The invisible forces behind Nashville’s growth

Key points:

• • Rapid population growth in Middle Tennessee is straining infrastructure, making utilities and connectivity key project drivers.
• • Rising power demand, especially from data centers and AI, is increasing pressure on electricity systems and planning.
• • Workforce shifts and technology are reshaping development, requiring earlier coordination across sectors.

March 2026 — Middle Tennessee is growing at a pace that is straining the systems built to support it. Between 2020 and 2024, the Nashville metropolitan area added more than 136,000 residents — a 6.4% gain — pushing demand for housing, commercial space and the infrastructure required to service both.

But supply isn’t keeping up. Developers and project teams say that gaps in electricity, water, transportation and digital connectivity are increasingly determining where — and whether — new projects move forward.

“If the infrastructure is not there, the project is on hold, full stop,” said John Vardaman, advanced technology core market co-leader at DPR Construction, speaking during the Invest: Nashville 4th Edition Leadership Summit at the Bridgestone Arena in early March. “If there is no predictability around what infrastructure is available and when it will be available, that affects everything.” 

Connectivity and power demand

As development expands, infrastructure systems that once operated in the background are becoming central to planning decisions. “Today, people expect connectivity to be available everywhere. Reliable network access has essentially become a baseline requirement,” said Desmond Jackbir, AVP of network at Verizon. Developers are increasingly incorporating connectivity infrastructure during the earliest design phases of projects, allowing properties to support technologies such as biometric access, automated retail environments, and advanced wireless networks. 

Electricity capacity is also emerging as a critical issue as data centers and artificial intelligence infrastructure increase demand for power. “We need more generation overall, not just locally but across the entire system. Electric utilities also need to focus on maintaining the infrastructure that already exists while continuing to modernize it,” said Chris Jones, president of Middle Tennessee Electric. 

After remaining relatively flat for much of the past decade, electricity demand in the United States is expected to rise sharply as data centers expand to support AI and cloud computing. Across the nation, data centers consumed roughly 183 terawatt-hours of electricity in 2024, representing more than 4% of the country’s total power consumption. By 2030, that demand is expected to grow by 133% to about 426 terawatt-hours.

Individual facilities can require enormous amounts of power. A typical hyperscale data center focused on AI can consume as much electricity as 100,000 households, a scale that will continue to push utilities and developers to coordinate infrastructure planning earlier in the development process. 

“We should want an abundance of power,” added Jones. “If we make the right investments, then the opportunities people are talking about, especially around AI and data centers, can come here with confidence.”

Workforce and technology

Infrastructure planning is also being shaped by changes in how companies organize work and deploy technology. 

“This is the moment to actively rethink how, when and where work gets done,” said Doug Blizzard, chief solutions officer at Catapult. “Every time a person leaves, it is an opportunity to rethink that position, rethink the work itself, rethink whether AI can be used and rethink different types of rewards and incentives.” 

Employers are navigating multiple structural changes at once, including demographic shifts and evolving expectations around flexibility. Earlier projections suggested gig workers could make up nearly 50% of the U.S. workforce, reflecting a shift toward project-based employment models, up from about 36% in 2023.

“For anyone involved in infrastructure planning, it is important to keep those workers in mind, because they all add demand and mobility, but not necessarily in the same way traditional workers do. They may not be tied to one place, and they are often much more mobile,” Blizzard said. 

As demand for power, connectivity and logistics capacity continues to grow, infrastructure planning is becoming a more central part of development strategy. Developers increasingly evaluate land availability, zoning, utility capacity, transportation access and digital infrastructure alongside workforce availability and shifting employment patterns when determining whether projects can move forward at scale.

For large projects, those decisions often require coordination across utilities, technology providers, workforce planners and local governments well before construction begins.

“These projects are so much more complex now, and so much more interconnected,” said John Vardaman, advanced technology core market co-leader at DPR Construction. “Success really depends on having the right team together from the start.”

Interested in reading the Invest: Nashville report? Sign up today!