44 ms·

Leaving NYC for Nashville

• ArtWomb 8y ago
  Forgot to mention the country (and everything else) music scene. You can go out every night of the week and be entertained with varying hybrids of sub-genres. Usually under $10 or no cover at all. In certain ways it possibly resembles the energy around the New Wave / Danceteria / HipHop / Art / DIY culture in NYC in the 1980s ;)
  • driverdan 8y ago
    How's the non-country music scene for those of us who hate country?
    • bilbo0s 8y ago
      Don't move to Nashville. It's not a music city, it's a COUNTRY music city. I liked it when I visited, it's a good tourist spot for that reason. But for living, I prefer other places. Houston in the Museum district is light years better. So were Minneapolis, the Triangle in NC, Chicago was much better. I think even NYC was better frankly. But Nashville was good for what it is, just go in with realistic expectations.
      • tinduck 8y ago
        There's a few good bands from Nashville. Diarrhea Planet, JEFF the brotherhood. But yeah. It's not that great of a music town to be honest. Unless, you like the corporate stuff.
    • sciurus 8y ago
      There's plenty going on. Check out http://nocountryfornewnashville.com/ http://nocountryfornewnashville.com/ for a window into it.
• jseliger 8y ago
  I like Nashville and have been thinking about doing just that move: http://seliger.com/2017/10/23/nashville-seen-unseen http://seliger.com/2017/10/23/nashville-seen-unseen. It's part of the “The new boomtowns: Why more people are relocating to ‘secondary’ cities,” https://www.washingtonpost.com/realestate/the-new-boomtowns-why-more-people-are-relocating-to-secondary-cities/2018/11/07/f55f96f4-d618-11e8-aeb7-ddcad4a0a54e_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/realestate/the-new-boomtowns-..., as zoning madness keeps driving the costs of cities like NYC and LA up and up and up. Still, it's notable to me that Nashville has committed to long-term traffic: https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2018/05/what-went-wrong-with-nashvilles-transit-plan/559436 https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2018/05/what-went-wro... in way that other cities have not. Denver, for example, keeps building out new rail lines: http://www.rtd-denver.com/Fastracks.shtml http://www.rtd-denver.com/Fastracks.shtml.
  • francisofascii 8y ago
    As for the traffic, you can thank the Koch brothers. Sigh. https://usa.streetsblog.org/2018/04/26/koch-brothers-and-dark-money-gang-up-on-nashville-transit-referendum/ https://usa.streetsblog.org/2018/04/26/koch-brothers-and-dar...
    • ryanwaggoner 8y ago
      Don't get me wrong, the Koch brother influence is frustrating, but I didn't get the sense that the Nashville people are really all that interested in public transit.
    • KZeillmann 8y ago
      To be fair, the proposal would have raised our already high sales taxes, and those pushing for the proposal didn't do a good job convincing us that it would actually solve our traffic issues.
  • alexhutcheson 8y ago
    The light rail proposal was shockingly expensive relative the the number of riders it would handle, even by North American cost standards, which are already significantly higher than those in the rest of the world. A plan with a more reasonable cost/rider probably would have had a much better chance.
• tomasien 8y ago
  Finally, a "leaving NYC for the South" post I can relate to! Every leaving NYC post I've read is so whiny and negative. I look forward to leaving NYC someday and going back to the South but I'm not going to pretend like NYC is a hellscape.
  • busterarm 8y ago
    I left NYC (as a native) for the South. Did it for almost 5 years and came back because it tripled my earnings. My quality of life is still better up here, but I really would like to get out again.
• pauldix 8y ago
  I totally understand this move, but I would rather find a way to subsidize open source development that at least comes close to being able to pay FANG level salaries. It sucks to put a decision in front of someone that they can work on open source, but they'll have to take a massive pay cut and be more selective about where they live. I love NYC. I want to do open source and I want to live in comfort in this city.
  • ghaff 8y ago
    Many people at large employers do work on open source. Including some with large Manhattan offices. But living in comfort in NYC is a high bar and your options are fairly limited to work in open source, especially if you want to do so exclusively.
  • ForHackernews 8y ago
    In most cases, choosing to do creative or socially worthwhile work will result in lower pay. Corporate jobs pay a premium to get employees because the work they offer is boring, harmful to others, or otherwise unpleasant. I would not expect writing open source software to be an exception to this general rule.
    • woah 8y ago
      There are a lot of open source projects that are boring and harmful to others but that doesn’t mean that they pay well
  • pavlov 8y ago
    The FANGs employ a lot of engineers to work on open source — and so do many other companies, from IBM to Walmart. That's enormous corporate subsidy of open source development. The opportunities today to get paid for writing free software are amazing compared to twenty years ago.
    • pauldix 8y ago
      Of course, but those opportunities within those companies are few and far between comparatively. Engineers that get to work on OSS full time probably represent less than a fraction of a percent of their engineering workforce. I think Wes was talking more about places where more/most developers work on OSS full time, which was what I was talking about. The vast majority of code produced by FANG is closed and proprietary.
