Nashville, TN Chamber’s Vital Signs Study Takes Pulse of the City
The Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce is sponsoring Vital Signs study to track issues impacting the area and develop solutions for addressing them.
Boosting business is what the Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce is all about. To explore how to bring more of it into the region, the organization kicked off the Nashville Region’s Vital Signs project in October 2013 to identify issues impacting the area’s quality of place and develop community-driven solutions to address them.
Modeled after Toronto’s Vital Signs process, the report took a regional look at data on a range of economic and social topics, including: employment, cost of living, housing, affordability, health and wellness, civic life, collaboration between local governments, hospitality, safety, education, workforce, infrastructure and mobility.
“We identified 12 themes that offer opportunity for regional discussion, priority-setting and action,” says Christine Karbowiak, vice president of Bridgestone Americas Inc. and chair of the Vital Signs Action Team.
A team is working with the Metropolitan Planning Organization and other regional organizations to prioritize challenges identified in the study and develop action plans to tackle those.
The project was conducted by the Chamber’s Research Center, which provides data and analysis on a range of economic, demographic and spatial topics.
“We provide industry and trend analysis and conduct a host of regional survey services and programs that monitor economic conditions and changes,” says Dr. Garrett Harper, vice president of research for the Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce. “The work helps us present our story to the rest of the world.”
The Research Center recently conducted a study of Nashville’s music industry for the Nashville Music Council.
“We receive major coverage across the nation on our music industry, prompting our thorough examination of its economic impact and the emergent trends,” Dr. Harper says. “We looked at Nashville’s role as a major global entertainment center.”
