I was chatting with a friend of a friend who's been in my neighborhood since the early 90s. House is 3 parcels off of Gallatin Pike, a >20k-cars-a-day road. She described nearly all change as negative, and said that a lot at the end of her block had her anxiety going crazy. I get it, change is hard!
This neighbor went on about how the only good thing was that her friends had been moving from (more expensive) neighborhoods in Nashville to her area. Gentrification is pushing her social circle out of their neighborhoods into her neighborhood. I'd never thought about that dynamic.
This neighbor lamented worsening traffic as a concern with all the new development. I checked the stats: daily traffic on our section of Gallatin Pike (that main road) is at a 30 year low! Memories are unreliable; many people don't like change. But a growing city is going to change, no matter what.
This thread is a little stream-of-consciousness and doesn't have a great so-what, except maybe this: You'll find me advocating for change that helps fight rising cost of living; that helps keeps the neighborhood characters in their neighborhoods; that helps more than just existing property owners.