home seekers from across US are moving to Kingsport (Chattanooga: new home, subdivisions)

[kamoshika]

Newcomers relate how they ended up in Kingsport:

Mike and Sherri Emitte sold their property, put their furniture in storage, and packed up their RV — traveling more than 2,300 miles from Oregon across the country to find the perfect place to call home.

Too far south was too hot and humid. Too far north meant frigid temperatures and lots of snow. They knew they were looking for someplace in between.

But where? Sitting in Chattanooga, they were frustrated.

“Then I opened the atlas one more time to Tennessee, and there it was,” Mike said.
Home seekers from across the U.S. are making the move to Kingsport
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City's housing slump becomes a building boom

...between 1990 and 2000, nearly 1,500 more new homes were built in Johnson City’s urban area than in Kingsport’s.

“Doctors were coming to town, and they couldn’t find a house here, so they were going to other cities,” Phillips recalled. “We had to do something.”

The city created some incentives to help jump-start new housing development. Incentives included an infrastructure assistance program in which the city would subsidize infrastructure for new subdivisions to minimize building costs.
http://www.timesnews.net/article.php?id=9003996