Antioch, Tennessee
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Antioch is an unincorporated suburb of Nashville, Tennessee, located in the southern part of Davidson County.
As recently as the 1960s Antioch was a small community catering to the needs of area farmers with amenities such as a feed mill. The small business district was located on the banks of Mill Creek, a minor tributary of the Cumberland River that rises near Nolensville, Tennesseee, several miles to the southeast. This area has become less important over time as zoning restrictions forbidding further development on a flood plain have limited the construction of more businesses in this area, which had started to become quite congested.
In the 1970s Antioch experienced explosive growth, largely due to the expansion of the Nashville sewer system to the area and the availability of large amounts of former farmland, which made possible the construction of many low-rise apartment complexes, and several mobile home communities. More than perhaps any other Nashville suburb, Antioch maintained a "blue-collar" image and became a magnet for those seeking affordable housing. Many relatively low-priced, site-built detached "starter" homes were built as well.
The presence of large quantities of affordable housing led to an influx of young families with children, greatly overtaxing the area's schools, which have been overcrowded for decades and remain so, despite an extensive construction program and the development of some private schools, largely church-affiliated. Large numbers of recent immigrants have also come to Antioch in the last two decades, attracted initially by the affordable housing and then by the presence of immigrant communities. Immigrants are predominantly from Southeast Asia and Latin America, but many are from other places.
The most important business concentration in Antioch is Hickory Hollow Mall, which opened in 1979 and has been renovated and expanded on several occasions since. It is a typical suburban shopping mall with large "anchor" stores and many smaller interior shops.