White guy from Texas' perspective
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6/5/2018
I'm a little biased as I'm a home grown native guy from Texas who has family and VERY CLOSE ties all across Texas. I'll try to be objective here...
Many of the negative reviews are "spot on"... If you come to visit with friends it will be AMAZINGLY FUN!!
But living here is VERY, VERY different....
Coming from Texas, I've heard people describe Dallas as "fake", Houston as "trashy", and Austin as not "Southern" and San Antonio as "too ethnic/diverse"
Honestly... all of those would describe Nashville IMHO.
The state of Tennessee is GORGEOUS and I do admire the Vanderbilt area and surrounding areas But inner city Nashville, in my opinion coming from Texas, is pretty fake, (VERY) trashy, (VERY) not Southern, (WAY TOO) diverse/ethnic.
You may come for the weekend and head out on Friday night, ALL DAY Saturday, ALL DAY Sunday and thiink that it's the greatest place on Earth and you'll probably "love" your stay. But that little microcosm does not embody what it's like to "live" in Nashville.
There is no neighborhood targeted for young, EDUCATED, AMBITIOUS 25-35 year olds who take care of themselves. That would be Brentwood/Franklin area... which are GREAT, but those are suburbs lol. Not much different than what I would get back home in Texas.
Which pretty much leads you to live in a very, LOUD, TOURISTY part of town, a BAD part of town, or by the Vanderbilt area. The Vanderbilt area is great and I THOROUGHLY ENJOYED that part of town but it's honestly kind of "lame" IMHO if you hang out around that area past the age of 25/26; unless you work at Vandy or at the medical center.
So pretty much everyone in that demographic lives in Brentwood or Franklin LOL... so it's not really different than "white flight" back home.
Let me tell you about this though...
It's not "gentrified" here... which means, and i've read this a few times on here, that youo may run into "undesirables" when out at night with friends. This happens quite frequently actually and coming from Texas, where we simply DO NOT ALLOW people like that in to establishments... this was SHOCKING
*I believe that this attributes to the INSANELY HIGH crime rate here*
The crime is VERY VERY VERY HIGH, especially considering the size of the city...
It makes me believe that a lot of the tourists or out of towners come in and cause trouble b/c they have nothing to lose.
It's not very appealin when there are OTHER OPTIONS in the country lol
Also... the fakeness... this is mostly attributed to the city of Nashville NOT being "southern" at all. Aside from the surrounding area and MAYBE the Vandy area, this is NOT NOT NOT NOT a "Southern" city lol.
Austin is more "Southern" than Nashvile and I mean that if you've lived in both you can TELL. Plus, a lot of the good country is "Texas country" so they don't know much about Eli Young, Randy Rogers, George Strait, etc here... it's a big "culture shock" actually LOL.
Last but not least, it is NOT a "classy" city. I used to believe that Houston was the epitome of a "trashy" city back in Texas... Oh boy, Nashville takes the cake lol. Besides the smell from the O&G refineries in Houston, Houston is MUCH, MUCH, MUCH classier than Nashville. This is on many levels from day to day life, to how people "carry and present" themselves, to the dating scene, to even the nightlife. If you come here you will know what I mean.
I honestly feel that Nashville is much "closer" to Las Vegas than ANY other city LOL. But that would probably be insulting to Las Vegas.
This is NOT a "Southern" city.
This is NOT EVEN CLOSE to the next "IT" city or Austin
This is TRASH.
In 12 years... YES, you heard it 12 YEARS!!! They are predicting it will hit 1 million in the metro area... So ....what that means is...
In 12 years!!!! It will be what Austin was in its starting/infancy LOL as far as size/people/nightlife/culture
That's a LOOOOOONNNNNGGGGG time!!!!!!
Justin | Nashville, TN