Job Growth in Music City
Today, the Nashville Downtown area holds 15,000 residents and over 78,000 employees in just over 1.8 square miles. Between 2012- 2020, over 7.5 billion in Public-Private investment was funneled into the area, with another $6.5 billion under construction or in the progress of various development projects. In our work with the city, we directly contributed to this growth by driving:
NEW PRIVATE-PUBLIC-PARTNERSHIPS
3
JOB OPENINGS IN TARGETED SECTORS AND INDUSTRIES
33% increase
NEW JOB OPPORTUNITIES GENERATED SINCE 2018
15,000
DIRECT GROSS VALUE ADDED (GVA) CONTRIBUTIONS IN Y1
+$4M
DIRECT GROSS VALUE ADDED (GVA) CONTRIBUTIONS IN Y2
+$9M
The city of Nashville, TN has ranked as a top-10 city to live in after the pandemic and has been a top-5 contender for economic growth since 2018. Today, Downtown Nashville is the organization responsible for driving one of the fastest economies in the country, and encouraging business growth, private investment, employment opportunities, and other economic development initiatives. This was not always the case, as just 4 years ago, Nashville was struggling with economic support for small businesses, and a downward trend of private sector investment.
In 2019 Sowen worked with Nashville to grow the city’s industry clusters and encourage a new wave of economic development through innovation, workforce training, and collaboration. By using a data-driven approach and predictive analytics, Sowen helped create, launch, and measure a new Economic Development Strategy that will take the city into the new decade and beyond. By leveraging audience and market analysis, we helped identify target audiences- businesses and individuals, who were most likely to expand operations in the city. We created a collaboration center that brought together teams from the administration and external partnerships to create a shared vision for the city’s economic development path.
Over a period of 9 months, we coached team leaders to communicate, identify joined projects, and leverage data-driven approaches to prioritization, project design, resourcing, execution, and impact measurement. We created a training program that up-leveled the organization’s capacity around data tools and processes. We developed an incentive program aimed at both internal city employees and private sector partners who have over-delivered against goals and objectives.