Moving back to Knoxville Area (Cookeville, Greeneville: low crime, houses, neighborhood)

[Royallp84]

I will be moving back to the Knoxville area and will be attending UT School Of Architecture and Design.

I will be moving out there sometime around September-October 07 and my wife will be moving out during the summer of 08.

I used to live in Washburn, TN with my parents about 5 years ago, but moved to Cali after joining the Marine Corps. Since I will be attending UT I don't want to live as far away as Washburn but don't want to live inside the city.

I was wondering if you guys could give me some recommendations on where to live, like on the out-skirts of Knoxville, but not really an expensive area(we'll both be going to college) but low crime and still a nice neighborhood.

Thanks for any support!!

[Milo Bloom]

Honestly, if I were you I'd be looking at South Knoxville.

My wife and I lived there during and after college, and we loved it. Friendly people, convenient, and you don't feel like you are "in the city". The traffic on the south side of the river going in to UT is nowhere near as bad as from anywhere else in town, the benefit from not having the rampant construction boom and an interstate.

Look at the area around Colonial Village, it's fairly inexpensive, smaller homes. Nice friendly place though. If you want a little more pastoral surroundings, look a little farther out along John Sevier Highway. Mount Olive and thereabouts can also be a good location, a little farther out though.

We also lived in Vestal, which is considered the "bad" part of South Knox...funny thing, we never had a problem there, and the people on our street were very friendly and welcoming. Possibly the friendliest place we've ever lived.

[frankandterry]

Hi Folks, My wife and I are in our fifties and recently moved from colorado (where we had an italian restaurant for years) to florida to look for a similiar business but are having trouble finding the right thing and trusting people. So we are now thinking about moving to tennessee, somewhere between cookville,crossville (where we have friends) to greensville. Would like to know opinions on this, how sophisticated folks are about food etc. are the summers as bad as florida? is their religous or racial tension (we are white) or anything you can tell us at all would be great, thanks so much Frank and Terry

[JMT]

Originally Posted by frankandterry

Hi Folks, My wife and I are in our fifties and recently moved from colorado (where we had an italian restaurant for years) to florida to look for a similiar business but are having trouble finding the right thing and trusting people. So we are now thinking about moving to tennessee, somewhere between cookville,crossville (where we have friends) to greensville. Would like to know opinions on this, how sophisticated folks are about food etc. are the summers as bad as florida? is their religous or racial tension (we are white) or anything you can tell us at all would be great, thanks so much Frank and Terry

I can definitely understand your desire to flee Florida. My family did the same thing a long time ago.

Are you thinking of sticking to smaller towns like Cookeville, Crossville, and Greeneville? Does that mean you don't want to consider Knoxville? I don't blame you--big cities aren't for everyone.

I'm not sure what you mean by how sophisticated folks are about food. If you mean ethnic food, there tends to be more of that in college towns (like Cookeville).

Summers up here are nowhere near as bad as they are in Florida, although the temperatures here can get over 90 and sometimes, although very rarely, get up close to 100. However, unlike in Florida, the temperatures at night cool down, and there's generally less humidity up here.

I've never noticed religious tension up here, or at least no more than you'd find anywhere else in the US. There's racial tension in some areas (Crossville has a history of being very racially intolerant, although supposedly it's gotten better). Again, college towns generally have less racial or religoius tension.

I think Cookeville is a good blend in that you have the progressive influence of the university but it's also a very conservative area. Even though Al Gore had his office in Cookeville when he was a senator, Putnam County didn't vote for him in 2000.

[hiknapster]

Moving to Florida was a big mistake, wasn't it?

I'm from Florida, too.

In my opinion, there are not enough restaurants around here, and most of them are chains. It is tough to get seating. The wait is over an hour on weekends. It's been my experience that the locals love to try new food. I think you should come on up!

[Royallp84]

Thanks MB!

I just started looking into houses again, the time we're moving is coming up quick and forgot all about asking about the area on this site! haha

I do have another question though, about crime by zip codes, are there any where there is more crime, like certain zip codes to stay away from?

The reason why I ask is because all these realty sites use zip codes.....

EDIT:

Milo Boom I have another question for ya.

I noticed that in the South Knoxville area there were some railroad tracks, how noisy are those? The reason why I ask was because when we were REAL young we used to live next to the railroad(like across the street) and it wasn't to pleasant!