10 Moments That Defined Nashville in the 21st Century

Some decades happen more quickly than others. In the late 1990s, Mayors Phil Bredesen and Bill Purcell presided over a regional commercial hub ruled by Belle Meade bankers and businessmen and attorneys, Tennessee’s second fiddle to Memphis in many ways. Shania Twain and Toby Keith were Nashville’s two main exports, and downtown was paved over for commuters who left the city quiet after 5 p.m.

Twenty-five years into a new century, Nashville is awash in wealth, people and a new set of problems facing modern boomtowns. The Scene has been here through it all, and as 2025 begins, we’re looking back on 10 events that have most shaped the city so far this century. This list favors moments that are unique to Nashville, rather than moments like the Great Recession or the COVID-19 pandemic, which influenced the nation and world. 

Jan. 30, 2000 — Super Bowl XXXIV

The Tennessee Titans’ biggest game on America’s biggest stage launched an era of affinity for the transplant franchise. Even though the Titans lost, they lost spectacularly, riveting Nashville week after week until the closing seconds of the Super Bowl’s fateful fourth quarter, as Kevin Dyson’s outstretched arm came up inches short of the game-tying touchdown. The team won the city’s heart mere months after settling into its new riverfront stadium. The Titans’ formidable roster — Dyson, Steve McNair, Jevon Kearse, Eddie George, Bruce Matthews — ascended to local stardom. The team spent the last of its goodwill reserves pushing through a new stadium in 2023 and, as the team ends another disappointing season after trading star running back Derrick Henry and firing coach Mike Vrabel, it has struggled to repay its self-deprecating fan base.

Oct. 24, 2006 — Taylor Swift

Taylor Swift breathed new life into Music City when, at 14, she began to fashion herself as a daughter of Nashville’s country music empire. In reality, Swift is the daughter of a wealthy Pennsylvania money manager who relocated the family to cut her first album — the triple-platinum, self-titled Taylor Swift, featuring hit singles like “Our Song” and “Teardrops on My Guitar.” She has reigned atop the music world ever since, steering pop culture through her signature eras and selling out stadiums around the world. Like Miley Cyrus, whose Nashville shoutout in 2009’s “Party in the USA” still commands rowdy crowd sing-alongs, Swift scaled her brand with the city’s, each boosting the other to new heights over the next decade.

May 1-7, 2010 — Tennessee Floods

Starting on May 1, downpours drenched the city for two days and nights. As the hours ticked by, the rain started to feel different, unrelenting, falling without mercy, filling the creek beds, culverts and streams that crisscross Nashville. Then came the flood. It’s still difficult to believe the pictures that show how the Cumberland River pooled across downtown, submerging Lower Broadway as water seeped into homes across the county. There were more than two dozen casualties across Middle Tennessee and Kentucky as a result of flooding, with 11 deaths in Nashville alone. Facing billions in property damage, the city cohered into an all-hands emergency aid effort, turning a shared disaster into a cornerstone of local identity that helped the city face a string of destructive tornadoes and flash flooding in the years that followed.

Nov. 2, 2010 — Red Wave Midterms 

This is when Republicans won. Two years into President Barack Obama’s first term — and with Fox News on the rise — the GOP established a trifecta in the Tennessee Senate, Tennessee House and governor’s mansion that it has held ever since. Tennessee Democrat Al Gore, formerly Bill Clinton’s vice president, had wrapped his presidential campaign in Nashville in 2000. Incumbent Democratic Gov. Phil Bredesen had won his second term in 2006 by 39 percentage points. Knoxville billionaire Bill Haslam took the governor’s race for Republicans in 2010 by 32 percentage points, a full 71-point swing that ended decades of party power sharing and resigned state Democrats to the wilderness for at least a generation. 

Oct. 10, 2012 — Nashville Premieres

Soap opera plotlines and country music flair quickly turned Nashville into an ABC powerhouse. Created by Thelma & Louise screenwriter Callie Khouri, the city’s TV portrayal was thoroughly fictionalized, with nods to Swift and local politics, but at least audiences got a version of the city, associating Nashville with folksy stardom and Hollywood glitz in the popular imagination. Beloved actresses Hayden Panettiere and Connie Britton instantly joined Cyrus and Swift as honorary early-21st-century pop-culture city ambassadors. The show produced six seasons’ worth of free civic press and launched careers for sisters Lennon and Maisy Stella, sometime-residents and contemporary pop stars in their own right. 

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R.I.P. 'It City'

Six years ago, Nashville fell in love with a New York Times piece deeming us the nation’s ‘it city.’ The title no longer fits.

Jan. 8, 2013 — Kim Severson’s “It City” Article

Just a few years after Instagram included “Nashville” as an original image filter, writer Kim Severson also noticed something latent and buzzy about the city’s branding potential. Her feature for The New York Times, cheekily titled “Nashville’s Latest Big Hit Could Be the City Itself,” bestowed official recognition of the city’s cultural capital from the media elite. Beyond giving locals the simple “it city” moniker — still a frequent touchpoint for those adding to the hype and bemoaning city changes — Severson’s piece ended the “before times” energy, when Nashville felt like a well-kept secret flush with affordable home prices, friendly neighbors and ample live music. Once the Times christened Nashville, ego became the city’s defining demon.

