
Leaving NYC for Nashville - happy-go-lucky
http://wesmckinney.com/blog/leaving-nyc-for-nashville/
======
leothekim
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.

~~~
pj_mukh
This is a big issue for me when people tell me to "move out of the coasts".

Apart from the hostility (lets assume that's waning), services for immigrant
populations is non-existent in most cities. Well-stocked Asian grocery stores,
temples, a good selection of restaurants etc. are common in most coastal
cities, while not so common everywhere else (apart from say, Houston/Austin).

I don't doubt there is flight from these coastal cities, but just like in the
70's and 80's, this seems to be mostly "white flight" [1].

Immigrant populations have no choice but to stay in the coasts, I wish more
effort was put into making the coastal cities more affordable than just
assuming everyone can move out.

[1]: [https://www.npr.org/2017/02/14/512875545/leaving-urban-
areas...](https://www.npr.org/2017/02/14/512875545/leaving-urban-areas-for-
the-political-homogeneity-of-rural-towns)

~~~
pthomas551
Not as true as it used to be. In my experience any midwestern city over
100,000 in population will have an Asian grocery store, and it's often got the
best fresh produce in town.

------
nickdandakis
> 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.

~~~
cribbles
I guess you could get a slightly larger apartment in Sunset Park or Jackson
Heights or somewhere but you would still be paying a preposterous $2000
(realistically $2500+ in 2018) for that, and now you've added NYC's cramped,
unpleasant, "state of emergency" transportation infrastructure to your daily
grind. For all that you get housing that is _still_ laughably austere in
comparison to what you'd get nearly anywhere else in the country.

For what it's worth, I lived 7 or 8 places in about two years when I lived in
NYC, in pretty much every Brooklyn neighborhood within a 20-40 minute radius
from where I worked. Saved lots of money too - never lived alone, did social
stuff in my neighborhood, took full advantage of the City to the best of my
ability. After all that, I came to the following verdict: NYC is stupidly
overpriced and has a substantial quality of life problem.

I am admittedly a non-native, so perhaps some of the finer charms of the City
will always be lost on me. But I don't know - I'm living in Berlin right now,
which isn't _too_ drastically different, and can't say I find myself missing
NYC at all.

~~~
evanelias
I recommend looking west -- there are $2k 1BRs in Jersey City and Hoboken with
35-minute door-to-door commutes to most tech companies in Manhattan. Many even
with central air, dishwasher, and in-unit laundry! PATH's reliability numbers
are better than any subway line, and in case of issues there's bus, ferry, NJT
rail as alternatives. And best of all, no NYC city income tax.

~~~
jtreminio
> there are $2k 1BRs [..]. Many even with central air, dishwasher, and in-unit
> laundry!

I'm trying to decide if this is a tongue-in-cheek post or not.

~~~
schrodinger
Why would it be?

~~~
pathseeker
Because that's a terrible price for what you get anywhere in the US except for
a few metro areas.

"There are $100k used cars, many with functioning windows, heaters, and
airbags!"

~~~
evanelias
This entire thread is specifically about the NYC metro area. My reply was
about Jersey City and Hoboken, which are directly across the river from
Manhattan. The apartments I'm describing are literally only 1 to 3 miles from
Manhattan, hence the short commutes I also mentioned. I really don't see why
my reply would be interpreted as tongue-in-cheek.

------
estsauver
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.

~~~
adrianh
I'm an American who moved to Amsterdam three years ago, with that DAFT visa.
This is a fantastic society that's figured out so much — I love it.

Happy to answer questions and/or meet up with fellow HN readers here in town.

~~~
bogomipz
What was the DAFT process like? What type of business did you start? How often
do you need to do reporting to maintain the DAFT visa?

~~~
adrianh
An immigration attorney handled it for me, so it was relatively stress-free.
Hardest part was getting the various documents (birth certificates apostiled).
The reporting is just the annual accounting/taxes.

~~~
bogomipz
Thanks, can I ask how long the whole process took? It's also my understanding
that you actually have a certain amount of money in a Dutch banking account as
well correct?

