Baby Booms and Busts

Why aren't we having more babies? This seems to be a persistent question without an easy answer. There's a growing anxiety around global birth rates. Every couple of days, a new story breaks on the looming population collapse or the downward trajectory of fertility rates in an area.

What do we blame? Is it feminism? The destruction of the family? The loss of religion? The economy? No one seems to know, but an essay by Guillaume Blanc published by Works in Progress last year makes a compelling case worth relaying.

Blanc's research focuses on France and shows that the country's baby bust began in 1760, almost a century before other European nations. "In 1700, almost 1 in 25 inhabitants on Earth, and one in five in Europe, was French," observes Blanc. "Today, less than a percent of humanity is French."

Consulting genealogical records, Blanc makes the case that declining fertility in France is due not to economic forces but cultural ones. His findings conclude that France's baby bust directly followed the declining influence of the Catholic Church in the decades leading up to the French Revolution.

To emphasize how radical a turn this was, at the height of the revolution, the Cathedral of Notre Dame was renamed the Temple to the Goddess Reason before becoming a warehouse for wine. From this era, we receive the word vandalism, which Henri Grégoire coined to describe the revolutionaries’ destruction of monuments such as Notre Dame, comparing it to the sacking of Rome by the tribe of Vandals in 455 AD.

Anyone in the US can see that the church’s influence over culture is declining, if not entirely absent, from the culture. The demographics maintaining fertility rates above replacement tend to be the more religious ones. In order, Mormons, Muslims, Protestants, and Catholics have the highest fertility rates in the country and are all just above replacement. So by all accounts, the future belongs to the faithful.

A favorite data point I like to trot out here about Tennessee is that there were only five states in the US in which the number of children aged 0 to 4 increased between 2020 and 2022: Idaho, North Carolina, South Carolina, New Hampshire, and Tennessee. The data is two years old at this point, but if you look on a county-by-county basis, what it shows is that most of the most fecund families coming to the state settle in Middle Tennessee.

Contrary to all the concerns over fertility rates, anecdotally, many people around me are having babies which is probably just a marker of my age. Whatever the case, ignoring the data, it feels like I'm witnessing a baby boom among my peers. DAVIS HUNT

🖋️ Edited by Megan Podsiedlik.

📚 MNPS Expands Weapon Detectors Last night, the Metro Nashville Public Schools Board of Education voted to install concealed weapon detection systems in all high schools throughout Davidson County. The Evol systems have a multi-layer monitoring mechanism that detects metal objects and uses AI technology to scan the size, density, and shape of all concealed items. An alert is issued by the system when an object is flagged, and personnel conduct secondary checks when needed. If successful and funding is available, MNPS may expand this system to middle and elementary schools.

LeLann Evans of District 6 spoke in favor of the weapon detection systems during public comment. “In 2012 my brother was shot,” he said. “I know what it's like to see someone get rushed off in an ambulance and wonder if you’ll make it to the hospital, and if they will be alive when you get there.” Evans promised that the community, including the “2,500 parents, students, community leaders” he represents, would fully support their decision to put detectors in schools. “Today you'll be voting to either protect lives or point fingers,” he said. “You have the opportunity to vote whether you will save students or you will save money.”

🎭 TPAC Relocation Funding The governor’s proposed budget contains the second half of the funds earmarked to help the Tennessee Performing Arts Center find a new home in Nashville. Over the last few years, TPAC has been working to secure the donations needed to unlock the entire state grant which requires a 5:1 match.

Though the plan to move TPAC to the East Bank doesn’t seem to be coming together as planned, Mayor O’Connell is “not convinced that it has left the East Bank from a consideration standpoint.” He explained that the initial conversations started when TPAC expressed early interest in the area. “We had the structure set up so that they kind of had first right of refusal on the initial development area and developable parcels there,” he said two weeks ago, but acknowledged that it “was one of the more complicated infrastructure scenarios.”

📜 Warning: Dangerous ICE The Tennessee General Assembly filing deadlines have passed, and 269 bills have been filed by Nashville state legislators. Among them is a bill filed by Representative Vincent Dixie and Senator Charlane Oliver requiring schools to immediately notify “all students, parents, educators, employees, and contractors…of the presence of an immigration officer on school grounds.”  

You’ll also find a rent control bill from freshman Representative Shaundelle Brooks, an attempt to reinstate abortion by Representative Aftyn Behn, and proposal to tax the rich by Representative Justin Jones. Senator Heidi Campbell has hopped onto a bill that would set up a bulwark against book banning with Representative Jason Powell and a law allowing Tennesseans to voluntarily waive their right to own a firearm with Representative Bob Freeman. Meanwhile, Representative John Ray Clemmons filed a sales tax exemption on certain groceries, which seems to propose a less-extreme solution to food costs when compared to Representative Behn and Senator Olivers’ "End the Grocery Tax by Closing Corporate Loopholes Act.”

DEVELOPMENT

• Secret Sidewalk to improve walkability between neighborhoods (Post)
• Rosemary and Beauty Queen owners plan new concept (Post)
• SoBro, Midtown sites once eyed for towers listed for sale (Post)

THINGS TO DO

View our calendar for the week here and our weekly film rundown here.

📅 Visit our On The Radar list to find upcoming events around Nashville.

🎧 On Spotify: Pamphleteer's Picks, a playlist of our favorite bands in town this week.

👨🏻‍🌾 Check out our Nashville farmer's market guide.

TONIGHT

🎙️ Joss Stone @ City Winery, 7:30p, $76+, Info

🎸 JACK @ The East Room, 8p, $12, Info

🪕 Tim O'Brien @ Station Inn, 8p, $20, Info

🪕 Bluegrass Night @ The American Legion Post 82, 7p, Free, Info

📰 Check out the full newsletter archive here.