Feb. 10, 2017 — Jocques Clemmons Fatally Shot by Joshua Lippert

Joshua Lippert, a Metro Nashville Police Department officer, fatally shot a fleeing Jocques Clemmons three times, twice in the back, during a traffic stop at Cayce Homes in East Nashville. The police killing of a fleeing Black resident by a white officer, which came while the national Black Lives Matter movement was gradually building support, consolidated pushes in Nashville for police accountability. Clemmons’ case reached a crescendo when District Attorney Glenn Funk declined to prosecute Lippert, whom he determined to be acting in self-defense, as the MNPD reported that Clemmons was carrying a gun. Organizing campaigns seeking justice for Clemmons helped establish the Community Oversight Board, already a top ballot priority when MNPD Officer Andrew Delke fatally shot Daniel Hambrick, a Black man, in North Nashville in July 2018. Funk did charge Delke with homicide, making him the first MNPD officer ever charged for an on-duty shooting. Delke took a plea deal for involuntary manslaughter in July 2021 and was released from prison in October 2022. 

March 6, 2018 — Megan Barry Resigns as Mayor

Mayor Megan Barry pleaded guilty to felony theft of property and resigned as mayor all before lunch on a fateful Tuesday in 2018, a little more than halfway through her term. Weeks after salacious details surfaced about Barry’s affair with her bodyguard, legal and political maneuvers again put DA Glenn Funk in the driver’s seat of a major political moment, ultimately producing a handwritten plea deal that stipulated Barry’s resignation. The city bureaucracy fell to shambles, scandal snagged Nashville’s ascendant national identity, voters soundly rejected Barry’s transit referendum, and Vice Mayor David Briley, Barry’s accidental successor, survived the immediate special election only to lose the following year to John Cooper. Local politics underwent a dramatic realignment driven by reactionary sentiment. 

March 30, 2019 — NFL Draft Threatens Downtown Cherry Trees

Even at the time, so-titled “Cherrygate” attracted attention not just as a brief dustup but as a citywide lightning rod. On the one side, a massive national entertainment corporation trying to profit off the lucrative chaos that was Lower Broadway. On the other, ornamental cherry trees whose pink blossoms shade a downtown sidewalk. In the middle, shadowy city figures already blamed for pedal taverns and the bachelorette-industrial complex. Topline news that NFL bigwigs demanded Nashville ax 21 trees for its Draft show production — and that the city appeared ready to comply — concentrated the growing anger and resentment many residents felt toward those they believed sacrificed locals’ quality of life on the downtown altar of tourism. Cooper’s mayoral campaign successfully captured this self-righteous anger, which also reared its head in the battle to preserve Fort Negley, in the months that followed an otherwise successful NFL Draft. Voters’ same spurned attitude, this time directed toward a city-subsidized new domed stadium for the Titans, helped buoy Freddie O’Connell to victory in the 2023 mayoral race.

March 27, 2023 — The Covenant School Shooting

Many Nashvillians remember the moment they heard the news that children had been shot at a Green Hills school. Shared trauma sears events into communities this way. As the city approaches two years since the tragedy, it’s still possible to spot the black-and-red ribbons and yard signs in Nashville neighborhoods that commemorate the three children and three staff members gunned down by a former student. Memorials overlapped with fierce marches on the state Capitol demanding legislators reform Tennessee’s lax gun laws. State Reps. Justin Jones, Justin Pearson and Gloria Johnson, members of the Democratic minority, made national news for participating in these rallies on the floor of the Tennessee General Assembly — and invoking swift retribution from GOP colleagues. Gov. Bill Lee called a special legislative session on safety as organizers, including parents from the Covenant School, strategized about how to appeal to hardline pro-gun Republicans. The issue politicized voters, especially young people and parents of school-age children, across the state, casting powerful Republican majority figures as unfeeling and amoral. Meanwhile, permissive Tennessee gun laws survived untouched. 

So many other significant events took place over these 25 years. Tornadoes ripped apart the city in March 2020 and December 2023, and an RV bomb ripped apart downtown on Christmas Day 2020. Thousands of people and numerous corporations relocated here, from Amazon to Oracle to The Daily Wire. The “Tennessee Tax Revolt” built Tennessee’s modern Republican Party, and right-to-work language was enshrined in the Tennessee Constitution, discouraging labor organizing across the state. State leaders and conservative media have built a multifaceted attack on LGBTQ people, many of whom are facing mental health crises in increasing numbers. Paramore went platinum, and unranked Vanderbilt beat No. 1 Alabama. And a scrappy wildcard Nashville Predators team fought its way to the Stanley Cup.