Help finding new city

[tnff]

I'm going to toss in Franklin and a couple odd balls like Nolensville. Franklin is a lovely small city and Nolensville, while technically a small town, is on the boundary of where Nashville is growing so it's exploding fast. Most everything you've asked for is within easy drive of those cities.

There are some smaller cities that provide most of what you're looking for, but either lack a couple of the key items or the economy is somewhat binary -- decent, good paying jobs for professionals and low end, low paying jobs. Not much in between.

[BuffaloHome]

Originally Posted by tnff

I'm going to toss in Franklin and a couple odd balls like Nolensville. Franklin is a lovely small city and Nolensville, while technically a small town, is on the boundary of where Nashville is growing so it's exploding fast. Most everything you've asked for is within easy drive of those cities.

There are some smaller cities that provide most of what you're looking for, but either lack a couple of the key items or the economy is somewhat binary -- decent, good paying jobs for professionals and low end, low paying jobs. Not much in between.

The OP specifically said "Not Nashville metro" which would completely rule out Franklin and Nolensville.

There have been some good suggestions in this thread. I'll add my votes for Maryville and Farragut for Knoxville metro, Ooltewah and Collegedale for Chattanooga metro, and Cookeville which isn't a suburb of anything but otherwise fits (although its new Target probably won't get started for another few months).

[y8tiger]

Originally Posted by BuffaloHome

Ooltewah and Collegedale for Chattanooga metro.

Good advice, that would put the OP in the middle of the 3 Target Store locations (2 in Chattanooga and 1 in Cleveland).

[JoeJunior]

Originally Posted by tnff

I'm going to toss in Franklin and a couple odd balls like Nolensville. Franklin is a lovely small city and Nolensville, while technically a small town, is on the boundary of where Nashville is growing so it's exploding fast. Most everything you've asked for is within easy drive of those cities.

There are some smaller cities that provide most of what you're looking for, but either lack a couple of the key items or the economy is somewhat binary -- decent, good paying jobs for professionals and low end, low paying jobs. Not much in between.

I lived in Nolensville before getting transferred to Atlanta area. We simply loved the place. But the home prices now are up there--with Nolensville being the second wealthiest city in the State of Tennessee. It's just difficult to get into Nashville from there without hitting terrible traffic and a very distasteful Nolensville Road.

My brother in law's got to sell his deceased mother's house in Franklin, and last 12 month median sale prices of homes have been $1 million. And many of those houses are not large even.

We still like Maury County and the area south of Columbia. And we like around Bell Buckle & Normandy for rural areas. The southeast side of Murfreesboro going toward Woodbury is also very beautiful for people looking for acreage.

[Geneyus]

Thank you for all of the replies. I read each one a while back, and here I am months later reading them again. The housing market is nuts, but our house value has more than doubled based on what's selling around us. You make a bunch of money and then give it right back elsewhere.
We've liked growing up around Germantown and Collierville, but Collierville traffic has gotten insane due to all of the development, and Germantown is headed that way in several more years with all of the new apartments and housing planned.

Cookeville sounds like a great option. I thought Murfreesboro/McMinnville might be, but then I hear Murfreesboro has some rough areas. Knoxville and Chattanooga might be as far East as I'm willing to go. I think the next step is to start spending a few weekends at cities to get a feel for them.

[LauraC]

You might enjoy reading this Tennessee City-Data thread from 15 years ago - "So you want to move to Tennessee?" Except for the one about the Yellow Pages (you can skip that one)...

https://www.city-data.com/forum/tenn...tennessee.html

Just this past week I read a few articles that said more employers are demanding their employees return to the office to work instead of working at home so the way I see it is when this linked thread started, people were working in the office, and had to consider everything that went with that in their decision to move. Then a lot of people moved far away from their office to keep their high pay but live in a cheaper state/town and work from home. They drove prices up for the native Tennessee people with their demands for this and that and forgetting WHY Tennessee was a cheaper place to live compared to where they came from. Now, the trend is going back to reporting to work so some people are going to either move back to keep their high paying jobs or stay and take a pay cut with a new job, making the old thread relevant again.

I was looking at a photo of my TN town's then daytime Christmas parade, yesterday. It's a nighttime parade now and I don't go. It was the Christmas of 2007. Clearly in the background, you can see the Shell gasoline sign showing $2.99. When you really think about it, $2.99 compared to what we are paying here now at a Shell station isn't really that big of a jump in almost 16 years.

[Geneyus]

OP update: We ended up moving to another state, hours away from Memphis. We're amazed at how nice everyone is, including various government offices (licenses, health dept, etc). The government seems to be pretty efficient. We've been gone for a few months and have no regrets.

[JoeCartpath]

My wife and I have been wanting to do the same thing for a number of years, but haven't made the move for one reason or another. Our 'requirements" have been the same as yours, except for jobs (we're retired now) and the Target thing....although my wife feels about the same regarding Costco


Cookeville has always been at the top of our list. It's checks all the boxes (except no Target....or Costco). We could live with that since both are around a hour or so away....a day trip to the "big city" every few weeks would actually be fun. We've spent time there on several occasions and really enjoyed the city. IMHO being a college town is a huge factor in the feel of the community. Browse the Cookeville forum on this site and you can get a feel for everything the city has to offer in the way of restaurants, events, etc.


The large medical presence there is unusual in smaller cities. When, like us, you reach 3/4 of a century old that is of paramount importance.


Oops....sorry, I missed your last post before I posted this. Where did you end up? I have one son here in Cordova and another in the Destin FL area so we've considered moving somewhere in between!

[GWoodle]

Originally Posted by JoeCartpath

My wife and I have been wanting to do the same thing for a number of years, but haven't made the move for one reason or another. Our 'requirements" have been the same as yours, except for jobs (we're retired now) and the Target thing....although my wife feels about the same regarding Costco


Cookeville has always been at the top of our list. It's checks all the boxes (except no Target....or Costco). We could live with that since both are around a hour or so away....a day trip to the "big city" every few weeks would actually be fun. We've spent time there on several occasions and really enjoyed the city. IMHO being a college town is a huge factor in the feel of the community. Browse the Cookeville forum on this site and you can get a feel for everything the city has to offer in the way of restaurants, events, etc.


The large medical presence there is unusual in smaller cities. When, like us, you reach 3/4 of a century old that is of paramount importance.


Oops....sorry, I missed your last post before I posted this. Where did you end up? I have one son here in Cordova and another in the Destin FL area so we've considered moving somewhere in between!

From Cookeville probably drive to the Providence development in Mt Juliet. Nice Target & a mix of other stores. Would make a nice day trip shopping trip. Another day trip could be to Wilson County Fairgrounds near Lebanon when they have an event there. New site for TN state fair.

[NJDevil]

Seymour!