Nashville and the rest of Tennessee have been pulling in different directions for decades, and the gap has widened significantly since 2010. The differences are political, economic, cultural, and demographic, and they generate real friction.
Politically, Nashville Is an Island
Davidson County, which contains Nashville, is the most reliably Democratic county in Tennessee. The city has voted Democratic in presidential elections by wide margins for decades. In 2020, Nashville went roughly 75% for Biden. The rest of the state went roughly 61% for Trump in the same election.
This creates a city-state tension that shapes daily governance. The Republican-supermajority legislature in Nashville regularly overrides city policies on guns, local tax authority, and other issues. After the 2020 census, the Republican-controlled General Assembly redrew Nashville’s congressional district, splitting Davidson County into three separate districts, diluting the city’s voting power by ensuring Nashville Democrats were divided across three rural-majority districts. Nashville has no effective Congressional representation as a result; its interests are outvoted in all three districts it now partially occupies.
After the 2023 Covenant School shooting, the legislature’s response to Nashville’s grief was to expel two of the three Nashville-area state representatives who protested on the House floor. The move made international news. The two expelled members (Justin Jones and Justin Pearson) were reinstated by their districts within days.
Economically, Nashville Carries Tennessee
Nashville and its metro generate approximately 37% of Tennessee’s GDP, according to 2020 figures. The city has the state’s lowest unemployment (hovering near 2.9% in 2024, against a national rate of 4.4%), the most Fortune 500 company presence, and the most corporate relocation activity. Oracle announced in 2024 that its Nashville campus, projected to open by 2030, will become its world headquarters. Amazon has over one million square feet of office space here. The healthcare industry alone employs over 126,000 people in the metro.
The rest of Tennessee includes strong manufacturing (Volkswagen in Chattanooga, GM in Spring Hill, multiple automotive suppliers across the state), but the economic center of gravity is Nashville. State tax revenue depends heavily on Nashville’s economy.
Culturally, Nashville Is More Urban and More International
Tennessee is roughly 5–6% foreign-born. Nashville is 13–15% foreign-born. The city’s school system teaches in 140-plus languages. Nashville is home to the largest Kurdish community in the United States. The city has a growing South Asian, East African, and Latin American population that is visible in the neighborhoods, the restaurants, and the culture in ways that simply don’t exist in most of Tennessee outside of Memphis.
The cuisine is a readable proxy: while Nashville has hot chicken, meat and three, and biscuits in common with the rest of the state, it also has a James Beard-caliber restaurant scene, a serious specialty coffee culture, and neighborhoods where the food map looks more like a diverse American city than a mid-Southern state capital.
East Tennessee Is Its Own Different World
One thing worth noting: the difference between Nashville and the rest of Tennessee isn’t uniform. East Tennessee, Knoxville, Chattanooga, the Appalachian mountains, has its own distinct culture that differs from both Nashville and the rural Middle Tennessee flatlands. East Tennessee was actually Unionist during the Civil War, in contrast to Nashville’s Confederate history. It has a regional accent and mountain culture distinct from the Nashville basin. When Tennesseans talk about Nashville being different from “the rest of the state,” they usually mean the rural counties and smaller towns of Middle and West Tennessee, not Knoxville or Chattanooga, which have their own urban identities.
Sources
- Tennessee General Assembly redistricting records, 2022
- Bureau of Economic Analysis, GDP by metropolitan area, 2020
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, local unemployment data, 2024
- American Community Survey, foreign-born population by county, 2022
- Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce, Regional Economic Report 2024
- Associated Press coverage of the 2023 Tennessee House expulsions