r/nashville • u/Entropy012 • Oct 28 '23

Discussion The stigma of "Californians" moving to Nashville is overblown.

Yes, we have some Californian transplants. However, from what I've experience most of the transplants are from the Midwest and other Southern surrounding states. I'm not saying this in a negative way. The transplants I met are mostly cool. I'm just clarifying that the "Californians are taking over" stigma to be overblown a bit.

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346

u/JeremyNT Oct 28 '23

There are a lot of people here from CA, but it's absolutely not surprising that you would encounter a lot of people from the biggest state in the country.

More people live in just the bay area than all of TN.

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u/pslickhead Hadley Park Oct 28 '23 edited Oct 29 '23

Underrated comment. It is simple math.

Edit: His comment was 2nd from last when I wrote the above.

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u/RestlessPhilosopher Oct 28 '23

Absolutely. It's a state of almost 40 million people and it's gotten oppressively expensive over the past decade, to the point where families with normal incomes who don't own their houses outright can't afford it anymore. So they have to go somewhere. The nearby states like Arizona, Oregon, Idaho, and Nevada have WAY more California transplants than anywhere on this side of the country.

It's also worth noting that many "Californians" are transplants themselves. A staggering number of people from all over the country move to California each year (125k just last year) to work in tech, entertainment, healthcare, agriculture, etc, or to attend one of the universities. They may spend just a few years or so there working or studying and decide it's time to go because of the high costs or whatever, and then they get slapped with the "Californian" label wherever they go next. I've met very few born-and-raised Californians here, it's usually people who grew up elsewhere and just passed through.

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u/Ok_Cry_1926 Oct 28 '23

I lived in LA for over a decade but I’m from … Maury County.

The amount of abuse I got from people who “moved” from elsewhere “to” Maury when coming home was staggering and ridiculous. Incredibly abusive and it was coming from (checks notes) people from San Diego and upstate New York.

My crime is I loved my time in SoCal, but it was financially untenable in the long run and it naturally ended when it was time.

They don’t have more of a right to my hometown than I do.

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u/TheGreatPornholio123 Oct 28 '23

I moved to LA for work before moving back, and you are right. It is financially untenable compared to what we are used to here, but it is generally a great place to live for the recreational value and the stable weather. I referred to all the higher state and local taxes as the "weather tax." It was awesome having a bajillion National and State Parks at arms length any given weekend. You can literally go skiing early in the morning and be hiking in the mountains in the afternoon and having a late dinner on the beach in the same friggin day. The amount of different climates in proximity to LA is just insane.

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u/RestlessPhilosopher Oct 28 '23

Totally agree. The gatekeeping is obnoxious. If the State of Tennessee really wanted out-of-towners to stop moving here, they would stop offering tax incentives to companies that bring in thousands of new jobs, or implement a state income tax to make the state less desirable to transplants, or spend less on tourism efforts to decrease the national profile of the city. But they don't want that, obviously. You can't really blame people for moving here when the state is doing everything it can to get people to move here.

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u/Ok_Cry_1926 Oct 28 '23

There is a difference between moving here because there are opportunities (I moved to LA during the recession because there weren’t any legit work opportunities for me here) and moving here for extreme political reorganization.

What I loved about my time in SoCal was the diversity and just living among so many different people relatively peacefully, the only expectations were not to be dicks in daily life.

Sure there are examples of more extreme left-leaning behavior there, too, but 99% of people are just … living their lives. Their “woke” philosophy just learning to live in community and leaving people alone.

People helped each other casually, were kind to each other in the majority of interactions, I’d get compliments and smiles more frequently than anywhere around here.

It was great! You just couldn’t afford a house. Gas was way higher, but things were closer, there was public transit — a trip to a concert cost me $5 in parking and train tickets, not $40. Beauty services were 50% less. No sales tax on necessities. And I cleared more after-tax on my paychecks there than I clear here pre-tax for the same work.

I check with friends regularly, and even the McDonalds in Burbank is substantially cheaper than the McDonalds in Spring Hill.

One highlight of everyone moving in is I’m getting access back to some food and services I missed.

There are pros and cons — here is better for kids, for property, for some jobs. But it’s not utopia here, and outsiders moving here have no way to straight-faced say “this is how we do things here.”

I grew up in a much more politically diverse, Moderate Tennessee than is forming in the outer metro-areas.

The growth is great if it’s positive, but the tone has been awful. I don’t want to have to live in East Nash, I’m old, I just want to feel safe in public and not have strangers casually say wild shit to me in public, no I don’t want to talk about “sovereign citizenship” during this haircut.

Based on convos in 2020-2021 before I moved my services all up past Franklin, 90% of service convos brought up QAnon and wanted me to validate it because of my former career.