• deweller 8y ago
  I'm adding a reminder here that Amazon selected Nashville for it's "Operations Center of Excellence." This will create 5,000 jobs with a median salary of $150,000. https://blog.aboutamazon.com/company-news/amazon-selects-new-york-city-and-northern-virginia-for-new-headquarters https://blog.aboutamazon.com/company-news/amazon-selects-new...
• estsauver 8y ago
  I've found Amsterdam to really have everything I'm looking for in a tech hub. - Super friendly and easy regulatory environment. The Dutch have regulations but there are actual humans you can call at almost any department to get an answer. It's really incredible. I've literally spent more time waiting in the line at SEA/TAC customs then I've spent combined at the dutch immigration service IND. - Incredible internet. I have 500MB/50Mb at my house and it's no big deal, and perhaps equally importantly my latencies are incredible. The second largest peering point in the world is here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amsterdam_Internet_Exchange https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amsterdam_Internet_Exchange - Unmatched bicycle infrastructure and public transit infrastructure. - Airport with incredible connectivity. I can have direct flights to most major American cities, almost all of Europe is a ~30$ easyjet flight away and Nairobi is an 8 hour direct flight. - Pretty reasonable combined income tax burden. There's a 30% ruling that lets you exclude the first 30% of your income as if it didn't exist for most tech workers in NL. - Reasonable rents (I paid 1450 Eur for a furnished 1BR, probably no where near average rent in Nashville but I live in the center.) - Almost no homeless people. It's pretty great to live in a society that actually takes care of people. - Tolerant attitude genuinely. Whether it's marijuana or prostitution in 2018 or other religions in the 18th/19th centuries, Amsterdamers don't really care if it doesn't impact your neighbors. If you're thinking about taking the plunge and moving somewhere, drop me a line at earl at apolloagriculture dot com. DAFT (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DAFT https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DAFT) makes it pretty easy to set up a Dutch company and get immigration to go with it. If you don't want to start a company/go it yourself and can code, send me an email.
  • atom-morgan 8y ago
    Are the Dutch pretty open to hiring foreigners (Americans)? Other than Booking.com? I visited a few years back, originally scheduled for Barcelona, and was completely blown away by Amsterdam. I fell in love.
    • estsauver 8y ago
      I think companies are generally. If you're in the > 65k euros salary bracket a blue card can be had for not too much trouble. We're open to doing it for exceptional people and we did it for 3 existing employees when we consolidated to Amsterdam.
• sigfubar 8y ago
  Every now and again I am struck by a dreadful thought: "I will die in New York". I sincerely hope that the rest of my earthly existence won't flash by in this cesspool of a city, but it isn't my choice. Oh well. Glad to see another person managed to make it out with their sanity intact.
  • realbarack 8y ago
    Sounds like you should leave New York maybe.
  • welly 8y ago
    What's stopping you leaving? Not your choice? Of course it is.
• jrochkind1 8y ago
  fast-growing city, tech community, hipster coffee shops restaurants and bars... posts like this one... I wouldn't expect it to remain affordable for long.
  • jseliger 8y ago
    I wouldn't expect it to remain affordable for long. It really depends on how the city chooses to restrict housing supply; we have the technology to ensure that housing is affordable, but most American cities make deploying said technology illegal: https://www.amazon.com/Rent-Too-Damn-High-Matters-ebook/dp/B0078XGJXO https://www.amazon.com/Rent-Too-Damn-High-Matters-ebook/dp/B.... This is a fact of policy, not nature: https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-03-14/california-affordable-housing-is-no-mystery-just-build-more https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-03-14/californi...
    • dsfyu404ed 8y ago
      Austin isn't exactly pulling a SF with it's housing and the cost of living is rising rapidly. There is an undeniable correlation between more people with more money to spend and increased cost. Go look at tourism economies for an example.
      • chrisco255 8y ago
        Well Austin has a major transit problem. The traffic is unsustainable and there's no good plan to rectify it. So there is affordable housing near Austin (in Round Rock and San Marcos) but due to traffic you can lose a lot of time to commuting.
        • reno9111 8y ago
          Affordable is relative. You can find a good place downtown for ~ $1500 and the quality you get for the price would be mindblowing to NYC or SF residents while still being pricey for Texans. For most people in tech 1500/mo is very very affordable.
• dhbradshaw 8y ago
  I live 90 minutes south of Nashville, near Huntsville AL. We love Nashville and travel to the general area frequently. And he's right -- cost of living matters. For less than a condo in other places, we have a 4000 sf home and an acre in a walkable neighborhood with pleasant schools. Not a bad way to go.
  • atom-morgan 8y ago
    The only bad thing about Huntsville (grew up in Enterprise) is it's almost 100% military, state work. Is that still the case?
    • huntsvilleinfo 8y ago
      Yes, it is. Although Facebook is opening a data center here, so things may change in the future.
      • ghaff 8y ago
        Datacenters employ very few people.
