[dkgris]

I lived in Blytheville for over sixteen years. When the base was there it was pretty nice. When they left it slowly became like a ghost town. The only good jobs are the mills and not alot of women work there. When the children graduated the first thing they wanted to do was leave. We left after my husband's company left and moved to another country. We are now in Florida and loving it. We have friends and family still in Blytheville but we don't want to live there anymore. I too would move to Jonesboro area. Crime in Blytheville is very high and the school are not advanced in any manner. We did not realize this till we moved to Saint Augustine during my daughter junior year of highschool. The one thing I must say the people was very good to us. The cost of liveing there is not all that cheap.

[movingfromatlanta]

Go visit the place and see for yourself. I don't think you are going to like what you see. If you have kids, be sure and thoroughly check out the schools. I think you will find that they are substandard. It is certainly not an attractive town and high crime combined with poor shopping, services and cultural amenities does not seem like a good situation to me. You get all of the nastiness of big city living with none of the bonuses.

[honestly1]

Why is the city being mostly African American a problem. All African Americans are not "thugs" or "poor" or live in the "ghetto". I consider my family to be very wealthy. My husband has his own business and I have a big house, 3 nice cars, and more money than you can probably imagine. Yes, I was born and raised in Blytheville and both of our jobs are "legal". We both went to college and I can say "We are doing well in Blytheville, AR. and so are our children." It's not the neighborhood that makes a child or a person, it's ignorance that they live in or around or hear that corrupts them, such as mostly African American live in a given place. Anyone can succeed anywhere they go if they have faith and trust in God. Color shouldn't shape the location a person choose to live in!

Originally Posted by Pearlbob

I had family who lived there and hated it, and moved soon after. A ton of crime in the city; it is very poor, mostly african american, and a bad school system. Thus, there are a lot of poor, uneducated thug kids wandering around and committing crimes (car and home break ins mainly). No huge crimes, not like there are a lot of murders, but my family got very tired of having their garage and home broken into.

Real estate is "cheap" b/c 75% of the city is poor and ghetto. The rest of the city is expensive to live in, as most non-poor people live on the outskirts of town in brand new expensive homes, or in the middle where the older large homes are (still expensive but not very safe).

I believe there used to be some sort of military base there, and once that closed years ago, so many people moved and the city went downhill fast. The town was segregated like no other I've ever seen. Blacks and whites didn't even appear to eat at the same restaurants. It was very disturbing.

Memphis is over an hour away. That's where you'd have to go to do any shopping (clothes, etc). Jonesboro is a bit less than an hour away. Those are the only bigger nearby towns.

If you husband has to work there...I don't know. I wouldn't go, if it were me! But if you had to, and you didn't mind country living, I'd suggest finding a town maybe halfway between Memphis and Blytheville. I guess it depends on where you are coming from, if you like large cities, etc. Me - I'm a big city girl, and Memphis is too small for me! I couldn't function in anything much smaller. So consider your needs; if you see yourself having to drive into Memphis a lot for things. (good restaurants, malls, buying a car, doctors, etc)

[lroach1]

Blytheville is a small community, but it does have a couple LARGE steel mills, Nucor & Nucor Yamato, which are the source of many of the local jobs. Blytheville is the largest city in the area, Short of going to Memphis (60 miles) you are out of luck for shopping except at WalMart. I definitely would NOT purchase a house there. You'll never sell it if you need to. Like all southern towns and cities, the public school system is atrocious to say the least. The "Blacks" have absolutely destroyed the public school system. Private school is necessary.
Personally, the job would have to pay VERY well in order to get me to take it. Even then, I wouldn't live in Blytheville.

JMHO
Larry