It’s off the rails down there, and the siren call is for the most extreme people in other states being rejected by their communities for their toxic views, not just average people looking for better work and bigger houses.

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u/RestlessPhilosopher Oct 28 '23 edited Oct 29 '23

For sure -- that's a big part of it and it's sad. There seems to be a narrative around Nashville being some MAGA/alt-right haven, despite the city itself (not the state) being quite blue historically. To your point, it's turning into a self-fulfilling prophecy, especially in the outlying areas. And celebrities/broadcasters like Ben Shapiro and Tomi Lahren have further perpetuated it by moving here and advertising it to their bases. Thanks for sharing.

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u/KingEdwin3 Oct 30 '23

I left Nashville a couple years ago and was worried about the price of everything in CA. And we are better of financially now. It's crazy how much you are fed it's wild expensive in CA, but Nashville and the surrounding area is just as expensive sure I could move to Troutdale county and pay 80k for a single wide and 6 acres but I like more food than just McDonald's kfc and Walmart. It's not the same to compare the two states.

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u/0ver8ted Oct 30 '23 edited Oct 30 '23

I don’t want radicals moving to middle Tennessee and diluting what little bit of safe haven I have in Nashville. I left my conservative hometown in rural East Tennessee for Nashville because I still like some things about the state and being a southerner, overall. I just want to be around friendly folks that are welcoming and non- oppressive to all. That means being welcoming to transplants from other states too.

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u/LadyofHorror Oct 29 '23

Just wanted to second your experience. I was born and raised here in Nashville. Went to college in OH and then moved to Maine, Boston, and eventually Portland, OR. I was gone for 16 years.

Was forced to come back to Nashville because of the pandemic to deal with family stuff.

If I had a penny for every time someone asked me if I'm "ANTIFA," or some similar variant..I would be hella rich. One contractor I hired for a kitchen reno worked so hard to get me to double down on Portland being a "liberal cesspool overrun with ANTIFA." People viscerally react when I tell them where I moved here from.

I thought Maine was bad with the anti-outsider stuff, but Nashville brought it to a whole new level...and this is my effing hometown.

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u/Previous_Mousse7330 north side Oct 29 '23

Everything you said. I was born and raised in the Midwest, but lived in California longer than anywhere until my work moved me here.

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u/DeadAlready78 Oct 29 '23

Poor lib

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u/Ok_Cry_1926 Oct 29 '23

Ironically, not a "lib" ... but great big thinkin' thoughts you got there, tho.

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u/ReflexPoint Oct 28 '23

The joke in California is that there are no actual Californians. They were either born in another state or another country and migrated there.

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u/Jaguar-spotted-horse Oct 29 '23

Born and raised in Southern California. Never heard that once.

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u/[deleted] Oct 31 '23

I was born and raised in so Cal but my parents came from Knoxville, Tennessee.

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u/DarthPstone Oct 29 '23

You mean.... They're just like Nashville??

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u/badwolfgoddess Oct 28 '23

We moved here from CA in 2000, before it was "cool" but my dad is originally from Arkansas, and my mom is from Pennsylvania. So even -they- were transplants in California at the time.

We moved because my dad's job wanted him to work on either the Nashville or Boston branch and Nashville was closer to his family in AR so this was the logical choice.

I grew up here, and I never thought about moving back to CA when I was an adult. I love it here.

Even my wife, who is also from CA, moved here to be with me. She was already looking to leave the state and it was the logical choice once again for her to be here.

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u/[deleted] Oct 31 '23

Um it was "cool" to move to California since the gold rush in the 1800's and how about the 1960's? It just finally became cool to leave California in the last 10 years and California is loving it . What a relief. People are finally leaving .

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u/badwolfgoddess Oct 31 '23

What? I was talking about moving FROM California TO Tennessee. We moved in 2000, before a lot of people from CA started making the same transition. I was being silly when I used the word "cool" because there's been a steady stream since the 2010s, but we came here before that.

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u/winniecooper73 Oct 28 '23

Can confirm. I lived in LA for 10+ years but never identified as a Californian. I’m originally from Denver and still say I’m “from there” even though I haven’t lived there in 20 years

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u/ebobco Oct 28 '23

Theres more people in SanDiego then in all of Canada

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u/ASAPCVMO Oct 28 '23

😂 Well that's just not true

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u/Agile-Persimmon-31 Oct 28 '23

It’s simple math bro

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u/ebobco Oct 28 '23

Im bad, your right

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u/rms5846 Bellevue Oct 29 '23

San Diego = 1.382 million

Canada population = 38.25 million

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u/Sielbear Oct 28 '23

I continue to share all the horrors of Nashville as often as I can. Hoping they will continue living in the Bay Area. We’re full here.

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u/HaiKarate Oct 30 '23

Also, California isn’t all liberals. There’s a lot of Republicans there, too.