    • peckrob 8y ago
      It's still mostly defense/space contracting, but it is slowly diversifying. There's a pretty good telecom sector. Digium, the sponsor of Asterisk, was headquartered here before Sangoma bought them earlier this year and I understand Sangoma is keeping the Huntsville operation. Adtran is also here. Bioengineering is also an up-and-coming thing with HudsonAlpha. There's a small but growing startup scene and a few established tech companies (I work for one of them [0]). Tech256 [1] is where most of the local tech workers hang out. Outside of engineering work, there was been a lot of growth in manufacturing. Polaris, Remington, Toyota, Mazda soon, Blue Origin soon, etc. Seems like every other week a new factory is being announced. [0] https://www.dealnews.com/ https://www.dealnews.com/ [1] http://tech256.com/ http://tech256.com/
  • mnutt 8y ago
    I grew up in Huntsville before moving to NYC 15 years ago, and the change in the "creature comforts" he describes is drastic. Back then downtown was desolate, nothing but lawyer offices and bail bonds. Now it's full of restaurants, hipster coffee shops, and spin classes. I don't know how much of it is due to a concerted push and how much is just a trend of gradual re-urbanization after decades of suburban sprawl, but it's a welcome change.
• eternalny1 8y ago
  Serious question ... can anyone explain to me why tech needs to be squeezed together in these hyper-expensive cities in the US? I don't buy the argument about needing to be close to others ... we are in a connected, high-speed world where anyone can have a "face to face" with anyone else at a moment's notice. I have been a software engineer for 25+ years and have avoided SV/SA like the plague due to what is mentioned in this article. When I need to visit a company in SF or NYC, I get on a plane. Remote work gets the job done, and if you are making US software engineer salary but choose to live in a low-cost-of-living area, you are essentially rich. You can buy as many dishwashers as you want.
  • untog 8y ago
    Tech is squeezed into hyper-expensive cities because, as illogical as it may seem, it's where a lot of workers want to live. As an industry, tech skews young. And a lot of young people want to live in urban environments full of culture and entertainment, and have a job that has a social dimension to it. Now that I'm older (thirties, married, kids) remote work from somewhere other than NYC seems appealing. But it didn't a few years ago.
    • realbarack 8y ago
      That's true to a point. Still doesn't explain Palo Alto, Mountain View, Cupertino etc.
      • readhn 8y ago
        just an endless pursuit of materialism. you want something so you gravitate towards it. hence a lot of regular people are destroying their financial futures by staying in these super expensive areas.
        • askafriend 8y ago
          Destroying their financial future? None of my friends living in SF or NYC make less than $160k a year working as engineers. In fact, they make that nearly right out of college. The more senior engineers (5+ yrs exp) bring in $300k-500k a year. They save a significant amount of it, more than they would have saved in any other place. And they can leave at anytime to a low-COL place and buy a house in cash.
• levicole 8y ago
  We’re full now. Wes was the last person we let in. ;) Seriously though, Nashville is a great place. Unfortunately, folks like the Koch brothers and their local buddy Lee Beaman, throw large sums of money at any progressive initiative the city tries to take. We won’t be able support the 100s of people moving here every day soon.
  • leetbulb 8y ago
    No worries. Soon the city will gentrify half of the lower-class housing that skirts the city. You'll have beautiful districts like SoDoSoPa and CtPaTown containing the best cold-brew coffees and most exotic toasts. Portland is doing well with that, right?
  • pathseeker 8y ago
    >Unfortunately, folks like the Koch brothers and their local buddy Lee Beaman, throw large sums of money at any progressive initiative the city tries to take. Well that's nice of them to put a lot of money into progressive initiatives... You might want to reword that sentence. :)
    • levicole 8y ago
      whoops!
    • virusduck 8y ago
      Maybe they're sacks of nickels!
  • nodesocket 8y ago
    > like the Koch brothers and their local buddy Lee Beaman Or, perhaps it's just that moderates that prefer smaller government with less taxes live in Nashville. I moved from SF to Nashville and was not convinced the transportation plan would be utilized and with the increase in already high sales tax (which by the way is a tax on the poorest) firmly voted against it.
    • magduf 8y ago
• dsfyu404ed 8y ago
  In 10yr we'll be reading articles about how Nashville has all the problems SF and NYC have today (well, maybe not a corrupt and incompetent MTA, in my unscientific observation corruption and incompetence are usually mutually exclusive in landlocked states). We're already seeing the occasional article about housing becoming affordable in Denver and Austin doing down the tubes. The longer I live the more I am cemented in my belief that attracting a bunch of people with money is about the surest way to ruin a community. From resource extraction boom towns to gentrifying suburbs to midsize cities it holds true.
  • readhn 8y ago
    > The longer I live the more I am cemented in my belief that attracting a bunch of people with money is about the surest way to ruin a community. year population 600 200,000,000 1500 450,000,000 1804 1,000,000,000 2000 6,145,006,989 2018 7,632,819,325 2050 ? 10,000,000,000 "Buy land, they're not making it anymore. Mark Twain"
    • dfilppi 8y ago
      They are in Hawaii
      • readhn 8y ago
        1 inch a year?
