Thank you for that kind introduction, Scott, and for yourwork with the Global Action Platform as the convener of the UniversityPresidents Council.

Thanks also to Hal Cato and the Community Foundation forhosting us today, and to Robert Higgins, Chairman of the Greater NashvilleChamber of Commerce, for joining this conversation.

And to each of the university presidents, representing thetop academic institutions in Middle Tennessee, thank you for your work and foryour participation in this forum.

This is a rare opportunity, getting everyone together likethis. My compliments to your schedulers. I look around the room, and I see thepublic, private and NGO sectors represented. I see the academic and businesscommunity coming together for important conversations about the future ofMiddle Tennessee.

As part of that conversation, I’m going to share myadministration’s vision and priorities, along with our challenges. Universitiescan be key partners in meeting these challenges. And then I want to leave timeat the end for questions and feedback. Because this needs to be a dialogue, nota monologue.

But first, let me give you a quick summary of where we areand where we’re going. Where we are right now is where many U.S. cities wouldlike to be. Nashville was fairly popular two weeks ago at the conference ofmayors in DC, but it wasn’t because of my sparkling personality. It’s becauseof this sparkling city. Everybody wants to talk about Nashville, and for goodreason.

Over the past decade, we’ve been welcoming 98 new residentsper day. Passengers at Nashville International Airport (BNA) have doubled inthe past 10 years, with a record-breaking 21.9 million this past year. UrbanLand Institute ranked Nashville as the best overall real estate investmentprospect in the country … for the third year in a row. That’s never happenedbefore.

I read about the Urban Land Institute ranking in Forbes.That’s also where I read that Nashville workers have the worst commute in thenation, according to a new analysis.

To afford a median-priced home ($455,000) in the NashvilleMSA, a family now needs a household income of nearly 125 thousand dollars,according to Redfin. In the past decade, rents have increased by 50 percent.Nearly half of Nashville’s renters are cost burdened, meaning they spend morethan a third of their income on housing.

So, we’ve had tremendous successes, but we’re also facinggreat challenges. Our challenges are, to a large degree, indicative of ourcity’s economic success. They are the consequences of growth – more traffic,lack of affordable housing, greater economic disparities, increases in cost ofliving, dilution of natural resources.

These issues are highly interrelated. But so are theirsolutions. And I think you can see how universities can be a part of thosesolutions and need a seat at the table as we move forward.

When I first started running, and then again upon beingelected, I kept thinking about the city’s priorities and what we need to do forNashvillians to have confidence in our local government, in how we’re growingas a city, and in Nashville overall. And it always circled back to these threethemes: How we move. How we work. How we grow.

One of the first things I did after the election was toengage three transition committees that cover each of those themes and capturetheir recommendations. Collectively, they touch almost every aspect of localgovernment and our most pressing challenges.

Let’s start with How Nashville Moves. This is abouthow we move around the city, conveniently and safely, however we like. Whetherwe want to walk to a park, commute by bike, or take transit to a Preds game.How Nashville Moves comes to life through investments in more sidewalks,complete streets that anyone can use safely, a meaningful transit system, andtransportation infrastructure that benefits all Nashvillians.

We’re at the beginning of a conversation about how weimprove transit quickly and dramatically. And we’ll have more to say in thecoming weeks, as we evaluate the possibility of a November referendum onfunding. A potential new vote would focus on more incremental improvements thanthose sought six years ago, along with a more regional approach.

We know it’s needed. According to our friends atThinkTennessee, of the top 50 U.S. metros, only four don’t have dedicatedfunding for transit. Two of those four are in Tennessee. Nashville and Memphis.

We know with a frequent transit network and a series ofcommunity transit centers, we will make commuting around Nashville moreaccessible and help people reduce their cost of living. Access to transit andcommuting by bike were the keys to my own pathway to homeownership. More peopledeserve that opportunity.

I’m proud to say that in the first 100 days of my term, NDOTfinished eight sidewalk projects and started construction on four more,covering 2.8 miles and touching 14 different districts. We’ve also completedeight new bikeways. And they’ve done a great job clearing major roadways duringthe recent winter storm, working 12-hour shifts and around the clock.

How Nashville Works imagines how city services workwell all the time and how we make customer service a top priority. This is howwe lay the foundation to tackle big issues -- from affordable housing tocommunity safety to education.A key tool here is hubNashville. This is aone-stop shop that allows the public to report issues or get answers from Metrowithout needing to know which department to contact. This is for non-emergencyservices, and it relieves the volume of 911 calls, which helps our firstresponders.

For example, you can request snow removal assistance throughhubNashville, and many people have. Altogether, in 2023, we responded to nearly300,000 requests. You can access Hub Nashville online at hub.nashville.gov. Youcan also reach Hub Nashville by phone by dialing 311 or (615) 862-5000.

