In Sumner County, Tennessee, the number of apartments in the county seat of Gallatin almost doubled from 2018 to 2022.
Photographer: Seth Herald/Bloomberg
‘I Live in Hell’: Anti-Growth Fervor Grips US South After Pandemic Boom
Local groups are pushing for restrictions on new developments, saying an influx of residents has strained resources.
In Gallatin, Tennessee, house prices have jumped by two-thirds since the pandemic, and one local commissioner incensed at nearby homebuilding said she “lives in hell.” So many Californians have moved to the booming state that locals fear their lefty politics migrated with them, and lawn signs target the “greedy developers” they say are swallowing up farmland.
Tennessee and several of its neighbors in the US South are facing an anti-growth backlash, after turbocharged migration helped boost the region’s population by 2.7 million people — the size of Chicago. As traffic snarls in once-sleepy downtowns, apartment complexes replace meadows and municipal water systems strain under new demand, passions are running high in a way that goes beyond regular nimbyism.