• lnkmails 8y ago
  This might sound like piling on a specific class of people but from my observation (I lived in the valley for 5 years all the way from San Francisco to San Jose), young white people crave for a lifestyle that is completely urban and do not want to make a commute sacrifice. Several of my ex coworkers would see it beneath themselves to get on public transportation. The demographics of people in an office changes significantly as you travel south from San Francisco to San Jose. The healthy balance in terms of demographics seems to exist at places like Mountain View/Palo Alto. During my five years, I set my rent cost goal to be 2500$ per month (and I didn't want roommates). I moved to keep the rent a constant while my salary was increasing marginally year over year. I ended up at Milpitas after 5 years but it wasn't bad at all :). I did miss drinking with coworkers and socializing but instead I could focus on health (both physical and mental). Now I moved to east coast and could afford a nice home etc and my mortgage is still close to 2500$ mark in DC suburbs. My large point is - Nashville will become San Francisco because it will be filled with young people congregating in some spots whereas some neighborhood 20 mins from Nashville downtown will have no takers. In several ways, the problem is self inflicted.
  • chrisco255 8y ago
    Nashville has a long ways to go before it becomes SF. Maybe in 5 decades?
    • kv85s 8y ago
      Why expect any city to become another?
      • chrisco255 8y ago
        Agreed. There will only ever be one SF. And Nashville has it's own character I hope it maintains as it grows. But I also hope they're not so anti-growth that they choke off development. At any rate, nimbyism seems to be less prominent in the South, in my experience, so I bet they'll embrace the growth.
• ajay-d 8y ago
  Political makeup, racial diversity, gun laws/beliefs, views on immigration are vastly different between the two areas. Donald Trump won the election in Tennessee with 60.7% of the vote, the largest margin of victory for a presidential candidate for either party since 1972. At least Nashville is in one of the blue counties. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election_in_Tennessee,_2016 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_ele...
  • dsfyu404ed 8y ago
    Why are gun laws an issue to anyone that doesn't routinely find themselves getting in fights or entering other people's homes uninvited? Edit: Also gun laws would be an issue legal firearms owners would be interested in as well.
    • dymk 8y ago
      Well I imagine it's the concern of the friends and family of those that get brutally slaughtered every time there's a shooting, or armed robbery gone wrong.
      • thousandautumns 8y ago
        There isn't a lot of correlation between gun laws in an area and gun violence. Even if you have strict gun laws, its not that hard to get guns in neighboring areas with more lax laws. Also, the vast majority of gun violence is self inflicted, or between associates. If you aren't living in the ghetto, the chances of becoming the victim of random gun violence is slim to none.
        • ptd 8y ago
          What about people who live “in the ghetto”?
          • thousandautumns 8y ago
• horv 8y ago
  I've spent the majority of the past decade in Nashville, first for university and the past four years working in tech here after a short stint in California. In that time, the tech community here has expanded dramatically. Even when I graduated from school, very few people from the CS program stayed in town. There weren't that many decent companies to work for then. Now you have many more options and you're starting to see larger, recognizable names in town (Eventbrite, Lyft). At one point the Nashville dev community slack was the second largest in the country, and there's a vibrant culture of meet-ups. One other great thing about Nashville is that there a large number of neighborhoods that each have their own character and have walkable sections. Depending on what's important to you and the sort of food/attractions/entertainment you enjoy, you can probably find somewhere to live and be reasonably close to things (at least in Nashville proper, I don't make it out to the suburbs much). As much as locals love to complain about traffic, it's still miles better than most large cities and I think anyone who's spent time in NYC, LA, SF, or even Atlanta will see that. Housing is definitely far more expensive than it used to be, and also still very affordable compared to many other places. I share a lot of the concern that other posters have mentioned about traffic moving forward, but hopefully if more people move here that are deeply invested in public transit and avoiding the fates of other cities the electorate will shift enough to see some real change.
  • dsfyu404ed 8y ago
    >As much as locals love to complain about traffic, it's still miles better than most large cities and I think anyone who's spent time in NYC, LA, SF, or even Atlanta will see that. Housing is definitely far more expensive than it used to be, and also still very affordable compared to many other places. It's always worse somewhere. Someone from SV saying crime is low, traffic is bearable and housing is affordable is some dude from North Korea calling Russia a liberal utopia. Sure, you might be from somewhere that's got it worse but that doesn't mean the place you are now isn't moving rapidly in that direction.
  • atwebb 8y ago
    >As much as locals love to complain about traffic, it's still miles better than most large cities and I think anyone who's spent time in NYC, LA, SF, or even Atlanta will see that. The complaints stem from a dramatic change, over the past 10 years it went from 15-20 minutes to get anywhere to at least 40. Comparing to cities at least 4-5 times the size of Nashville isn't valid. Similar with housing, which the oddest thing, to me at least, is the valuation of certain areas over others.
