2011 Nashville Vs. 2017 Nashville Is Quite the Jarring GIF

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Damn. I’m a native Nashvillian – been here all 30 years of my life. People ask me all the time, “when did this boom happen?” I don’t know that there’s one real answer for that. It’s not as if there was one singular moment that transformed the landscape of Nashville.

I can remember growing up in Nashville in the mid 1990s. It wasn’t really a place you wanted to hang out – not unless you were buying drugs or hiring a prostitute. I wasn’t old enough to go into any of the bars downtown, but I can tell you that the scene was incredibly different than it is today. And, I’ve heard from “old Nashville” that all of those places smelled like horse piss back in the day.

The Nashville Predators and Tennessee Titans came to town in the late 90s. The new Country Music Hall of Fame opened up in 2001. I’m sure I’m forgetting other entertainment outlets, but those three come to mind. I didn’t start going downtown until I was in college. Even then, it wasn’t the entertainment mecca it is today. In 2005, your options were fairly thin, and it still felt like one big small town. The city was just starting to celebrate its history in the music industry as a tourism opportunity.

The flood came in 2010 and made it a lot easier to afford a house in the city. So, people started flocking here and eventually, word got out. Here we are, several years later, and the city is growing at an alarming rate.

So, yeah – it’s hard to pin down exactly when and where this happened, but it happened. And, it’s still happening. Pretty crazy to think that, from my perspective, what was once just any old smaller Southern city is now a destination “it” city.

I think Paul Kuharsky has the right idea here:

I like Atlanta for a good weekend trip every once in a while – go see a Braves game, make a pit stop at Rock City, call it a weekend. But, no offense Atlanta, there is no way in hell I’d want to live there. But, that’s just what the city of Nashville is becoming – congested and complicated.

If you love the small town charm of Nashville, you’ll probably have to consider that a thing of the past.

Stoney Keeley is the Editor in Chief of The SoBros Network. A strong advocate of GSD (get shit done) and #BeBetter, he’s down to talk Tennessee Titans and Alabama Crimson Tide football over a beer any day. Check him out covering the WWE for WrestlingNews.co. Follow on Twitter @StoneyKeeley@WrestlingNewsCo

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