Metropolitan Governance: Transatlantic Lessons for the Nashville Region

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This paper explores the opportunities to improve collaborative regional governance in the greater Nashville area, drawing on lessons learned from models in Manchester, England; Antwerp, Belgium; and Turin, Italy. The greater Nashville metropolitan area finds itself at an interesting point in time, with growth in population expected to increase by 1.4 million residents by 2040. The challenge Nashville currently grapples with is how to manage the current changes while planning for the future in the areas of service provision, transportation, infrastructure planning, economic development, and housing. How can past collaborative efforts that have brought community leadership together to develop regional plans be strengthened and improved upon to address current and future challenges? The objective of this paper is therefore to look to European models to help identify an array of strategies that could offer the Nashville metropolitan area a blueprint for expanding on, enhancing, and maximizing its current regional efforts, especially as communities look for more efficiency out of government in a time of limited financial resources.