• mlinksva 8y ago
  > To add insult to injury, in addition to the grotesquely high rents, New Yorkers and Californians are subjected to some of the highest overall income tax rates in the country. Surely the rents would be even higher without those high income taxes. Though I'm in favor of increasing the supply of cheap housing and taxing property rather than income, I'm surprised that increasing income taxes isn't a go-to intervention for people who decry demand from relatively high income knowledge workers.
• nickdandakis 8y ago
  > In 2011, while primarily working on pandas, I was paying $2000 per month for a ground-level "1 bedroom" apartment in the East Village. It was less than 500 square feet and had none of the above amenities. You know, you can always tell when a non-native New Yorker lives in New York, because they all choose one of five neighborhoods to live in, and then complain about their poor living conditions. My guy, you can live in one of the other boroughs, have an average commute to work, and have good living conditions that satisfy at least half of your list of requirements there for $2000 in 2011. Like other commentators here have said, people of a certain class (and age) want to have their cake and eat it too.
  • actualdc1 8y ago
    The issue for me is the "average commute to work". I need to be on the 6 (or 4/5). Anywhere outside of Manhattan makes my commute ~1 hour instead of ~35 min. I don't currently live in the EV, but I'd entertain doing so if I could get a bit more for the money. Any advice on where else I should be looking?
    • mancerayder 8y ago
      If you don't mind a bit of grungy asthetics, the areas near the JMZ trains just on the other side of Manhattan in Williamsburg and the Bed Stuy/Bushwick border have a relatively fast commute - much faster than far more expensive neighborhoods in Brooklyn. For example, it's like 10m from Marcy Ave to Essex St. in the LES. The J goes downtown in the Wall St. area while the M takes much of the same path as the F along 6th Ave, and both of those trains follow the same lines up until Myrtle-Broadway. In fact, it's literally two stops from Essex St. during rush hour as the J runs express (sometimes it sees itself as a Z).
      • notyourday 8y ago
        JMZ will be impossible to get into above Mytrle-Broadway come April. Maybe even above Gates.
        • 8y ago
• exabrial 8y ago
  If you're obsessed with keeping up with the Joneses, you won't like the price tag in a capitalistic economy.
  • wallawe 8y ago
    What do you propose as an alternative?
• neomantra 8y ago
  If you love NYC, but are troubled by the issues described here, consider Stamford, CT or Fairfield County. We have much lower income and property taxes than NYC/Westchester. Stamford is really growing and has fun things to do. There's tons of hiking, biking, and coastal activities. According to [1], Stamford is 37% cheaper cost of living than NYC and housing is half as much. NYC can't be replaced at many levels, but it is only 50 minutes away on Metro North, putting you right in Grand Central. Many people live here and commute there. But, you don't have to -- Fairfield has many tech companies and regular companies that need tech people. Super family friendly -- I never considered up here until I had 2 kids and now wish I moved here a decade earlier. My neighborhood is filled with people who left Manhattan after having kids and commute to NYC daily. We have White Plains airport (HPN) nearby which is super easy to access and can get you to Chicago or Florida and in-between super-quick. And for bigger flights, JFK or LGA aren't too far away. Only real drawback for some is the car culture -- you pretty much need one, whereas in NYC it's a hassle to have one. [1] https://www.bestplaces.net/cost-of-living/new-york-ny/stamford-ct/100000 https://www.bestplaces.net/cost-of-living/new-york-ny/stamfo...
• ryanwaggoner 8y ago
  I made this exact move in 2015, moving from the Upper West Side to the Belmont-Hillsboro neighborhood in Nashville. Our first kid was 3 months old, we had spent a decade in SF and NYC, and I was ready for lower cost-of-living, lower taxes, and a slower pace of life. Or so I thought. We made it a little shy of 3 years before moving back to NYC in the early part of 2018. We're back on the Upper West Side again and I couldn't be happier. Unless it's to move internationally, I doubt we'll leave NYC again. Don't get me wrong, Nashville is a great city. One of the better up-and-coming cities in America, I'd wager. The people are nice and the food is awesome. But there were some things that just made it untenable for us long-term: 1. The cost of living isn't as low as you'd think, and it's constantly getting worse. We almost bought a house several times while we were living there, some of the smallest in our neighborhood, and they were still more space than we wanted or needed, and cost $500k to $700k. Two fell through randomly and we were outbid on the other. Our budget now is higher, but it's like 20% higher, not 100% higher. 2. You have to drive everywhere. The little walkable strips like 12 South in Nashville are a complete joke if you come from SF or NYC or Chicago. And they're completely slammed with people all the time now, despite the fact that there's only about 10-20 combined coffee shops, restaurants, and retail shops in a quarter-mile strip. And a very large portion of the city doesn't even have sidewalks if you wanted to walk, not to mention the huge cars whizzing by at 40mph a few feet from you. Very unpleasant. 3. Nashville is not ready for their growth. The traffic is horrible, everything is getting way too crowded, there's no public transportation (and they voted down even doing a rapid bus transit plan, so I don't see it happening anytime soon). Housing isn't being built fast enough and so prices are shooting up. Amazon is going to make it all much worse. 