Moving advise east Tennessee (Knoxville, Johnson City: crime, hotel, neighborhood)

[davidbeckham40]

My wife accepted a job in Greenville Tennessee. We both are born and raised in New Jersey but want to leave and move south. This seems a great opportunity for our family. However we know nothing of the area. Our oldest will be in 1st grade. What suggestion does anyone have in regards to towns, Schools, areas. Anything we may need to know. Thank you

[Serious Conversation]

First thing's first. Do you also need work, or can you make it on the one income alone? The reason we ask is that it is not easy to find professional work in this area. Wages are much lower than the northeast (so is the COL), but opportunities in a lot of fields can be tough to come by. If a second job is needed above $15/hr or so, that absolutely needs to be secured before moving.


There are a couple of posters on here who are from Greeneville, so hopefully they'll chime in. Greeneville is a relatively small city of about 15,000 people. It's going to have your daily basic shopping - there are grocery stores (Aldi, the area's only Publix, two regional chains called Food City and Ingle's), Walmart, Lowe's, and other basic staples. Greeneville will have the national fast food staples and some sitdown dining options. More shopping and dining (Sam's Club, mall, higher end options) will be found about 45 minutes away in Johnson City. Morristown is a bit closer, but is closer to Greeneville in size than Johnson City.


I've done a few business trips down there this year, as well as going to Publix occasionally. The scenery is second to none, and the drive from Johnson City is beautiful, but a bit stop and go as you're passing through several other towns along the way. The Greeneville city schools are very well regarded, but county schools throughout the regional are generally lacking, though Greene County is probably a bit better than many of the other counties.


Johnson City is about a 45 minute drive to Greeneville. Johnson City is more cosmopolitan and diverse, with a growing downtown and is generally seen as the premiere city in the area. Greeneville is smaller, more "on its own," and relatively isolated. It may be more difficult for a transplant there, as there are few jobs in Greeneville and few reasons for someone not local to be there.

[AppalachianAngler]

I grew up in Greeneville and attended schools there pre-K through high school. First thing to know is it is spelled "Greeneville." It has beautiful mountain scenery in the background throughout most of the town. You can be in the mountains in about 15-20 minutes.

Serious C pretty much provided all the basic info, and is completely spot-on.

The job situation is really, really tough there. Most jobs will be retail making $8-$11 an hour.

It's a small town run by natives and will likely be a bit of culture shock for someone coming from NJ. My family moved to G-ville from another small town in TN and it was still culture shock.

It is a great town to raise a family in with good schools (city schools) and plenty of extra-curricular activities involving sports. As you can imagine for a town of about 15,000, there isn't much in the way to do for younger folks (as far as entertainment goes) unless you go to Johnson City, or a little bit further in Asheville, NC or Knoxville. They do occasionally have some family-friendly festivals and local music. If you are into the outdoors, there is plenty in the way of fly-fishing, hiking, camping, backpacking, kayaking, and canoeing. You can go skiing with a short drive over the mountains to NC.

It is a very conservative and Evangelical town where most folks are Southern Baptist. A lot of activities revolve around the churches there.

I would be happy to try to answer any other questions you have.

[AppalachianAngler]

Also, the only really realistic & nice places to live & commute to Greeneville (other than the town itself) would be Jonesborough or Johnson City, which is still kind of a tough commute and not worth it for $15/hr. As SC mentioned, Greeneville is pretty isolated as Interstate 81 is about 15ish minutes from town. Jonesborough/JC are pretty much straight shots down 11-E, but depends on where your wife will be working. I commuted from Jonesborough to G'ville for a year and wouldn't recommend it, but it wasn't too bad, either.

There is a pretty serious pill/opioid problem, but that is not unique to Greeneville. Crime is pretty limited to domestic and property crime. Most jobs and people are blue collar.

Greeneville has pretty much every fast food option you can think of, plus 2 Pal's (a kind of unique local fast food chain). There are also some good local spots with down-home cooking like Bean Barn. There is not much in the way of fine dining other than Brumley's in the General Morgan Inn (nice historic hotel located downtown) or maybe Link Hills Country Club, but there are other sit-down restaurants like Applebee's and Fatz.

Elementary schools for your child will obviously depend on where you live in town, but Tusculum View, Eastview and Hal Henard are the best ones in my opinion.

Like I mentioned earlier, activities for your child will be pretty much centered around extra-curricular sporting events with the local rec or church leagues, playing with other kids in the neighborhood, and church events. There isn't much going on being a small town, but I was not that bored growing up there. It helped having a neighborhood full of other like-minded kids.