I went to graduate school at Vanderbilt. The first year, I lived in a detached garage apartment near Lake Radnor. The family I rented from was great, and I loved the quick access to the Radnor and Warner Park hiking trails. It was just a little too quiet for me at the time, and I wanted to be closer to the school and amenities. So, the next year, I rented a home in Hillsboro Village near Dragon Park. At the time, the Gulch really hadn’t been developed, The Nation’s and East was hood, 12 South mainly consisted of Taproom, Rumor’s, and Mafiaoza’s and the rest was pretty sketchy. Aside from Preds’ games and concerts at Bridgestone (Ascend hadn’t been built at the time), I didn’t venture to downtown Broadway too much, and I spent most of my time at Bosco’s — which is now no longer there.
That said, I went back recently and hardly recognizes the place. There’s so much new development all across the city. It basically all happened over the course of 10-15 years too. The traffic is rough, it’s gotten a lot dirtier, people are more rude and not willing to extend a helping hand (I honestly presume these are the transplants because the local Middle Tennesseans have always been kind and gracious), many more homeless just roaming around like zombies…. That said, I guess you can argue both that it changed for the better (in some ways) or worse in many others.
To me, it’s lost all of its charm and uniqueness and now is just another corporate, bland, cookie cutter town. Aside from Broadway (which Austin has 6th street), it really is no different than Austin, Dallas, Atlanta, Charlotte, etc. Not to get overly political too, but the politics and people moving in droves don’t resemble what the city and its citizens used to be. It’s kind of sad, really.
But hey, you can sell your home for twice what you paid for it, if not more.
