What's Murray like? (Lexington, Paducah, Mayfield: crime rate, houses, cinema)

[jinnastewart]

I have fond memories of Murray visiting with my mother's family as I was growing up. I was raised in Florida. I chose UK for college and loved Lexington and the WILDCATS!... UK over VANDy in double overtime; outstanding.
I have considered moving there in retirement. What can you tell me about the community?

[censusdata]

It is fairly small (16,000), although being a college town it has quite a few of the bigger chain restaurants (including Cracker Barrel) It's near some very good fishing spots on Kentucky Lake.

[Davart]

It's ranked as a top retirement spot in the country, the college is top rated on Kiplinger and the cost of living is reasonable. Near Paducah, which will serve nearly all your shopping and entertainment needs, plenty of places to eat out, in Murray, Mayfield, Benton, Paduacah, Grand Rivers, Paris and other surrounding areas. I haven't heard anyone to move here complain.

[onthamove]

murray is a nice little community out in western ky coal fields, its quiet and generally crime free compared to alot of cities/towns in Kentucky i think it may be nice only thing being is not alot of job options but if you can make it work you da man lata hope this helped man

[kentuckydad95]

Coal fields??? I have lived in Murray since 1980 and don't ever recall seeing ANY coal fields. Not sure where that came from, but okay.

As for Murray, yes it is a college town of about 16,000 people. There are a few chain restaurants such as Cracker Barrel, Ryan's, Tumbleweed, Applebee's, Huddle House, etc. They also have all of your fast food joints as well. The crime rate is usually low, but is generally unkown due to the fact that the local daily paper usually refuses to run many negative stories. There are no income taxes, but you have to pay $35 per year for a sticker for your car, but there are ways around paying the fee. I haven't bought one in years. The shopping is terrible and there is little to no selection unless you love Wal-Mart. The people are generally pretty friendly and if you do move here, you will want to find a clique of friends to hang out with, because this town is clique central. If you are looking for a job in Murray, good luck. Unless you are one of the "good ol' boys", you will be flipping burgers. Entertainment is also non-existant. They have sporting events at Murray State which is usually decent, but attendance is lacking because people would rather stay home and watch the Cats on television. They have a nice arena for special events that, when it was being built, everyone was promised there would be tons of events and concerts every month. They have a major event once every 4 months, if that. You will find that the town is run by old folks who love to see Murray stay in the stone ages. One example is that Fazoli's was to come to Murray, but since a member of the city council was involved with a local restaurant that would be in competition with them, it was voted down. They won't even pass a no smoking ban for restaurants, so be prepared if you are a non smoker. You will find electric utility rates higer than Paducah. Houses are also overpriced in Murray for what you get. The hospital is terrible. Ask the locals about the recent staph infection at the hospital. I wonder why when their method of cleaning is using a Swiffer mop. There is only one heart doctor and he is getting ready to retire. What else, it's one of the only town's in the area that does not have a bypass, therefore the streets are clogged with semi-trucks just passing through. They have a nice city park that recently got vandalized even though the city just hired two park rangers with new vehicles to keep this sort of thing from happening. Two public school systems with parents from each who bicker with each other back and forth on which school is better. A university in which you can get numerous degrees and not be able to use 95% of them in Murray after graduation. Oh, I cannot forget to tell you about the terrible drivers that run the roads of Murray. It's either college kids who drive way too fast or old bag retired folk who drive at a snails pace. Gasoline and groceries that are overpriced because of lack of competition. I could go on forever and ever about Murray and how it really is. You will not get this kind of info from the local visitors bureau. I have wasted almost 28 years of my life in this town and hoped for years that it would grow and prosper and actually improve the quality of life for me and my family. I have given up on that dream. We are leaving this spring. If you want peace and quiet and very close to the lake, move to the Marshall County/Benton area. If you want a larger community where people stay out of your business and have alot of shopping and eating options, move to Paducah/McCracken County area. Please, if you have any specific questions, send me a direct message. Please don't let this town suck you in like they did my family. Run, don't walk away from Murray.

[Davart]

Originally Posted by onthamove

murray is a nice little community out in western ky coal fields, its quiet and generally crime free compared to alot of cities/towns in Kentucky i think it may be nice only thing being is not alot of job options but if you can make it work you da man lata hope this helped man

The coal fields are in Hopkins, Muhlenberg, McLean, Ohio, Bulter and the surrounding Counties. There is NO coal in the Jackson Purchase, for that matter there is no big rocks either, just gravel. Totally different geographical area.

