What is it like living in Nashville?

I have the opportunity to relocate to Nashville for work. What is it like living there? Is there a gay scene?\ Any opinions?

• There are 2 types of music, Country & Western. \ \ Democrats is commies.\ \ They already have one token Black folk and don''t want another. \ \ Any man who doesn''t drive a pickup truck is a homo and is OK for shootin''.\ \ A gun is a mans best friend.

• If you are gay, you might try Atlanta. I moved away from Tennessee many years ago, but I am thinking that Nashville is probably not your city.

• Unless you''re currently living in Hoecake, MS or something equally awful,I wouldn''t move to Nashville. There are probably worse places for a gay man to live, but it''s certainly not a good place.\ \ Like [2] said, Atlanta is about the only decent gay city with a southern vibe.

• We call it booger!\ \ You do the math.

• What about New Orleans?

• Altman-esque

• Isn''t it soon to be under water?

• Nevermind, that''s Memphis.

• [italic]No FEDX for you![/italic]

  yay

• The Evil, James Dobsons second choice for his HQ was in Nashville. Need we cay more?

• Ok, why all the Nashville bashing? I''m gay and have lived in Nashville for the past 20 years. No, it''s not all country music. In fact, you can find just about any kind of music you like here. We just had one of the best governors in years - a democrat, and our mayor is a great democrat. Our major industries are Health Care, Banking, and the Music Industry. It''s a great place to live.

• It''s the headquarters of Gaylord Entertainment.

• Lived there for 6 years. My closest friends there are straight. I managed to have a lot of fun outside the gay scene. I attenede some wild parties. It''s a clean city. Very segregated. Just some random thoughts.

• A lesbian high school friend lives there and loves it. (shrug)%0D

• The very gay Janis Ian lives there and also loves it.

• Considering Nashville is the Southern version of the entertainment industry, many gays must have alot of work opportunities.

• Why is it that when ever I enter a restaurant in Nashville, they''re playing Louis Armstrong-Ella Fitzgerald recordings?

  Perplexed New Yorker

• Country Music Gays are like all Black Heavy Metal Bands.

• I grew up there. Middle Tennessee as a whole is like this... There is totally a gay scene and it is just smaller than in larger cities. Nashville is the epicenter for most everything to do with Country music, Gospel music, Christian Contemporary music, and so on. If anyone at all wanted to give things a shot with certain things about music, Nashville is a nice place to start because at a bare minimum you can do session work or what have you. Everything past the music is awfully nice as well if that is your thing in terms of work and when I was a high school girl some folks got their cosmetology licenses and whatnot while still in high school in order to earn big money styling folks in music. Schooling is taken far more seriously in Middle Tennessee than anywhere else in the state. Tennessee still has a way to go with that but the public school systems of Middle Tennessee do really well with the State Report Card/ No Child Left Behind stuff for sure. For example, you can look up the Sumner County Public School System and see that it has well over a 90% High School graduation rate and all of that. Where this comes into play for someone wanting to move, is that the best kept neighborhoods are near the highest ranked public schools. And, if you want to go back to school (Community College, what have you) for whatever reason it is just considered a really great thing by everyone because of how very important schooling is considered over in Middle Tennessee. Now full on living in Nashville is kind of tricky. There is more of a class 'thing' going on more than anything else. It is somewhat like the grown adult version of the movie "Clueless" in that regard. So, you have to pick where you would like to live very carefully if you haven't the patience top contend with the class 'thing' Off the top of my head. Here are the most gay friendly areas (at least before the floods)... East Nashville Salemtown Sylvan Park Hillsboro Village ... Midtown along Church Street is where one would go maybe for a drink or for a bit of shopping. It is the utmost gay friendly business district and we do all just have to do our part in supporting that sort of thing.

  Nashville Nancy

• East Nashville got flooded out last year...

• East Nashville was flooded but it''s fine now. Beautiful homes.%0D\ %0D\ Also, the Gulch, West End and Green Hills are very diverse areas.

• Nashville Nancy should be careful about publicly telling people where the safest gay areas are. There are truck loads of shotgun waving, Country Music lovin'' rednecks that have recently discovered the Internet and could find this out.

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJSQkRWPrCw&playnext=1&list=PL636F61D6F314B254

• Franklin, TN, about 1 hour south of Nashville, is where all the famous Country Music Rednecks live.

• ALL bible-thumping Republicans.

