Back in the 1950s and 1960s, Nashville was still a honky-tonk, cowboy boot and hat wearing kind of town. The downtown scene was nothing more than a few dingy bars and the famous “Tootsie’s Orchid Lounge.” Tootsies Orchid Lounge still sits on Broadway, right around the corner from the Ryman Auditorium. The Ryman Auditorium was the mecca for country music wannabes back then. It was also the home of the “Grand Ole Opry.” Every guitar-picking, beer drinking, and boot-stooping singer knew the Grand Ole Opry was the door to a career in the music business. Nashville was a city where music dreams became a reality, and where folks had a "howdy smile" on their face.
Nashville is still that smiling music city, but it is also much more than an aspiring musician hangout. Nashville is on fire. More than 30,000 people move to Nashville every year, and the traffic is on steroids. No. Nashville doesn’t have a rapid transit system, but that doesn’t stop people from buying property in East Nashville, Green Hills, Brentwood, Franklin, Belle Meade or any of the other suburban setting. Plus, the below average cost of living and no state income tax are just two of the big hooks that make Nashville so urbanely chic.
Sure. The main attractions like the replica of the Parthenon, the Country Music Hall of Fame, Vanderbilt University, the Grand Ole Opry, Predator Hockey games and Titan Football games, as well as Belle Meade Mansion, the Natchez Trace Parkway, and Andrew Jackson’s home give this centrally located best places to live in Nashville vibe credence. But it is the best places in Nashville that give the city the dynamic energy to pull people away from their roots, and plant them in one of the smaller surrounding cities that make Metropolitan Nashville “the pride of the South.”
If you are planning to move to Nashville, know the summers are humid, and the winters are bearable. Spring and fall are the bomb, and the April and May showers turn the countryside into an Irish green wonderland. Home prices are on the move, and so is the restaurant and bar scene.
Here’s the thing. The Pharmacy is not a drugstore in Music City. It’s an East Nashville eatery. And trailer trash isn’t a description of a low-rent person in Nashville. It’s an ice cream flavor from the Pied Piper Creamery in Berry Hill. And if you want to live in an old bag factory, head to Germantown, and buy a converted loft in the old Werthan Bag Factory.
Music City wouldn’t be a city of music without a hot vinyl shop, and The Groove on 8th Avenue is the place that makes vinyl so damn hot in this town. But let’s not forget what’s happening in those satellite cities like Murfreesboro, Dickson, Mt. Juliet, Waverly, Manchester, and Clarksville. AreaVibes can help you find the best places to live in Nashville and other surrounding areas and neighborhoods as well.