One of the many joys of living in Nashville is the way music suffuses life on an almost atomic level. On any given night, someone might lean into your ear, point to the guy on the pedal steel guitar, and rattle off a list of classic recordings he played on or tell you he wrote a song you know by heart. Talk to a computer programmer here and there’s a good chance he’ll compare coding to songwriting.
But Music City is changing, and fast. It was the second-fastest-growing U.S. city in 2013 and boasts the strongest employment growth of any large metropolis since the Great Recession. You can see it in the condo towers, office buildings, and new hotels that now cast a shadow over the city. (Some old-timers refer to their town as “Little Dubai.”) And you can taste it in one of the most buzzed-about restaurant scenes anywhere, in which a classic meat-and-three like Swett’s thrives alongside the postmodern cuisine at the Catbird Seat. Musicians still flock here, and it’s the headquarters of Jack White’s mini-empire. But a new wave of artists, designers, filmmakers, and entrepreneurs is putting down roots, as well.
Men’s Journal
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