The How Nashville Works committee’s recommendations aredirectly targeted at the systems most visible to Nashvillians: reporting apothole on your street, streamlining payment services and creating a communitysafety plan. In the first 100 days, we filled 4,317 potholes, with many ofthose requests coming through hubNashville.

The idea is that larger projects like the East Bank and atransit referendum could be more doable by getting these basic things right andcreating a system that can accomplish city service requests smoothly.

How Nashville Grows is about how we build a betterNashville for Nashvillians and being intentional about that. This includes notjust the incredible opportunity for equitable development on the East Bank, butalso the other 500 square miles of Davidson County.

To be clear, there are few other projects in the U.S. thatcan match the size and scope of the East Bank. Possibly none. But ourinvestments cannot stop on the banks of the river, and I’ve directed myadministration to ready investments citywide – in neighborhoods across DavidsonCounty – that are equal in scope and impact to what we will do on the EastBank.

So, those are the three pillars of the plan: How we move.How we work. How we grow. We’re responding to the priorities we heard fromresidents during thecampaign. Our goal is a better Nashville for Nashvillians.We want you to live here. Our mission is to make it easier for you to stay.

We just recently passed the 100-day mark of my first term asMayor, and we’ve had some difficult challenges thrown our way. The December 9tornadoes and the winter storm immediately come to mind. But in thesechallenges, you also see the best of Nashville – the way our community respondswhen called, neighbors helping neighbors, strangers helping each other.

Beyond that, one of my proudest moments so far was whenMetro Nashville was named a 2023 Visionary Digital Inclusion Trailblazer lastmonth. It’s national recognition, recognizing our ongoing efforts to close thedigital divide here locally. The pandemic especially showed how importantdigital inclusion is. Nashville was one of just 22 U.S. cities awarded in thetop category.

I’m also very proud of the team we’ve built at Metro. It’sone that truly represents the diversity and excellence of this city, and we’relooking forward to expanding our conversation with the city’s residents andmeeting the city’s challenges together. Which brings me back to you and theimportance of this group.

Just as we are Music City, we are the Athens of the South.We still are. I’m borrowing a quote here from Henry McRaven’s book onNashville, where he writes, “Just as Athens, Greece, was recognized centuriesago as the center of learning, Nashville was accredited from its very beginningas a community where the attributes of learning and the appreciation of thefine arts were reflected in the leadership of its men and women in all walks oflife.”

The universities here today are the driving force behind thecreative culture of the greater Nashville area. You are the incubators of civicleadership, business leadership and collaboration that propels our communityforward. That spirit is represented here in this room. Together we have anopportunity to channel that spirit and focus it on the region’s most urgentchallenges.

I’ve participated in many, many meetings with our academicpartners during the first 100 days, both on campus and in my office. I’ll shareone recent example. Just two weeks ago, we hosted Vanderbilt professor AbhishekDubey in our conference room for an update on Vanderbilt’s collaboration withour Information Technology Service department.

Recently Metro and Vanderbilt partnered to create ConnectedNashville’s Intelligent Ecosystem Collaborative, which brings together keystakeholders to discuss partnerships for grant-funded projects aimed at Metro’schallenges, and to better serve the needs of the community through data scienceand technology[1]basedinnovations.

Abhishek came to our office and put together a great slidedeck, pulling the greatest hits of nearly 10 years of collaborations betweenVanderbilt researchers and Metro departments, covering a range of issues fromemergency communications to traffic engineering and multi-modal mobility.

They are all amazing examples of collaboration, technologydriven innovation. But they lead to the sustainability question: How do we makethese a part ofMetro’s continuous improvement process so that we don't justlose it as a research project? It's great to take it to a conference, but thenhow do we make sure that we can sustain these efforts so that they positivelyimpact Nashvillians for the long term? That’s part of the challenge.

But so many of you are deeply engaged in challenges andpartnerships. Meharry remains critically involved not just in trainingphysicians but in working with Metro on indigent care.

• TSU students are engaged with NDOT on corridor studiesnear campus.

• Fisk and Belmont partnered to create a social justicehackathon.

• Belmont’s data science team is working on healthdisparities, partly funded by Metro.

• I created more flexibility for the amazing Nashville GRADprogram at Nashville State, enabling more part-time students to access keyfinancial supports.• Lipscomb has been key to the success of the TransitCitizen Leadership Academy.

•Lipscomb has been key to the success of the Transit CitizenLeadership Academy.

• Trevecca is engaged deeply in the Napier and Sudekumcommunities.

If you’re looking for some fertile grounds for furthercollaboration, I think about transit mobility as one of the most importantprocesses we have to help mitigate cost of living in Nashville. And thenthere’s the East Bank, which is an ideal location for urban innovation.

I look forward to your thoughts, your questions, your ideas,your proposals, and your friendship. I’d like to be the Partner-in-Chief forthis city. And as such, I hope to collaborate with Middle Tennessee’s bestresource and engine for success, which is you. We have a culture of innovationand collaboration in this city, much of it to your credit, and I am very proudof that.

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