Neighborhoods to visit for possible move?

[airen123]

I have family on Oahu, and have visited several times. Since it's home for you, you'll definitely experience a culture shock. Oahu is commuter dependent, like Nashville, so the transportation thing is a plus.
Weather will be vastly different. I last was in Oahu for Christmas 2010. Crazy to go to the beach and surf on Christmas Eve, and fly into snow on Christmas Day in Nashville...new clothes are a must
Since you're renting, that's good you can get a feel of Nashville before committing to buy in a certain area. For your transition period, I like to recommend Nipper's Corner area apartment for several reasons 1.) accessiblity to downtown Nashville and Franklin. 2.) can get a 1-2 bedroom apartment for less than $1K 3.) You actually can walk on Edmonson Pike to the grocery, Starbuck's, and Sweet CeCe's-I took advantage of this when my car was in the shop. 4.)Clean and safe and a pool might help alleviate missing the beach-apartments to check out are Arbors, Preserve, Brentwood Downs, Player's Club, Keystone Farms. Hickory Point on Old Hickory Blvd is nice as well, but harder to find via Google.
The area is zoned for Granbery Elementary-which is a good school up to 5th grade, so you would have a while with a child before worrying about middle/high school-Nashville schools are awful.
Loko moko is one of my favorite things ever, and you won't find much authentic HI fare over here, but restaurants like PM do a pretty good imitation of chicken katsu and Tavern has loko moko. But I'm sure you're coming for our food, not yours ;-)

[skibri89]

Thanks to everyone. I really value the input!

[chris0832]

what is the biggest difference between Hendersonville and Mt. Juliette. I have spent some time looking for houses on the lake in Hendersonville but now my wife wants to look at MTJ. It seems like MTJ is more rural maybe? Hendersonville has some nice new businesses on Indian Lake. Is there anything like that area in MTJ?

[vivelafrance]

Originally Posted by chris0832

what is the biggest difference between Hendersonville and Mt. Juliette. I have spent some time looking for houses on the lake in Hendersonville but now my wife wants to look at MTJ. It seems like MTJ is more rural maybe? Hendersonville has some nice new businesses on Indian Lake. Is there anything like that area in MTJ?

The cities are very similar. For shopping, Hendersonville has Indian Lake, Mt. Juliet has Providence. Hendersonville has Glenbrook, Mt. Juliet has the Paddocks. They offer the same types of stores.

Both cities also added about 10,000 people in the period between 2000 and 2010. However, Hendersonville is over twice as large as Mount Juliet so I think Mount Juliet has experienced more growing pains but they seem to be doing a good job now of keeping up with the infrastructure.

The median home price is about 7k more in Hendersonville.

I'd give Hendersonville a slight edge in the schools due to the fact that it offers a Magnet k-12 option (Merrol Hyde) which is rated #3 in the state and will start an IB program (at Beech) in the 2013-2014 school year.

If you're main attraction is the lake, I would lean toward Hendersonville as the lake is much more a part of the city than it is in Mount Juliet, other than that I don't think you can go wrong with either choice.

[DonCorleone]

Agreed with vive 100%. I'll also add that one thing in MtJ's favor is that it has access to 2 lakes: Old Hickory (same as Hendersonville) but also J. Percy Priest. Priest Lake is a little bit further than Old Hickory, but if you're wanting a little more lake diversity that might be something to consider.

[ExIslander]

^ What they said for the most part.

They finally finished the Mt. Juliet Road widening, thank goodness. That will help the north side of town, which has a lot of nice residential areas but saw most of the retail go to the Providence/Paddocks/I-40 area in the last five years.