As for Murray, yes it is a college town of about 16,000 people. There are a few chain restaurants such as Cracker Barrel, Ryan's, Tumbleweed, Applebee's, Huddle House, etc. They also have all of your fast food joints as well. The crime rate is usually low, but is generally unkown due to the fact that the local daily paper usually refuses to run many negative stories. There are no income taxes, but you have to pay $35 per year for a sticker for your car, but there are ways around paying the fee. I haven't bought one in years. The shopping is terrible and there is little to no selection unless you love Wal-Mart. The people are generally pretty friendly and if you do move here, you will want to find a clique of friends to hang out with, because this town is clique central. If you are looking for a job in Murray, good luck. Unless you are one of the "good ol' boys", you will be flipping burgers. Entertainment is also non-existant. They have sporting events at Murray State which is usually decent, but attendance is lacking because people would rather stay home and watch the Cats on television. They have a nice arena for special events that, when it was being built, everyone was promised there would be tons of events and concerts every month. They have a major event once every 4 months, if that. You will find that the town is run by old folks who love to see Murray stay in the stone ages. One example is that Fazoli's was to come to Murray, but since a member of the city council was involved with a local restaurant that would be in competition with them, it was voted down. They won't even pass a no smoking ban for restaurants, so be prepared if you are a non smoker. You will find electric utility rates higer than Paducah. Houses are also overpriced in Murray for what you get. The hospital is terrible. Ask the locals about the recent staph infection at the hospital. I wonder why when their method of cleaning is using a Swiffer mop. There is only one heart doctor and he is getting ready to retire. What else, it's one of the only town's in the area that does not have a bypass, therefore the streets are clogged with semi-trucks just passing through. They have a nice city park that recently got vandalized even though the city just hired two park rangers with new vehicles to keep this sort of thing from happening. Two public school systems with parents from each who bicker with each other back and forth on which school is better. A university in which you can get numerous degrees and not be able to use 95% of them in Murray after graduation. Oh, I cannot forget to tell you about the terrible drivers that run the roads of Murray. It's either college kids who drive way too fast or old bag retired folk who drive at a snails pace. Gasoline and groceries that are overpriced because of lack of competition. I could go on forever and ever about Murray and how it really is. You will not get this kind of info from the local visitors bureau. I have wasted almost 28 years of my life in this town and hoped for years that it would grow and prosper and actually improve the quality of life for me and my family. I have given up on that dream. We are leaving this spring. If you want peace and quiet and very close to the lake, move to the Marshall County/Benton area. If you want a larger community where people stay out of your business and have alot of shopping and eating options, move to Paducah/McCracken County area. Please, if you have any specific questions, send me a direct message. Please don't let this town suck you in like they did my family. Run, don't walk away from Murray.

Then why do you stay? Move! Murray is not as bad as you say, in fact it is highly rated on many retirement location. Any place you go can be either great or suck it's all in how you make it. Some one down on a community and moving away is not the person to ask about it.

[kentuckydad95]

Davart, I implore you to rebuke anything I have posted above. It is all true. Anyone can find a sugar-coated community profile anywhere on the internet, but few can actually find how this town really works. As for the retirement issue, people are still living off of a report from Rand McNally from 1987. Look at the entire county population numbers. People are not flocking to Murray. And the only reason why the population has grown in Murray (and not my much mind you) is because the city annexed parcels of county land into the city. Speaking of that, I need to mention the threats and lawsuits from one public school to another because of one school losing students because of annexation.

Back to retirement. Name me one publication, that most people have heard of, that has recently named Murray one of the best places to retire. I went to Yahoo and typed in the search "best places to retire Murray, KY". The only website I found was a rag-tag site where people can submit their town or city so it can be listed as a retirement mecca. Folks, there is a reason why most of the university population vacates Murray every Friday until Monday morning. There is nothing to do here except LBL, the lakes. And that gets boring quickly. Now, once again, I will ask you to prove me wrong on all of the negative things in my original post. They are all true, all the way down to having only one retiring heart doctor. You would think with such a "booming retirement community", that the doctors would be lining up to work at MCCH. They can't keep anyone there!

[marmac]

---name me one----
Happy to oblige!

"Retirement Places Rated"--(4th editon) written by David Savageau. ---"more than 250,000 copies sold"

Savageau ranked and compared areas based on the following criteria---
cost of living
housing
climate
personal safety
services
work opportunities
leisure living

the "Kentucky Lake Area" recieved a final ranking of # 61 out of the 183 places they decided to research.

It was the --only-- place in Kentucky that was listed amongst their "top 183 NATIONWIDE ranking"

Your "neighbor" to the south (Tennessee) had only 2 places listed.

Maryville with a rank of 81
Crossville with a rank of 137
(as stated above)--"Kentucky Lake Area" had a 61

[kentuckydad95]

Did it list Murray by name or did they say "Kentucky Lakes Area"? Anyway, I hardly call a book that is the better part of a decade old as being recent, but nice try!

[Davart]

I could rebuke it all, but it is clear you are sour on Murray, for the record I don't live there but I was there today. There are more place to eat there than most small towns, not just fast food. J Edwards, Jasmine, Tom's, Bad Boys BBQ, Pagilia, just to name a very few. This might come as a shock to you, but there is shopping outside of Wal-Mart of which I haven't stepped foot in one in over ten years and yet found everything I need often cheaper at small stores.
Murray State has free art shows, cheap international cinema, performing art center and many other things open to the locals. You can be at KenLake in 15 minutes or Ky Dam Village in 45 or the 200,000 acre wide open of the LBL in 20. If you need shopping, eating, shows, entertainment you can be in Paducah easily in 45 minutes.

Here's the deal, you can make anyplace you go great, or anyplace you go suck. It's all in your attitude you adopt. Nothing I say or anyone else says is going to change you mind, so I'm not going to try, but don't run down a entire community due solely to your own personal dislike of it, be objective. I travel all over Western KY and TN and I meet those that either like it or hate it, in the past I traveled all over the world and it was the same every where I went, the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence ... but no one ever asked the question of what did they do to their grass?
No town is perfect and no town you go to well be perfect, you'll just know less about it the things that make it imperfect, that is until you find out.