Nashville Metro: The Politics of City-County Consolidation

As Nashville's governance is under increasing scrutiny by the Tennessee General Assembly, many Nashvillians are struggling to understand what our metropolitan form of government is and why we chose to reorganize our city this way in 1963. Nashville Metro was first published in the aftermath of that decision, and it provides a comprehensive record of what the city understood itself to be doing at the time. How did it happen? When so many less thoroughgoing reforms had failed elsewhere, how could Nashville accomplish a complete city-county consolidation? Why in Nashville did the voters outside the central city support consolidation, when in area after area it is typically these voters who defeat reform proposals? Why did the consolidation fail in 1958 and succeed in 1962? Nashville Metro was written to answer such questions. One great benefit to Brett W. Hawkins' approach is how he lays out what was conventional wisdom at the time and what was reported in the local papers and balances it against what participants told him directly.

This is a valuable artifact in itself, but the new foreword by Judge David Briley--former Nashville mayor and grandson of the first metro Nashville mayor, Beverly Briley--offers a firsthand account of the realities of metropolitan government sixty years on.

Author: Brett W. Hawkins
Publisher: Vanderbilt University Press
Published: 02/17/2025
Pages: 162
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.54lbs
Size: 9.00h x 6.00w x 0.38d
ISBN: 9780826507426

About the Author
Brett W. Hawkins (1937-2022) received his PhD from Vanderbilt University. He went on to teach at Washington & Lee University and the University of Georgia before settling in at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, where he was a professor for over a quarter of a century. His specializations were in local government and constitutional law.

C. David Briley presides over the First Circuit Court in Davidson County, Tennessee. Judge Briley previously served as an At-Large Member and Vice Mayor of the Metropolitan Council of Nashville and Davidson County. During that service, he focused on ethics, budget, solid waste, and government efficiency issues. He also served as the City's seventh Mayor during which he championed efforts to make Nashville a more equitable city, focusing on eliminating racial disparities in educational, housing, and socio-economic systems.