• I grew up in Boston, lived in NYC, and moved to Nashville years ago. If you don't absolutely have to, I wouldn't live here, but, then again, I don't know what your options are. There are a few wonderful things about Nashville. It's easy to get around. It's safe. It's not terribly expensive to live here. People are very friendly. There are, however, more things that aren't that wonderful. It's a red state, and you constantly feel the presence of the christian right. They are everywhere, and you just have to assume that liberal views will be derided. The food scene isn't great. There are a few good restaurants, but it's mostly a city of chains. The gay scene is fairly small, and there are only a handful of bars. My friends are almost all straight, and they don't care that I'm gay, but they're mostly from larger cities. I'm not obviously gay, but don't hide it, either, and some people are a little taken aback when they discover I'm gay. It's something they've been raised to object to. I've seen a softening in the last few years, but it's still there. And I really object to that sanctimonious "love the sinner hate the sin" bullshit which I feel sometimes. And -- one of the worst things to me -- it's land locked! I grew up on water, and it kills me to not be near it. All said: it's a comfortable place to live, but it's a little too conservative for me. Good luck.

• r25. if you do move, a few nabes to think about:\ Hillsboro Village/west end area. (one of the few blue areas, and it''s right near Vanderbilt.)\ The Gulch, which is a few block long NEW area of high rise developments, if you want a city living experience.\ Twelve south area, which is similar to Hillsboro Village. Kind of boho, young families.\ \ I''d stay away from Green Hills (upwardly mobile republicans, and way too much traffic), Brentwood and Franklin (too "new" and prefab, ALL chain restaurants and stores; fairly soulless.)\ \ Nashville is VERY small, though, and nothing you''d want to get to is more than 15 minutes away from you, no matter where you are or where you want to go to.

• R1 is an idiot and very old. (It hasn''t been called "country and western" for decades, gramps.)%0D\ %0D\ I''m not a Nashville lover by any stretch, but I''ve spent several weeks-long stretchs living/working there and it''s nowhere near as bad as know-nothings like R1 say.%0D\ %0D\ %0D

• Has anyone met the gay-friendly Garth Brooks? I was a huge fan of his back in the day.

• *nabes* ?\ \ good christ

• Wow did R27 ever step in it. That line R1 opens with "We have both types of music, Country & Western" is a direct quote from the Blues Brothers Movie.

• 600,000...wow smaller than I thought.

• when I go I stand in awe!

• Nashville Metro is about 1.6m r31. Not huge but not a small city either.

• That was an obvious put-down of country music, dumb fuck r27. Went over your 14 year old head.

  C&W

• Well, you are no longer allowed to say the word Gay in Nashville.

• Move to Clarksville, you''ll get a lot of military dick.

• OP, you''ll have a lot less trouble if you''re white.

• I''ve been many times, it feels very provincial despite the music industry there. I find it depressing, it''s a place that has none of the good things about the South and all of the bad IMHO. The people are nice though, that is one good thing. There are a lot of fatties.

• One BIG PLUS for Nashville: %0D\ %0D\ Las Paletas Gourmet Popsicles

  http://www.yelp.com/biz/las-paletas-gourmet-popsicles-nashville

• Avoid the Parthenon.

  Barbara Jean

• Is Vanderbilt a conservative Republican school?

• What happened to that law the city council tried to pass allowing bar patrons to carry guns?

  Harris

• r42 - the law went though. You''re allowed to bring guns to restaurants, bars, etc. A few places have the international "No guns" sign on the door, but 99% of places don''t. I don''t like thinking that the guy in the booth next to me could have a gun.\ \ I live a few blocks away from John Rich, he of the successful duo Big and Rich. He has a huge house, with a sign on the gate that says something to the effect of: if you trespass I have a right to shoot you, as protected by the second amendment. \ Uh, not really, but try telling him, and those like him, that the amendment allows you to carry guns, not to use them when you feel like it.

• R43, I thought as long as you posted No Trespassing, you could use deadly force to protect your property.

• Anyone been to a meeting at the "Guns for Jesus" center in Nashville?

• I got roped into taking the Megabus down there for a weekend and I need stuff to do! We don't have any plans beyond the Country Music Hall of Fame, The Patterson House, Third Man Records, and maybe the Grand Ole Opry although it looks like it'd be rough to get to from downtown without a car. Where should I eat? Is there a lesbian scene beyond (and for people younger than) Janis Ian and Chely Wright?

• r41, I have an artsy twentysomething straight boy friend who went to Vanderbilt and he absolutely hated it. Said it was like spending four years at the high school homecoming game.

