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About Nashville

If you need to find utilities, update your driver’s license or find a park with great hiking trails, start at Nashville.gov, which provides detailed information on living, working and playing in the greater metro Nashville area.

Graduate Students’ Testimonial on Social Life in Nashville

Nashville is home to rapidly growing communities of young professionals, immigrants, and refugees from around the world. While the downtown area is not very diverse, you will find more ethnically and racially diverse neighborhoods as you move away from the center of the city. For example, the Charlotte Pike area has number of restaurants and grocery stores that largely serve immigrant communities from Asia, Latin America, and Africa. The Nolensville Pike area also has multiple restaurants and markets that serve large communities of Latinx, Middle Eastern, African, and Asian immigrants and refugees. Nashville also has many options for socializing outside of the university bubble. The city is home to many art galleries and studios that participate in monthly art crawls. These art crawls are generally free, and they offer great opportunities to meet new people. In addition, Nashville also has multiple neighborhoods and areas for different types of nightlife and bar scenes. The most famous is lower Broadway, with many bars that play live music and a handful of clubs that play a mix of country, pop, and hip-hop. This area is generally full of people every night of the week, and it is very popular with tourists. Closer to campus, in Midtown, there are multiple bars and clubs on Division street that cater to a younger (i.e., people in their 20’s and 30’s) and more local crowd. These bars are popular among Vanderbilt graduate and professional school students. Not too far from Division Street is Church Street, where a few of Nashville’s popular LGBTQ bars are located. Farther away from the city center is East Nashville, a rapidly gentrifying area that is popular among many young locals for its bars, restaurants, cafes, and galleries.