Nashville is humming a happy tune. (economy)

1995 was a very good year for the Nashville area, and 1996 looks like same song, another verse.

* The Nashville-area economy gained 34,200 jobs in 1995, a 6.1 percent increase from 1994. The area's work force grew more than twice as fast as the U.S. average. The unemployment rate of the Nashville MSA has remained around 3.0 percent in the last three years; during the same time, employment in the Nashville MSA has increased by 102,300 or 19.9 percent.

* In Davidson County, 1995 was a record year for home sales and a near-record year for the dollar value of commercial and residential building permits. In the first seven months of 1995, Nashville reported an increase …