------
eternalny1
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.

~~~
ilikehurdles
I want money to be able to live in a nice city where I can walk to things,
parks and arts are well funded, where the food is great, and where there are
nearby cafes and bars. I could own a large McMansion in the burbs instead of
my small brownstone in the city, but I prefer the urban living. I just don’t
care about having any more bedrooms, and from my perspective the less yard I
have to maintain, the less room I have to clean, the better.

On the face-to-face comment: until my local cafe and bar operate a constant
zoom meeting and my cycling club sets up rides inside of my home office, I
don’t see internet connectivity as a replacement for real contact.

I will say this though — there is a big part of me that wants to live in a
mountain town in Colorado or Vermont. Convenient nature and having places to
walk to — Problem is from my experience the residents are almost entirely
people twice my age with a lot of old money.

On the topic of Nashville, my buddy moved there from Boston. I honestly
thought the city was quite fun (minus the humidity and the neighbors of the
Airbnb blasting hellfire evangelical sermons on the radio for their morning
lawn-mowing routine), but they’ve come to regret the decision because the
running isn’t as good and socially right-wing politics still forces itself
upon every space. Political compatibility, even for people who prefer to leave
those conversations alone, is important.

~~~
jnbiche
> but they’ve come to regret the decision because the running isn’t as good
> and socially right-wing politics still forces itself upon every space.

I'm skeptical of this. I've not lived in Nashville, but I've lived in a whole
lot of cities across the South: Charlotte, Atlanta, New Orleans. What almost
all Southern cities have in common is that conservatives are a minority within
the city limits. And indeed, when I check the 2016 election results for
Nashville, I see that Clinton won against Trump 59 to 34% -- almost double!
And also not surprisingly, Nashville has a Democratic mayor.

Does that sound like a city with right-wing politics forcing itself on every
space?

The fact is, unlike Southern small towns and rural areas, Southern cities are
in general fairly moderate to liberal, with a significant conservative
minority (say 25-30%). Now, given our current political situation, that
minority may be at present more vocal than usual, but that doesn't mean that
the city is beset by "right-wing politics" occupying every sphere of life.

Also, I've lived in working class neighborhoods in Southern cities for most of
my life and have _never_ heard anyone blasting evangelical sermons, around my
house or around friends. That's 20+ years as an adult. So you picked an
extraordinarily unlucky Airbnb.

Yes, you run into occasional racists or homophobic assholes, but I
occasionally ran into the same kinds of people when I lived in NJ for 2 years.
There are assholes everywhere.

But by far most of my co-workers working in universities and small companies
have been either moderate or liberal, with an occasional conservative thrown
in. Which isn't surprising, since that reflects the city's political
breakdown. But (at least until recently) we all tend to get along.

Now wrt to the running, I have no idea, you may be right there (although I
know that the Chattanooga area has some great running).

But wrt to politics, I'm fairly convinced that your friend's experience in
Nashville is either a misinterpretation or they've met with an outlier company
and friends (eg, did they work for a defense-related company? if so, those are
conservative everywhere, and has nothing to do with Nashville).

~~~
asdff
One of the great pleasures for Republican state governments is to hobble
liberal city government initiates in any way possible, whether that be
withholding funding or outlawing logical courses of action. I do not want to
live in a place with regressive red state politics that are always in such
conflict with the progressive goals of cities.

~~~
jnbiche
> One of the great pleasures for Republican state governments is to hobble
> liberal city government initiates in any way possible, whether that be
> withholding funding or outlawing logical courses of action.

I agree (although this happens less often than you'd think, for many reasons).

But in the end, I prefer to live here and fight the good fight, instead of
abandoning Southern cities to the whims of their surrounding towns and rural
areas.

------
tomasien
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
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.

------
toss-it-again
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.

~~~
ryanwaggoner
Something doesn't add up here :)

$400k gross is roughly $20k / month take-home. So $17k after rent, and $15.5k
after student loans.

I live in a nice 2-bed on the UWS and have a kid in private school. I'm
confused as to how your extravagant lifestyle is eating up $15k / month?

