North Nashville is the historically Black neighborhood of Nashville, and any honest discussion of its demographics has to reckon with what has happened to those demographics over the past 25 years. The neighborhood that was the center of Black cultural and commercial life in Nashville is undergoing some of the most intense gentrification in the country.
The historical baseline
North Nashville’s demographic identity was shaped by segregation. When Jim Crow laws and discriminatory housing policy kept Black Nashvillians from living in much of the city, North Nashville, particularly Jefferson Street and its surroundings, became the center of Black business, education, and culture. Fisk University (1866), Tennessee State University, and Meharry Medical College are all in North Nashville. Before integration redirected some of that commercial energy, Jefferson Street was one of the strongest Black entertainment corridors in the South: Jimi Hendrix, Otis Redding, and Ike Turner all performed there before national careers.
Current demographics
North Nashville is broadly defined as neighborhoods north of downtown including Germantown, Salemtown, Buena Vista, Buchanan Arts District, Hope Gardens, and Bordeaux. The demographic composition varies significantly by sub-neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout data puts sub-Saharan African ancestry residents at approximately 17.7% of North Nashville and African ancestry at 7.5%, though the broader area still has substantial Black population depending on which specific blocks are included.
The larger shift is the one happening in real time. A 2025 report from the National Community Reinvestment Coalition ranked Nashville as the most intensely gentrifying city in America between 2010 and 2020. North Nashville is the primary locus of that pressure. New single-family homes and tall-skinny townhomes priced at $450,000 to $500,000 have replaced lower-cost housing on blocks that were majority-Black a decade ago. Long-term residents have been displaced to outer Davidson County and Williamson County suburbs.
Three HBCUs
North Nashville is home to three Historically Black Colleges and Universities: Fisk University, Tennessee State University, and Meharry Medical College (one of the country’s historically Black medical schools). This HBCU cluster gives North Nashville a student population and an educational institutional identity that continues even as the surrounding neighborhood’s demographics shift.
What is being debated
The Buchanan Street corridor, now called the Buchanan Arts District, became the flashpoint in early 2025 when a proposed zoning overlay generated an hours-long emotional public hearing. Business owners argued the overlay, which would restrict nightlife hours and liquor sales spacing, would disadvantage Black-owned businesses while not applying to comparable entertainment districts like East Nashville. The rezoning debate is a direct confrontation between development interests and the community’s desire to shape what the neighborhood becomes on its own terms.
Sources
- NeighborhoodScout, North Nashville demographic data
- Tennessee Tribune, Gentrification in North Nashville
- Save Our Nashville Neighborhoods, 2025 NCRC gentrification report citation
- FOX 17 Nashville, Buchanan Street rezoning plan divides North Nashville, January 2026
- Belmont University, Exit 207: The Soul of Nashville documentary context