APA) emphasizes in their Policy Guide on Smart Growth the the creation of preservation of a sense of place through thoughtful design and development. Their guide emphasizes the following: 

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• Sense of Place: Encourages design and development that protect and incorporate the distinctive character of a community and its unique context

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• Community Character: Advocates for development that respects the geography, natural features, climate, culture, historical resources, and ecology of a region

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As you can see, the AICP calls for planners to provide clear and accurate information, support meaningful public participation, and avoid processes that exclude, displace, or marginalize communities. Nashville’s shift from a community-driven plan to a top-down, consultant-scripted zoning agenda (a prototype) represents a failure to uphold these standards. A notable example is in Council Districts 16 and 20, where many neighbors are unaware that they are affected by current rezoning proposals, proposals offered before any meaningful community engagement.

Instead of empowering the residents most affected by housing, land use, and affordability, the current effort has favored political expediency and donor-driven goals. It reflects not professional planning, but political planning—one that trades long-term trust and integrity for short-term outputs, and most obvious the injection of “residents having too much voice.”

Where NashvilleNext fostered alignment between neighborhoods and planners, today’s approach fosters skepticism and division. Where 2015 centered the city’s unique fabric and voices, the 2025 effort is a rewrite, rather than leveraging the successful model and deliverables from 2015, and imposes a one-size-fits-all approach. We are not seeing professional planners in the lead—we are seeing elected officials acting as planners and treating city planners as puppets, often disregarding the foundational values of the planning profession.

Good planning begins with people. It prioritizes not only where activities happen, but also how the policies surrounding those activities uplift and enable people—especially those challenged by life circumstances or income—to participate fully in their city’s growth. Yet national policy models increasingly focus on housing well above the median income level. Locally, proposals like the Housing and Infrastructure Study follow suit, enabling developers to pursue higher-profit projects while sidestepping those in greatest need. Instead of solving the true affordability problem, solutions for those not served by profit driven developers; today, Nashville risks widening the gap.

We must remember: a city is not just its skyline. It is a network of communities, and communities are made of people and the places they thrive in and cherish. Failing to preserve Nashville’s unique neighborhood character, forests, landmarks, and hidden cultural fabric risks erasing what makes this city special. We have room for a win-win, but we must act deliberately—not in crisis mode. Crisis framing generates fear and poor decisions that can’t be undone. Ethical city planning begins with the people, not without them.