~~~
ryanwaggoner
EDIT: meant to say "not-extravagant"

------
pauldix
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.

~~~
pavlov
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.

~~~
PaulHoule
Corporate open source is often an attempt to take or crush competition rather
than give.

When's the last time you've heard anything credible about Linux on the
Desktop? IBM doesn't care about it. Google doesn't care about it.

Android is a zombie operating system that keeps Apple from having a viable
competitor. Companies will block bot access via http and then hire a PR agency
to congratulate them for providing an API that lets you access 10% of what you
can do with the web site with much more complex code. (eg. this is the
authentication process)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2ObCoCm61s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2ObCoCm61s)

Read between the lines and you'll see that Google is pushing Tensorflow
because they'd rather you upload your data to their cloud to run on their
processors and they'd rather you not take advantage of the latest NVIDIA
drivers because they hate the idea that you'd buy NVIDIA chips or own your own
computer for that matter.

It also is not fair to say that open source development is "subsidized", if
anything it is the exact opposite. Open source software creates billions and
billions of dollars of value that is not being captured by the people who
create it. Open source software subsidizes IBM, Google, ...

Why do people do it?

It might seem irrational, it certainly is from a dollar and cents perspective,
but I think a lot of people reach the point where they realize that working at
a place like Jane Street makes you a Negative Net Productivity Programmer no
matter how hard or how smart you work and that if you want to be anything more
than an 0.1x developer you have to get out from under the thumb of the "cult
of product" and the scum-sucking lying rat bastards who sell enterprise
software.

Thus you have people like Wes who should be billionaires (or at least tenured)
in terms of the value they give to society, and then you have "useful idiots"
like Sheryl Steinberg who are allegedly intelligent, but would have run the
first moment they heard anything about George Soros but no... She should have
been fired for that, but no, we'll just have to wait another 10 years for
Facebook to become the next Yahoo and get bought by some phone company like
Frontier.

~~~
freehunter
>When's the last time you've heard anything credible about Linux on the
Desktop? IBM doesn't care about it. Google doesn't care about it.

Why would two companies who don't build desktops care about a desktop OS?

~~~
dymk
I think the absolute ridiculousness of the parent's comment really shines
through when you consider just how massive Google and IBM's contributions are
to the Linux kernel.

~~~
magduf
He has a few good points in there. The thing about the desktop is one of them.
Sure, Google and IBM have contributed to the kernel, but that's because they
use the Linux kernel for things very important to their businesses, and it's
to their advantage to mainstream their changes instead of maintaining entirely
separate kernel trees. However, they don't contribute to the desktop at all,
nor does almost anyone else. For Google, it isn't important to their business
strategy because they're interested in Android, which isn't a desktop OS and
doesn't use the desktop parts of the system, only the kernel. IBM uses Linux
on servers/mainframes, so again they don't care about the desktop. However, at
both, I wouldn't be surprised to find that many, many developers do use
desktop Linux (maybe in a VM) to get their work done, so it would actually
help these companies, and many more, if they contributed to desktop Linux as
well, but they don't, because their management doesn't see that part.

~~~
PaulHoule
Looking over the long arc too I am not impressed with the development of
Linux.

I started using Linux in 1993 and back then it was way better than Windows.
Bill Gates donated money to my uni to try to kill off the Unix culture, but
the only people who would use Win NT 4 to do scientific work was the one guy
who loved Windows and me, who would vnc from Windows to Linux so I didn't have
to fight for one of the few machines that were running Linux so grad students
could get their work done.

On single-processor systems Linux was OK up to 2.4 but 2.4 did not really work
on SMP machines. I would discover the strangest kernel bugs and the more I
looked at it I realized these couldn't be fixed so I'd write patches that
would cause it to barrel on despite corrupted data structures and wait for 2.6
to be ready.

The problems w/ 2.4 were covered up and dismissed much like the way
Microsofties will tell you that all of those Windows NT 4 crashes were the
fault of your hardware.

