A Tree That Was Popular for the Wrong Reasons
Silver maple got planted all over Donelson's postwar subdivisions in the 1950s and 60s because it grows fast — a young tree could shade a new brick ranch within a decade, which mattered to a homeowner who wasn't going to wait thirty years for an oak to mature. The tradeoff nobody mentioned at the time is that silver maple's root system is famously shallow and aggressive, spreading wide near the surface in search of oxygen and water instead of growing deep.
On the narrow lots common along streets near Lebanon Pike and Donelson Pike, that shallow root system doesn't have far to travel before it hits a driveway, sidewalk, or foundation footer, and it will grow into and under concrete rather than around it.
What the Cracking Actually Looks Like
The pattern is usually a long, straight-ish crack running roughly parallel to where a root sits underneath, sometimes with a visible lip where one side of the slab has been pushed up half an inch or more. It tends to show up first at the weakest point in the concrete — an expansion joint, an old repair patch, or the thinnest section of a driveway apron near the street.
By the time it's visually obvious, the root causing it has usually been growing under there for several years already.
What Grinding the Stump Does and Doesn't Fix
Once a silver maple comes down and we grind the stump, the tree stops feeding those roots, and over time the smaller surface roots will start to decay. But grinding the visible stump doesn't retroactively un-crack a driveway, and a large root that's already established a path under a slab can take a couple of years to break down enough to stop mattering structurally.
We're straightforward about this on-site: if a root is already under a slab, grinding the stump above ground stops the problem from getting worse, but it's not a driveway repair. That's a separate job for a concrete contractor once the root has had time to decay.
What to Do If You're Planting a Replacement
If you're removing a silver maple specifically because of driveway or sidewalk damage, don't replace it with another fast, shallow-rooted species in the same spot. Water oak and sweetgum, also common here, have their own issues — sweetgum in particular throws surface runner roots — so if root damage was the original complaint, ask about deeper-rooted options or plan the new tree further from hardscape than the old one was.
The short version
Silver maple's shallow root system is a known driveway-cracker on Donelson's narrow postwar lots. Grinding the stump stops the problem from spreading, but an already-cracked slab needs separate concrete repair, and any replacement tree should go in further from the driveway.