4. This might seem dumb, but the airport is a mixed bag, especially if you travel internationally. It was amazing to be able to leave our house and get to the gate in 25 minutes (seriously), but there are basically zero international flights and a lot fewer options to many parts of the country than I'd like. I love living next to three airports with tons of flights, even if the airports are some of the worst in the US and hard to get to. I hate connections. That's just me though. 5. Being land-locked annoyed me more than I realized it would. I love the ocean. 6. There's not a ton to do in Nashville actually. I don't like live music, craft beer, or anything "country" so that's 90% of the activities out the window for me. 7. There's basically nothing within a 2 hour radius of Nashville, so day trips or weekend trips are either a lot of car time to get to Louisville, Memphis, Knoxville, or Huntsville (none of which have that much to offer that Nashville doesn't, imo), or getting on a plane. 8. The people are nice...but there's something else there. It feels polite but not genuinely warm or something. I always felt like an outsider. Maybe because I wasn't from the south? Could have been my imagination, but what definitely isn't my imagination is that "southern charm" is generally reserved for straight white christians. Not always, but more than I'd like. 9. Speaking of which, it's uber-christian, in a way that's hard to understand unless you've been there. It just permeates the ground you walk on somehow. Not that everyone is christian, but a lot of people are, and people will ask you if / where you go to church, and my daughter's non-religious preschool taught her a bunch of christian songs, etc. And it's ironic because I was christian (my wife is even a minister), but I don't love living around it like that. Especially since my views on the intersection of faith and politics have radically evolved over the last few years. 10. This might be controversial: Nashville is fairly progressive for the south...but it's still very much the south. And the 2016 election really brought this home for me. Nashville is a little blueish purple dot in a deep, deep red state. If you drive 30 mins in any direction you'll see plenty of confederate flags, nasty bumper stickers, etc. And just like with christianity in nashville, not everyone is racist...but there's just a level of comfort and shrugging about the deep roots of racism in the south that I find disturbing. Random example: there's a huge mansion there called Belle Meade...and it was formerly a plantation. They have weddings and other events there. At a plantation in the south where people were bought and sold and raped and murdered for decades. And no one thinks anything of it. It's just a nice building. There are also a bunch of streets and other things named after the big slave-holding families from Nashville's history. To each their own, but ultimately, I don't think the south has ever really reckoned with its past, and there's just something a little off about the culture there that we ultimately decided wasn't the best place for us. Hope I didn't offend anyone from Nashville or the south...just my own impressions from a few years living there. EDIT: can't believe I forgot this: it's a hellscape during the summer. The heat and humidity in the south is not my idea of a good time. Although NYC's summers and winters aren't perfect either, but I actually like having 4 proper seasons.
• kaffee 8y ago
  I bike everywhere and do not want to own a car ever again. How good is Nashville? Are there bike-friendlier versions of Nashville?
  • ryanwaggoner 8y ago
    No. I mean, people bike there (I did) but it always felt fairly risky and hostile to me. YMMV.
• psychometry 8y ago
  Funny, a "conflict of values" precisely describes the reason I (along with lots of educated people) would never willingly move to a red state like Tennessee.
  • thousandautumns 8y ago
    Its astounding to me that people will outright refuse to live somewhere where people have differing political opinions to them. I'm not sure there is any coming back from this level of tribalism, and if so, our society is fucked.
    • psychometry 8y ago
      Those political opinions include racism, misogyny, xenophobia, science denialism, and more. And you expect me to respect them? Sorry, I don't think so. I don't want my and my family's reality to be shaped by ignorant morons.
      • thousandautumns 8y ago
        1. The Republican Party doesn’t have a monopoly in any of those things. 2. There are lots of conservatives who don’t hold those opinions. 3. I’m not expecting you to respect those opinions and never said I did. I’m saying it’s ridiculous to refuse to even coexist with people who have different views than yourself. 4. You could help in shaping the realities of said “ignorant morons”, but instead you choose to live in your own political bubble, which, I hate to break to you, is largely comprised of its own flavor of ignorant morons. I personally am very liberal, but I live in a conservative area and as a result understand that these hated “others” you live in fear of are good, reasonable people, and whatever extreme political opinions they may have is almost always due to the same self-imposed intellectual and cultural isolation you have chosen to impose on you and your family. So thank you for your small mindedness and your contribution to the death spiral of empathy and discourse in our modern society.
        • psychometry 8y ago
• francisofascii 8y ago
  Interesting post. I have two friends/ex-colleagues who made the move to Nashville. They both lean conservative, enjoyed the urban environment, but didn't quite feel at home in a super urban setting. One has dreams of buying a Ford Truck. (which I never really get)
  • slumberlust 8y ago
    You don't understand the appeal of trucks or you don't understand the appeal of Ford branded trucks? I got tired of renting a uhaul and 'trip vans' to haul home wood and simple project stuff.