2.6 got the RCU stuff from IBM which meant Linux actually worked right on SMP;
that was a real contribution both technically and in terms of legal protection
from Novell.

Since then the major itches people seem to be scratching Linux have been:

"ext4 doesn't corrupt data often enough, we need to invent a new filesystem
that corrupts data more"

"xpoll and ypoll don't work right so let's add a new zpoll that will work
incorrectly in a different way"

I was a Linux enthusiast back in the day, I would compile the new kernel each
time it came out, Alan Cox would bitch me out for filing bug reports that gcc
would segfault when I compiled the kernel on my overclocked machine.

What I've seen is that Windows had advanced by leaps and bounds since Windows
95 and Linux has been stagnant. It's a boring and reliable operating system
for servers, which is a good way, but it is not an operating system driven by
enthusiasts anymore.

~~~
magduf
This seems a little over-the-top, but I do have to agree that in many ways,
Linux just isn't driven by enthusiasts any more. It just doesn't have the
excitement it had back in the late 90s and early 00s that I remember, and the
desktop environments in particular have really stagnated, which I mostly blame
on GNOME.

------
levicole
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.

~~~
pathseeker
>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. :)

~~~
virusduck
Maybe they're sacks of nickels!

------
lnkmails
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
Nashville has a long ways to go before it becomes SF. Maybe in 5 decades?

~~~
kv85s
Why expect any city to become another?

~~~
chrisco255
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.

------
mlinksva
> 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.

------
jseliger
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-...](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), 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-
wro...](https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2018/05/what-went-wrong-with-
nashvilles-transit-plan/559436) 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
As for the traffic, you can thank the Koch brothers. Sigh.
[https://usa.streetsblog.org/2018/04/26/koch-brothers-and-
dar...](https://usa.streetsblog.org/2018/04/26/koch-brothers-and-dark-money-
gang-up-on-nashville-transit-referendum/)

~~~
KZeillmann
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.

------
neomantra
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/stamfo...](https://www.bestplaces.net/cost-of-living/new-york-ny/stamford-
ct/100000)

------
horv
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.

~~~
atwebb
>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.

------
cwperkins
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
And you'd be surprised at how much comes from fear vs. data and reason.

------
jrochkind1
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
_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/B...](https://www.amazon.com/Rent-Too-Damn-High-Matters-
ebook/dp/B0078XGJXO).

This is a fact of policy, not nature:
[https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-03-14/californi...](https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-03-14/california-
affordable-housing-is-no-mystery-just-build-more)

~~~
dsfyu404ed
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
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
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.

~~~
jrochkind1
I think it depends on what you mean by "people in tech", I don't think the
actual median income of people "in tech" is anywhere CLOSE to what the bay
area economy involved HN reader might think.

But even leaving that aside, guess what's not going to be at all reassuring to
current residents of whatever city is gonna be the "next Silicon Valey" or
even "next Austin"? "Oh, don't worry, rents gonna go up a LOT, but it's still
gonna be affordable for MOST PEOPLE IN TECH. Just not most of y'all that lived
here before all the techies got here."

------
jhowell
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
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
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
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?

------
sxp62000
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.

------
logfromblammo
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
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
It costs $700 per month to own a car?

~~~
dawhizkid
yes [https://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/loans/total-cost-owning-
car/](https://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/loans/total-cost-owning-car/)

~~~
asdff
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.

~~~
dawhizkid
why would you think you could sell your car for $5k today when you paid the
same 8 years ago?

------
ArtWomb
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
How's the non-country music scene for those of us who hate country?

~~~
bilbo0s
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
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.

------
dhbradshaw
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
The only bad thing about Huntsville (grew up in Enterprise) is it's almost
100% military, state work. Is that still the case?

~~~
huntsvilleinfo
Yes, it is. Although Facebook is opening a data center here, so things may
change in the future.

~~~
ghaff
Datacenters employ very few people.

------
francisofascii
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
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
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
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.

------
ryanwaggoner
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.

