15 thoughts on “Nashville?”

    1. And the Motherlode blog, on moving with children, by Mary Laura Philpott (connected, I think to the bookstore, — she works at Parnassus, though I only heard of the store through the NYTimes blog).

      http://parenting.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/09/30/the-power-of-place-one-last-thought-on-moving/

      Nashville through the eyes of Philpott is bursting with creative energy.

      Music and books are a common theme for Portland. Denver has the mountains. And Austin has been hip for a while. The place I wouldn’t have understood is Houston, which, unlike the others, seems big and sprawly and Texan.

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  2. It has a great music scene, which provides a backdrop for other creative endeavors. There are universities (Vanderbilt in Nashville itself and others nearby), low priced housing, and the area itself is lovely.

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  4. I grew up in Nashville. Into the 1980s, it was your typical somewhat boring Southern city, albeit with a country music fringe and business (money-making, but not hip). It’s changed, big time. Lots of young people, an entrepreneurial culture, lots of live music (Country and not), a vibrant restaurant scene and newly renovated neighborhoods close to downtown. And the country around it is, as Tulip says, beautiful. Last time I was there I ate at a fabulous BBQ restaurant and watched hipsters walk the street–in a neighborhood that 20 years ago was both boring and dangerous. The change has been amazing.

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  5. The area around Nashville is not only beautiful, it also has some excellent white water kayaking, for what that’s worth. (Jackson Kayaks is located not far from there for a reason.)

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  8. “one of these is not like the others” and my candidate would be Portland, which has NO jobs and is expensive and only trustafarians can afford to move there. Think Williamsburg with forest. The others are all places where you can get a job and buy a house and start a family with your own efforts and no parental subvention. What’s not to like?

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    1. I think the question isn’t what’s not to like, but what’s to like that has gone up since 2000. In the case of Houston, I assume a lot of it has to do with higher oil prices.

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    2. We recently shelled out the $2 to watch Episode 1 of Season 4 of Portlandia (“Sharing Finances”). So funny!

      Portland’s current unemployment rate is something like 6.3%. That might not sound so bad, but Seattle’s is around 4.6%, so on that background, 6.3% is terrible. Portland’s household income is $40k ($50k for families!!!!!). Meanwhile, the median home costs around $315k.

      http://www.trulia.com/real_estate/portland-oregon/market-trends/

      Again, that might not sound like a lot, but the national stats are a median household income of $52k, I couldn’t immediately find a median family income, but the median US home costs around $189k.

      Hence, dave s. is correct–purely economically speaking Portland is terrible. The incomes are low while the housing is relatively expensive.

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      1. Coincidentally, my husband is at a conference in Portland right now. He was grumbling on Facetime to me last night that he finally found some of Portlandia’s famous healthy food after eating fast food for a few days.

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  9. Zillow pegs the median rents in Houston and Portland at 1459 and 1400 (and houses at 275K and 300K), but I do think its the jobs that have the most effect on where people move.

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    1. Everyone I know who has moved to Portland from the SF Bay Area has kept their job here and does a combination of telecommuting and flying between SF and Portland that they negotiated with thier employer. All are sharing the cost with their employers and are coming out ahead since compared to here housing is cheap.

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  10. Nashville’s public schools (as well as the surrounding suburban ones) are not very good, and therefore most kids go to private schools, including Christian schools, which are pretty segregated still. But yeah housing is cheaper.
    Had an interesting conversation recently with our city manager about the ways in which cities consciously work and plot and scheme to either attract younger folks or keep the ones they have from leaving. Basically he was arguing that people in their twenties like to live in those complexes where you have apartments above movie theaters and restaurants and you can walk to bars and things like that. THe problem is that if a city has too many older voters and taxpayers they may be really opposed to the construction of such places. My kids have no desire to move back to where they are growing up because no one in their twenties who is single really wants to live in a single story ranch house in the suburbs.

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