Belmont Blvd, Nashville-Davidson

When we first moved back from Europe, my son's first instinct was for us to live in Hillsboro Village. After all, with the way 21st Avenue cuts through it, lined with hip, small restaurants, an upmarket grocery store and other cool shops, it reminded him of the high street in many of the villages we had lived in abroad. The neighborhood itself, now having spread out to touch on the campuses of both Vanderbilt and Belmont Universities, is dominated by something of a campus feel, though one gets the sense that it's as much the professors as the students who enjoy its town within a town, funky-homey vibe. On 21st itself, one will find mixed use buildings as well as older apartment buildings and houses converted to multiple dwellings. Similarly on off-shoot streets such as Linden, one will also find mixed use housing, though this area is - like many others - being bought up and renovated at a consistent pace, now making it likely to have a high-end renovation right next door to a house shared by students. But that's, quite frankly, the charm of the place. It's for people who enjoy life - and maybe most of all enjoy being able to walk to Fido or the Pancake Pantry for breakfast or the Belcourt for a film. The only downside of Hillsboro/21st itself is the traffic, which could challenge the patience of a saint. But once off the main thoroughfare and onto the side-streets, it's life as usual in a near-urban, neighborhood setting that is quickly becoming the first place many transplants house-hunt.