[MichiganGirl]

Hi everybody! As you can probably tell by my name I'm a Michigan girl. We're seriously considering a move to Jonesboro, Arkansas. We're a young couple who are interested in moving to a place where we're closer to family and where we can raise a family. My husband was born in St. Louis but lived in Arkansas (Greene County and Jonesboro) before moving up here with me. My Mom was also born and raised in Arkansas (before moving here). I, however, was born and raised in Michigan - and have never lived anywhere else. I was wondering what people could tell me about Jonesboro and the surrounding areas.

What particularly concerns me was the post by Ravenasque who said they were unkind to outsiders in Arkansas. I am from the Flint/Detroit area so I'm used to unkindness () but still. I could never hide the fact that I wasn't a "local" (I'm proud to be from here, I just feel like there's more somewhere else). We're going there to visit again in March. I've been there many many times but had never looked at it as a possible place to live before. Please let me know anything you can about the Jonesboro area as I plan to do a lot of research before actually deciding to make that type of a move.

Thank you in advance for any comments! Have a wonderful night!

Jenn

[mcheiss]

I can tell you Jonesboro has a thriving young population with Arkansas State University with around 11,000 students.

There's also the Mall at Turtle Creek, which is bound to open soon, will include almost 100 stores.

[MichiganGirl]

Thank you very much for your response! I saw in another thread that it was suggested to also use the UrbanPlanet forums and I will be posting there shortly. Thanks again!

[schorfheide]

Regarding the "unkind to outsiders", I'm sure there are a few who think this way, but most are very nice. I grew up in W. Memphis and had freinds in Jonesboro and Paragould and they are like family. I have ventured to Dallas, but still go to visit a couple times a year.

If you move a little further west, the area gets hilly and there are great getaways in the Ozarks for the outdoorsman (woman). It's a very pretty area and I would personally like to live in Moutain Home. Just depends on your need to make a living...
my 2 cents

[king]

I'm from Louisiana, but my office is in AR. I travel all over the state of AR, in fact I'll be in Highland this coming Tuesday on business. I find the people here very easy to get along with, friendly and helpful. One thing you have to remember is, you are an outsider and you are not going to change these people. They like their way of life and so do I, so much that one day I'm going to move to AR. I have some neighbors that just move from LA to AR.

[Kyle]

About Jonesboro- It is a rapidly growing city of nearly 60K residents. It is not too far from the big city stuff of Memphis, and not too far from some nice scenery in the Ozarks.

It has some hills (known as Crowley's Ridge) running through the middle of town but for the most part it is really really flat. Schools aren't bad, and neither is crime. Some of the major natural disasters in Jonesboro are tornadoes, severe weather, hot and humid weather, some floods/drought, and the occasional snow/ice storm. I strongly recommend you to get earthquake insurance because Jonesboro sits virtually on the New Madrid Fault, and if the big one happened tomorrow, it would be devastating.

It has most of the big box stores and sprawl (it's 80 sq.mi.!)that you come to expect. I think that Jonesboro is a dry county, so from what I here you have to go nearly 90 miles to get good wine in Memphis. It has ASU, which has over 10k students. Downtown is getting a new convention center in the not too distant future. All events right now are held in the ASU Convocation center (arena). Shopping wise, as I said earlier, they have most of what you expect in a small city. They have the outdated Indian Mall, but are getting a very nice and shiny new one (Mall at Turtle Creek). At the moment, they do not have public transit of any kind, but the local gov't is starting up on called the Jonesboro Economic Transit System or JETS.

All in all, it's not a bad town to raise kids in, it's just that you have to be ready for changeable weather. Housing (compared to national average) is cheap. Good luck in your search.

[flamailman]

I might be moving there also. There is a possibility that I might transfer there from Fla. Trying to escape high cost of living and hurricanes. I work for the Post Office and believe my paycheck will go farther. My wife is originally from Missouri, I'm from Ohio. Been in Fla a long time. I've heard from a friend who travels there (Trumann to be exact) that it is really nice. I pay $2,500.00 or more for homeowners ins. for a 3/2 home in Fla. Any idea what that would run, including the earthquake coverage? Any other info would be helpful also.
Will likely retire to Mountain home in a few years anyway. There's a waiting list to transfer there.

[Isk8ingcoach]

Michigan Girl did you ever decide what to do?

We now have the mall open and I must say that I do enjoy it. I relocated here with my husband thinking that I was going to be teaching figure skating at the Mall of Memphis. Right when my husband accepted the offer the Mall closed and was demolished ice rink and all! So, I am now in the process of raising the capital to build the ice rink for Jonesboro. When you move here there will be one more thing to do and it will be a wonderful enviroment.

Jenny

[terrabeth]

Hi, there. My hubby, three year old, and I have been living in Jonesboro, AR for a couple of years now, after we transferred from a nearby smaller city to attend ASU. It's a fairly provincial area, dubbed "City of Churches" if you're into that sort of thing. It's a dry county, but liquor stores are located across the lines about 15min in either direction.

I've really enjoyed living here. The city is very clean and nice looking, lots of great neighborhoods with affordable rentals, lots of trees and greenery. We're moving soon with a job transfer and what I will miss the most are our awesome community centers and parks system. We have lots of great city parks with new playground equipment that my son loves to tour and has named all by their primary color ("blue park," "green park", etc). Included is a large Craighead Forest Park which is now adjacent to our wonderful Crowley's Ridge Nature Center (google it to check it out). Lots of parents take their kids there, especially on rainy days, so it stays lively. The center is free, with play rooms, a puppet theater, a neat short film about the ridge, and educational programs. It's been so much fun for our family, with new trails all around it that we visit every week, some of which connect to the forest park where there are some fantastic new playgrounds on the lake. This is all just on the edge of town. Within a half hour from the other side of town is also the Crowley's Ridge State Park with some lovely trails, swimming and paddle boats, camping, and a nearby fishing lake (Frierson State Park).

If you want to attend the university, it's no Harvard, but it's affordable and very friendly to nontraditional students, with some well-designed new apartment complexes for families. I'm really proud that the city has finally set up a public transit system. ASU offers some good cultural events, speakers, music, etc that the public can attend. I like the size of the town, and the location only an hour from Memphis. We also have good public health clinics with scaled costs for low income. This has been really helpful to our family while we've been finishing up school and was something we really missed in the other town we'd moved from.

As for cultural diversity and acceptance of newcomers, it's Arkansas and the South, and there's certainly some provincial prejudice in the air towards people from other areas. But I find this happens just about anywhere, especially nonmetro... the same way a person with a strong southern accent might suffer criticism and prejudice in other areas. But Jonesboro is a college town and medical center for the northeast region of the state, so for a medium-sized Arkansas city, we do have a better than usual balance of educated and culturally diverse families. It helps a lot. I've encountered less bigoted behaviors here than I had to endure in all of the surrounding small towns.

Good luck choosing your relocation; I know it can be so hard to decide for a big move! Thought I'd try to be helpful, since we've been going through the same kind of relocation decisions ourselves!

Jonesboro's been a great place to start our family: safe, comfortable, playgrounds, healthcare, family-friendly university. If you move here, hope you enjoy it!

[ozarkamerican]

I grew up in that part of Arkansas. It was nice. At the time there were not a lot of jobs but now that it's growing, I really really want to move back. I live in Dallas where I am a hockey coach. If you had a rink, I would move back in heart beat. If at all possible, could you maybe keep my contact info?

The people can be mean if you are one of those kind that constantly point out how 'dumb' country people are. I think it's the attitude that is not appreciated. For the most part, if you are nice and adapt well to the culture, people are happy to meet you and learn something new.

scarlett
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