    • ryanwaggoner 8y ago
      Most people don't buy trucks because they "need" them or because of all the home projects they're doing with supplies too large to fit in their car or SUV. Unlike what the TV commercials for trucks would have you believe (which are seriously a parody of themselves at this point), that's not really the appeal of trucks for the vast majority of their owners. Just like most SUV owners aren't tearing it up in the mountain high country like the commercials show, most trucks aren't actually used to haul things very often that couldn't be handled with another vehicle. The F150 has been the best selling vehicle in America for 40 years. Yes, a lot of people use them for work. But most people use them quite sporadically for actually hauling things, and much more as a lifestyle signaling device. Nothing wrong with that, we all do it. EDIT: example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fURcgb1BGmA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fURcgb1BGmA
      • dsfyu404ed 8y ago
        How hard you work your vehicles is inversely correlated with income (generally speaking, exceptions are in abundance when you speak in generalizations like this). If you hang out with the HN type crowd then you'll rarely if ever see someone fill every seat in a car or use a pickup to its full capacity. We're generally rich enough to afford more vehicle than we "need" in every regard (pickup trucks to haul light loads, three rows of seating for families with <4 kids, high performance German driving machines for a commute that's mostly sitting in traffic, etc, etc). At the other end of the economic spectrum people shoehorn whatever vehicle is available to them into every role it needs to fill. Every time I'm strapping material to the roof of one of my beater cars at home depot I'm immediately self aware that I am not acting the way people of my income level are expected to by other people of the same income level. Depending your income level pressing a less than ideal vehicle into service to fit all your needs is just not an option you let yourself seriously consider. So yeah, the people buying new trucks are mostly rich enough to not need to use them hard very much. Owners 3-N will use the crap out of them though.
• deleted 8y ago
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• cwperkins 8y ago
  As with any article here about someone choosing to uproot their life to move from a city in a blue state to a city in a red state. All I ask is to keep an open mind and talk to people in the state. Find out what their concerns are and why they have the belief system that they have. You will be surprised to hear the depth to someone's point of view if you take the time to listen.
  • asdff 8y ago
    And you'd be surprised at how much comes from fear vs. data and reason.
• jhowell 8y ago
  Looking forward to the follow up post to this one. Cheap rent/mortgage, short commutes to the exit/airport and Samsung appliances while nice, don't solve problems they weren't designed to solve.
  • spadros 8y ago
    In Canada, at least, happiness surveys tend to find the cheaper, smaller, more rural areas to be the happiest. Theory for this is less stress due to finances, shorter commute times, and less people to deal with overall (foot traffic, road traffic, lineups, etc). So, maybe cheap rent and short commutes are some of the elements of a happy life.
    • asdff 8y ago
      Or maybe people in rural areas are more likely to be financially secure and own their property. There are many more impoverished people in cities who would skew a 'happiness' survey for a city. It would be interesting to compare people with similar takehome pay rural to urban.
      • jhowell 8y ago
        That kind of sounds like "rural people are better with money than the city slickers." But, when I look at places like Ohio, Michigan, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Kentucky, Tennessee, Missouri there seem be a fair number of bankruptcies. I imagine we can look this up if we're so inclined. Is there a correlation between level of education and number of bankruptcy filings?
      • spadros 8y ago
        "Theory for this is less stress due to finances" Believe I included this in my original comment. It's likely a big contributor in these types of survey. It's a little easier on your health to not be living paycheck to paycheck.
• leothekim 8y ago
  One consideration for me to live in the NYC area is the general level of tolerance/acceptance of diversity. Certainly it isn't perfect here. But having grown up in the mid-west in an immigrant family, I have strong memories of being rejected by classmates and the local community (daily taunts, regularly being told to go back to my home country by kids and adults alike, people vandalizing my house, etc). I strongly believe this was a function of being in a community where people from foreign countries was uncommon, and back in the day in podunk mid-west, this was very uncommon. Now that I have a family with (bi-racial) children, I would be super reluctant to consider a place where my own children would encounter that kind of hostility. Nashville I'm sure is great, and maybe I'd love living there, but I would personally think twice - for a reason that the author of this article didn't at all need to consider for himself.
  • reno9111 8y ago
    Mindblowing I know but kids are bullies everywhere.
    • mushbino 8y ago
      Unfortunately, cultural and racial diversity don't exist everywhere.
      • asdff 8y ago
        I grew up in a statistically diverse school district, but in practice, it was socially segregated, in that most kids hung out with their own demographic almost exclusively. People can be just as racist or bigoted in a diverse environment, the only requirement for developing these prejudices is people seeing themselves as exclusive members of a demographic clique which can happen in Tennessee or New York City just as easily.
    • sangnoir 8y ago
      >> [...]told to go back to my home country by kids and adults alike,
  • 8y ago
• onyb 8y ago
  > It was less than 500 square feet and had none of the above amenities [...] 500 square feet is already a luxury for most people living in Paris.