~~~
cwal37
A lot of that is actually why I would recommend Knoxville over Nashvillle.
It's smaller, but it has lower home prices, more access to nature (I went
hiking in the Smokies or Cumberland plateau many weekends), less of the
country kitsch, better weather since it's higher up (although still somewhat
miserable in parts of the summer), but you still get an airport and the
tax/income stuff if you care. Plus, Oak Ridge National Lab (why I was there),
Y-12 and the University of Tennessee mean it can be a bit denser in terms of
some tech stuff and the general mood (I very much feel you on the fake-
friendly-christian-tied-weirdness, found it to be less so in Knox) if you know
where and how to look. More of an old-hand career-oriented crowd than the
younger Nashville scene, but still interesting people.

Although, ultimately, I reached the same conclusion. I'm from Chicago and now
I live in Arlington right outside of DC. I got out as soon as my contract
ended. Can't really imagine going back.

~~~
Xcelerate
I moved from Knoxville to SF about half a year ago. Knoxville is definitely
quirky in ways that I haven’t found in other cities, and I like the physical
terrain (little rolling hills) better than Nashville. For some reason, I’m not
a fan of flat cities.

Knoxville’s downtown area is _very_ different (culturally and politically)
than Knoxville’s suburban areas. I would never want to live somewhere like
Farragut, but some of the older, more historic neighborhoods near downtown are
becoming quite interesting. Still no tech, unfortunately, which is why I
moved, but in terms of just generally nice places to live in the south,
Knoxville and Asheville are probably my two favorite cities.

~~~
steverb
We have tech, but it isn't an overwhelming driving force, and it's heavy on
the enterprisey side. If you know C#/Java/Javascript you won't have any
trouble staying employed.

------
onyb
> 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.

------
kaffee
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
No. I mean, people bike there (I did) but it always felt fairly risky and
hostile to me. YMMV.

------
TheMagicHorsey
Nashville is great, but its red.

If you want some other alternatives: Sacramento, Reno, Las Vegas, Minneapolis

~~~
Alex888
The way you're saying "red" makes it sound like something bad.

------
dsfyu404ed
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
> 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
They are in Hawaii

~~~
readhn
1 inch a year?

------
deweller
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...](https://blog.aboutamazon.com/company-news/amazon-selects-new-york-
city-and-northern-virginia-for-new-headquarters)

------
psychometry
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
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
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.

~~~
cwperkins
The funny thing is is that some of your friends or neighbors are probably
Republicans and they are afraid to come out because of the name calling and
shaming they would hear from the likes of you. This is probably the most
intolerant comment I have ever read and I expect to find people on HN who are
open to differing opinions.

~~~
psychometry
Again, don't ask people to be tolerant of intolerance.

~~~
cwperkins
The people in coal country are certainly voting Republican because their
number one concern is the wall...

Seriously the narrow world view of some people is staggering. You're being no
better than the racists you claim to fight by prejudicing an ENTIRE group of
people. Please just talk to someone with a different point of view. If they
are coming from a hateful place you absolutely condemn it, but you don't
prejudice the entire group. There are communists/socialists in the Democratic
party, but I don't think that means ALL democrats are socialist/communist.
There's quite a lot of hypocrisy in your comment.

------
thowaway120418
You'll love it here, if you make 80k you're rich. honkey tonks and hacks.

------
exabrial
If you're obsessed with keeping up with the Joneses, you won't like the price
tag in a capitalistic economy.

~~~
wallawe
What do you propose as an alternative?

------
ajay-d
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_ele...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election_in_Tennessee,_2016)

~~~
cwperkins
You've made your point known that you believe all republicans are traitors.
Can I ask you if you have any Republican friends in your immediate friend
circle? Have you asked them what their concerns are and why they feel the way
they do?

~~~
ajay-d
I probably shouldn't have been biased towards my political preference.

I'm just saying there's other factors, not mentioned by Wes, that me and many
others deem important when choosing a place to live. And taken as a whole, NYC
and TN are polar opposites in that realm.

------
sigfubar
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
Sounds like you should leave New York maybe.

