DC to Nashville -- Urban neighborhood please!

[mattec]

Originally Posted by Sun Belt-lover L.A.M.

Clarksville and Murfreesboro aren't "small"... They're major cities as they have a population solidly over 100,000. They're actually not even that much smaller than Chattanooga. Also, I do get a pretty noticeable urban feel in some parts of Murfreesboro, like downtown and the commercial district along S.R. 96/I-24.

I do have to agree about the FEEL about Clarksville though. When I went there in April 2017, I wasn't impressed at all for a major city. It felt like an oversized McMinnville or Crossville with some small rural gaps; in other words, it felt even less urban than somewhere midsized like Jackson, Spring Hill/Columbia or Cookeville, and its tallest building is shorter than the latter's too. I would absolutely not recommend Clarksville for anyone looking for an overly urbanized setting.

The commercial district along I-24 in M'boro is classic suburban development. Its auto-oriented development with large parking lots that lacks any walk-ability, and there is very little intermixing of residential uses save for a couple of garden style apartment complexes. Compare that to Hillsboro Village, Germantown, the Gulch, or 12 South (where the OP settled on), which are much more compact and walkable and have a more mixed use development pattern. And downtown M'boro is more akin to downtown Gallatin or Lebanon in scale and scope than it is to Nashville or DC, where the OP is coming from. While the Census Bureau considers all of these areas "urban", they are far different in scale, land-use scope, and density, which is the only point I was trying to make.