• logfromblammo 8y ago
  If you're looking at Nashville, make sure you demand more money in your paycheck. Housing costs are rising fast, especially on the south side, Brentwood, and Franklin. People are moving in faster than new homes are being built. I keep looking at Nashville for a possible move, and the numbers never work out, because I'm already in a cheaper city that pays more money on average.
• dawhizkid 8y ago
  I don't know what Nashville's public transportation infrastructure is like, but a major benefit to living in NYC or SF is a "good enough" public metro system that means you can comfortably live in the city without needing a car. When you add a car to a + $1300 1bed/1bath you get to be pretty close to the $2k figure either way.
  • refurb 8y ago
    It costs $700 per month to own a car?
    • dawhizkid 8y ago
      yes https://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/loans/total-cost-owning-car/ https://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/loans/total-cost-owning-car/
      • ApolloFortyNine 8y ago
        Aren't they ignoring the fact that you will eventually own your car? Isn't a $100 a month for maintenance rather expensive? With any Japanese car you should be able to hit 150k miles without too many issues nowadays.
        • dsfyu404ed 8y ago
          Yes and yes. You shouldn't be making a monthly payment after 3yr and 1.2k/yr is a lot unless you drive a German car (same number of repair bills but higher dollar amounts) or are having so sideways much fun that you wear through a set of tires every year.
      • refurb 8y ago
        So OP should have said new car. You don't need a new car.
      • asdff 8y ago
        I bought my car 8 years ago for $5000. To date, it cost me around $2000 in maintenance, and I give it $30 a month in gas. Car insurance and registration are roughly $500 a year. Add up all these costs, and on average I pay ~$150 a month to own and operate my car, and that's ignoring the fact I can probably still sell this car for $3000-5000. Either the math on that website is way off, or a new car is truly the worst investment you can make in your life.
• TheMagicHorsey 8y ago
  Nashville is great, but its red. If you want some other alternatives: Sacramento, Reno, Las Vegas, Minneapolis
  • Alex888 8y ago
    The way you're saying "red" makes it sound like something bad.
• toss-it-again 8y ago
  The author refers to himself as a member of the underclass and that's a bit over dramatic, but I do get where he's coming from. When I moved to NY, a friend told me that to live an approximately middle class lifestyle in Manhattan, you needed to have two earners each pulling in $100k/year. My significant other and I are now well past that ($400k+ combined albeit with ~$1500/mo student loans) but we still don't feel well off in Manhattan. There's another set of obstacles once you're making money: - We pay ~$3000/mo for a one bedroom apartment (in a fairly convenient area, but with the amenities OP was missing). We could mathematically afford more but we were both raised middle class and have recoiled at anything above that $3k line. We're paying her parents' mortgage + my parents' mortgage nearly twice over. - We've been talking seriously about kids but even at 5-10x median American family income we're not sure we can afford to have kids in Manhattan. It's absurd. At $400k+ we cannot afford to both have a kid, maintain our not extravagent lifestyle, stay in our neighborhood and save well for retirement. - There's a sense that we need to make hay while the sun shines. We're not living in NY forever, so we try to save as much money as we can while we're earning money we won't earn outside NY.
  • lordnacho 8y ago
    How much of that 400K do you have left after tax? Seems crazy to me that you don't think you can afford kids. I'm going to check it out myself next week, got family there who are in a similar position.
  • tibbon 8y ago
    Same, but in the slightly cheaper city of Boston. While I do well as a developer (140k+), my partner is an artist and more often makes 10-20k a year. We're still very well off income-wise compared to the average in America, and yet my relatives and friends living in smaller cities, suburbs or rural areas seem to have far easier access to basic amenities. They probably view me as rich (and to a degree they aren't wrong), but my apartment is smaller than their 2 car garage, costs more than their mortgage (my rent is 3x my mother's mortgage, and double my sister's in NC), and has fewer basic amenities. I don't have a car, and the costs of having a reasonably reliable one overall are just too high. The idea of us affording two of them is a joke. I'm saving for retirement, but my partner isn't able to - she can barely afford health insurance. The thought of having kids in this place is laughable. I could rant about all of this for a bit. We're looking at moving to Salem, MA, Berlin, or maybe somewhere else entirely. I lived in Ohio for a few years and it drove me up a wall - so I am hesitant to just go "anywhere cheaper" though.
• sxp62000 8y ago
  Lately I've felt like New York is turning into a bit of a theme park. Everything is turning into a popup experience/temporary museum, a speakeasy, an overpriced fast-casual restaurant, a Wework or a luxury apartment building. The people around me used to sound like characters from "Seinfeld" now all I see are instagram influencers and couples who "oh my god, we love the city!". Miss those days when you could get a $8 Bulleit Rye with a splash of club soda at bar that didn't have a 100 tv screens. I think I've become a tired old hipster.
• thowaway120418 8y ago
  You'll love it here, if you make 80k you're rich. honkey tonks and hacks.