Tale of the Tape: How Brentwood and Franklin Stack Up

The Brentwood and Franklin rivalry runs deep. Rebels and Bruins and Cougars and Raptors fight tooth, nail, talon and musket. The gentility of the Old South or the contentment of new affluence? A persnickety planning commission or a circumspect one? Depending on which side of Moores Lane you're on, the answers will be different.

As part of the release of its annual "50 Best Places To Live" list, Money magazine added a handy tool which compares any two cities in America by seven metrics.

Here's how Williamson County's rivals measured up:

• Percent of Residents With at Least a Bachelor's Degree: A whopping 67.1 percent of Brentwoodites hold at least a bachelor's degree. Most cities in the country unleash their green-eyed monster when looking at Franklin's 54.1 percent, but that figure — eye-popping though it is — lags its northern neighbor.
• Average Commute Time: The cities push here as Franklonians and Brentwooders both spend 22 minutes commuting, an odd figure given Brentwood's proximity to Nashville. Maybe everyone just spends 22 minutes sitting at the light at Mallory Lane and Cool Springs Boulevard.
• Median Family Income: Franklin's median income is an astonishing $98,833, nearly $35,000 more than the national median. Also happens to be nearly $44,000 below the median of $142,494 in Brentwood.
• Projected Five-Year Job Growth: Here's another place where Franklin puts up an incredible figure: 12 percent, seven points higher than the national projection. And it also is another place where it pales in comparison to Brentwood, which is expecting 17 percent job growth over the next half-decade.
• Unemployment Rate: At 3.8 percent, the cities tie, though it's likely Money just used the Williamson County figure for both.
• Median Home Price: If cheaper is better (and it is), Franklin takes the cake. The median home price of $375,750 is more than a quarter-million dollars less than the median in Brentwood, which clocks in at $627,000. To put it another way, the median home price in Franklin is 3.8 times higher than the median income; in Brentwood, it's 4.4 times higher.
• Average Property Tax: Less expensive homes means lower tax bills, right? The average Franklin property tax bill is $2,236 compared to Brentwood's $3,437. As a share of income, Franklin is still a bit cheaper: the average tax bill being 2.2 percent of the median income. That figure is 2.4 percent in Brentwood.

Head-to-head, Brentwoodsmen take the cake in bachelor's degrees, job growth and income, despite Franklin far exceeding the national average in both; Franklinians, though, pay less to live, even when accounting for income differences. Maybe it really does come down to what type of planning commission you prefer.

Play with Money's widget and compare any two cities, or a city with the national average.

Image via the Imperial War Museum