• Nasvhille is a little more urban in style than even southern cities like Dallas and Atlanta, which are so suburban and upwardly m obile, with everything that implies. Nashville has suburbs, but they are not upwardly mobile and people in Nasvhille view life as a sweaty, smelling struggle with a bad ending. Despite the presence of a bunch of colleges, mostly small religious nutter places, Nashville is mostly a blue collar town with a blue collar sensibility, and that means DRUGS and BOOZE are everywhere, with the occasional random violence and really horrible driving. There are more gay bars than you would think for such a small city, but they are without power of any kind since even many of the out and proud people are touchy about displaying their pride - with reason, Tennessee rednecks are the most vicious in the nation when it comes to gays. As far as a protective gay enclave, there is probably more of that in Knoxville than in Nashville or Memphis. The upper crust rich are a bunch of feudal Nazis who are best avoided - get within a mile of any of them without proper bowing and scraping and your wallet will be lifted and your life prospects ruined. Fortunately, this is easily done as they are mostly raping and pillaging out of town, which makes them a little more clever and ultimately dangerous than is usual (think Bill Frist). The music industry is relatively progressive but tightly controlled by fewer people than you think - less than a dozen. It is the very ruthlessness and conformity of their business model which has kept them on top as America's music city. The hills are pretty but the people have an inverted "honky tonk" aesthetic sense which sees Ugly as beautiful, so anything man-made is disgusting, with a very few architectural exceptions like an Egyptian style church. The churchiness of the place is of course fraudulent and hypocritical, but they cling to it just the same and people in laundromats will try to engage you in theological discussion. No, that is not an exaggeration. Vanderbilt is their "star" university but seems to have little to do with the city one way or the other, and that's probably good because it has more of the same kind of fraternity-run golf club arrogance that you see in the rest of the South. Vandy is not "intellectual" in the way of the Ivy League or even most important universities in other regions.

• I could probably deal with Nashville for about two years, tops. There are some great historic places to visit. I could spend many weekends exploring the homes of Andrew Jackson and his wife's family.

• I lived there for 6 months in the late 90's. It was a weird transition going from very gay Atlanta where I was very out to very straight Nashville which is very straight. People were nice enough (to your face anyhow,) and I am by no means a flamer, but they knew I was gay so it was hard to make friends. Needless to say, I was back in Atlanta every other weekend or so and came back after 6 months. Nashville is a nice city; small enough to get around cheaply but big enough to have most amenities. I lived in Hillsboro. It could be different now, but I doubt it. Things don't change that quickly in most mid-size cities like Nashville.

• As homophobia dies off, with the aging population, I imagine the homophobes still left, will move to centers like Nashville and Colorado Springs. So it is not going to get any better. Nashville will become a Fortress of Hate.... with a Country Music sound track.

• I didn't have such a great experience the last time I was in Nashville.

  Barbara Jean

• [quote]I imagine the homophobes still left, will move to centers like Nashville and Colorado Springs. So it is not going to get any better. And St. Augustine, Florida.

• Nashville Nancy - where do you live now? I'm considering relocating from Los Angeles and am veryyyy afraid because I am, a bleeding heart liberal and used to boys with boys & girls with girls. I am straight and hoping to get my feet wet with country music - I tend to think that Nashville is an overall smaller pond than LA is. Additionally, I'm very worried about missing the ocean - I lived by it my entire life. Where do you go in Nashville to be near serene waterscapes? Is living in downtown a good/HIP area? I have a job opp there and am looking in these lofts near 2nd. I appreciate your reply! Good luck y'all =)

• I thought Memphis was the happening place in TN? My Dad moved to Chattanooga after retiring. It's got an artsy, small college town feel to it but it's still very limited as to night life. Not nearly as liberal as Asheville, NC. Pretty country and a nice waterfront though. If you are into Civil War history you'll be in hog heaven.

• Expect a wave of anti-Obama music to emerge from Nashville in the next couple of years, capitalizing on Republican anger.

• Nashville (and Vanderbilt for that matter) were once progressive. Not for a generation, but there was a time even into the country music era where Nashville was solidly progressive and populist. However, you can't specialize in professional Christian bigotry for decades without consequences and by the 80s things had taken a scary turn.

• Vanderbilt has a "distinguished professor" who is active in the white nationalist movement. Her name is Virginia Abernethy

  http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/intelligence-files/profiles/virginia-abernethy

• Karen Elson lives in Nashville... She is doing a one on one interview with Grace Coddington, creative director for Vogue at the First Center. It can't be that bad! Plus... rhinestone cowboys....

  anonymous

• "Not nearly as liberal as Asheville, NC."--Reply 55 Love Asheville, NC.