Nashville: ‘It’ city

It's hard to say when exactly it happened, really.

Maybe the tipping point was Jack White, but it could just as easily have been Taylor Swift or Ann Patchett. It might have been our hot chicken that pushed us over the edge, or maybe the pork belly pizza.

But somewhere along the way, it happened — that magical moment when Nashville stopped being a regular city and achieved that most vaunted of urban monikers: an "it" city.

Of course, the most obvious moment to point to is January 2013, when no less a tastemaker than The New York Times crowned us "it."

"Here in a city once embarrassed by its Grand Ole Opry roots, a place that sat on the sidelines while its Southern sisters boomed economically, it is hard to find a resident who does not break into the goofy grin of the newly popular when the subject of Nashville's status comes up," the kingmaking profile gushed.

Yes, the nation has discovered Music City.

"There are few more insufferable banalities in modern urban life than a town recently deemed cool," writes author Chuck Thompson in a truly masterful work of curmudgeonry that rails against trendy trappings like "artisanal ice cream, gluten-free pizza, burrito trucks run by real Mexicans, jalapeño-infused margaritas" (Nashville is four for four, for those playing at home) and so much more.

"I'm certain Nashville has plenty of them to brag about. But, then again, so do Asheville, Austin, Baltimore, Boulder, Las Vegas, Portland, Raleigh-Durham, Santa Monica, Savannah, Seattle, Tucson, the Twin Cities and a klatch of other cities that have ascended the heights of those 'most livable,' 'coolest' and 'best' lists," Thompson grumps.

So what bona fides does Nashville bring to the table to separate it from the herd?

MUSIC HAPPENS HERE

For one, the solid foundation of creativity and culture that comes from being a long-standing music industry hub.

"It's not that you declared yourself the country music capital of the world — you are. And the city does a great job of building on that, not forsaking it," says Matt Carmichael, who observes Nashville both from afar as a Chicago-based demographics expert and up close as the editor of Livability.com, a Franklin, Tenn.-based website that focuses on great American cities.

That reputation affords Nashville something unique beyond the usual brewpubs, farm-to-table restaurants and art crawls that many "it" cities are made of.

Ironically, the same music legacy that put Nashville on the map has previously stymied the city — particularly when it comes to diversity.

"People look at Nashville — or did for years — as just a country music city," says Case Bloom. "I think that's changing now, for the better."

For six years, Bloom and Nick Melidas, both DJs, have together hosted monthly hip-hop parties in Nashville as The Boom Bap — a decidedly non-country enterprise. The first few years were tough.

"When we first started, we couldn't get a mention, a critic's pick — nothing. We would bring in giant DJs, pack the club out," Bloom says. "We felt like we were going against the grain — this city has always been portrayed as country music, so we were swept under the rug."

The idea of Nashville as not a music city, but specifically a country music city, has been tough to shake.

"Nashville has battled an image problem. It's been pretty continuous," Vanderbilt Associate Professor of Sociology Richard Lloyd says. "The whole Hee Haw thing — talk to anyone who's lived here 20 years or more and they're traumatized by that. That has dogged this town and this industry."

Today, the hip-hop DJ party that began in unlikely Nashville has spread to Atlanta, Philadelphia, Miami and other cities — and with it, Nashville's new, more inclusive musical reputation.

"At one point there was just a shift in people's minds, and I'm not really sure when it was," Bloom says. "When we would tell people in other cities we were from Nashville, the reaction used to be, 'Really?' And now they're like, 'Oh, Nashville — that's a cool city.'"

MUSIC FOOD CITY, USA

Nashville no longer has to leave everything riding on its musical heritage. A solid and growing restaurant scene is cementing Nashville's reputation as a food city as much as a music one.

"There's something really interesting happening in Nashville. I can feel it," said Trevor Moran in a recent Nashville Scene interview — and he should know.

The Irish chef moved from Michelin two-star restaurant Noma in Copenhagen, Denmark, last year to be at the center of Nashville's burgeoning food scene at the groundbreaking restaurant The Catbird Seat.

"It's becoming a food destination. It's small. You could stay a week and eat every lunch and every dinner in a different place and be blown away," Moran said.

Nashville-trained Sean Brock has brought his Charleston, S.C., phenomenon Husk to Nashville to universal acclaim. Germantown's Rolf and Daughters was named No. 3 Best New Restaurant in America last year by Bon Appetit magazine. City House's Sunday Supper is a perennially inventive favorite of chefs, locals and rock stars alike. Still upcoming is Prima — on Zagat's nationwide list of 2014's most anticipated openings. Even Prince's Hot Chicken Shack is racking in the acclaim — last year the unassuming eatery received a James Beard Foundation America's Classics award.

WHEN GOOGLE KNOCKS

And food culture isn't the only movement that's growing in this "it" city — Nashville is coming into its own as a tech powerhouse, too.

"There are so many startups and so much more of an entrepreneurial scene, and that has helped make the community more interesting," says Matt Thackston, a product owner at Nashville email marketing software company Emma. "There are all these meetups and hackathons now, and that wasn't happening before."

Thackston recently returned to Nashville after a few years in Emma's satellite office in the original "it" city of Portland, Ore. He was pleasantly surprised by the changes in Nashville's tech scene that occurred while he was away.

"It's been good to see it grow and change," he says. "It feels like the music business had faded a little bit and tech biz has moved into that spot a little.”

Indeed, Nashville's longstanding two-pronged business base of music industry and health care has proved to be an organic jumping-off point for the city's tech scene.

"It seems like there are like 8 million techies now. There are just a ton of educated workers moving into the city," says Lloyd. "A lot of that is connected to music industry stuff, people trying to line up new opportunities and figure out the new digital deal."

TOO MUCH OF A GOOD THING?

Of course, all the fame, growth and accolades that Nashville has recently received can quickly become a double-edged sword.

"The notoriety attracts people, but it also creates pressure," says Richard C. Bernhardt, executive director of the Metro Planning Department.. "How do we accommodate that growth and still maintain the character that's the reason people want to be here? How do we not destroy the very thing that people came here for?"

Difficult issues that Nashville is attempting to meet head-on with NashvilleNEXT, a community-focused project helmed by Metro Nashville government that's designed to envision Nashville's ideal future so that it can be planned for.

Bernhardt says the mood during the planning sessions has so far been optimistic and hopeful.

"It's kind of like if you go back to the flood and how people pitched in, it's much of that same philosophy. Most people say, 'This is something we can do.'"

That's good news, because the media shows no signs of cooling on Nashville. In the first month of 2014, Nashville was named one of Travel and Leisure's Best Places to Travel in 2014, as well as one of The New York Times' 52 Places to Go in 2014.

And if all the hype has made it so that you can't get a parking spot or a reservation at one of Nashville's many fashionable spots, just relax — something new will be on the way shortly.

"There will certainly be growing pains and backlash, but that leads to development in other areas," Carmichael says. "When one place gets too crowded, people find someplace new to hang out.

"That has historically been the way cities evolve — areas gentrify and they become too expensive for the people who gentrified them. They get bought out by people who have more money and want to pretend they're still hip, and the hipsters move on. And the cycle continues..."

THE "IT" LIST

I asked most of the sources in this story to tell me their most "it" places. These are the responses.

• Pinewood Social

• Mas Tacos Por Favor

• La Hacienda

• HackNashville

• The Groove

• Grimey's

• The 5 Spot

• Santa's Pub

• The Frist Center

• Bar 308