Calendar of Events

Free and Open to the Public
Location: Vanderbilt University Law School (Google map of this location)

The Opportunities and Challenges of Metro Government: A Conversation to Celebrate 50 Years of Consolidated Government in Nashville

Vanderbilt Law School will host a panel discussion to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the consolidation of Nashville City and Davidson County government in 1963. Nashville's consolidation was the first true city-county consolidation in the country, and Nashville-Davidson County thus became a pioneering role model for future city-county consolidations.

According to the National League of Cities, there are only 14 city-county consolidations in the U.S. The panelists will discuss the pros and cons of consolidated “metro” government, its impact on American cities, and its future and implications for Nashville’s future.

The discussion will be moderated by former Tennessean publisher John Seigenthaler and feature opening remarks by Metro Nashville Mayor Karl Dean '81, and two leading scholars of models of local government and their role in shaping America's cities:

Lynn A Baker, Frederick M. Baron Chair in Law and co-director of the Center on Lawyers, Civil Justice and the Media, University of Texas at Austin, who is a co-author of Local Government Law: Cases and Materials, a prominent academic defender of federalism and expert on state and local government.

Richard C. Schragger, Barron F. Black Professor of Law, University of Virginia, whose scholarship focuses on the intersection of constitutional law and local government law as well as urban policy and the constitutional status of cities.