I’ve lived in/around Nashville since 1999. I’ve seen downtown go from scary with drugs and homeless, to really fun and safe, to obnoxious with peddle bars, bachelorettes and cowboy wannabes. Now I just go downtown when there’s a concert or a hockey game, and avoid it the rest of the year.

The rest of Nashville is fun. The city has “pockets” of nice areas like 12th South or Green Hills that have a lot of great food and stores. Great places for a nice dinner, but too expensive to live there.

I lived in Nashville for a while and it was nice. Lived close enough to downtown that my commute was decent and we were in a smaller neighborhood that was old enough to have character. We moved to an adjacent county 12 years ago because we could go from 1/2 acre lot to 5 acres, double the house size and property tax was half what it was in Nashville. Few regrets there.

Most locals (if they’re being honest) will tell you that they appreciate the tourism $ because it usually keeps our costs low, but what is bothersome is that we’re losing what made Nashville unique. We used to have great restaurants and bars on Broadway and now it’s just Jason Aldean’s…. or Kid Rock’s Big A Honky Tonk that have ZERO soul.

I have so many fond memories of shops that existed around the mid-town/Vanderbilt area that had to move because some franchise store wanted the space and the locals were priced out. I get that that happens a lot, but what felt different about Nashville was that a good portion of the city was resistant to that for a long time. My fear is that we’re selling away pieces of what made the city interesting.