Murfreesboro Area--does it offer these things? (Franklin, Rutherford: real estate, sex offenders, violent crime)

[4wainwrights]

I’d like to share what our family is hoping for in our planned relocation and see if Murfreesboro, Franklin, another nearby or far away town meets the bill. We’re not tied to anywhere geographically.
We are a family, with a toddler and a preschooler and I think you can say that we’re the typical suburbanite. We are passionate about historic homes and old neighborhoods. We love to walk down shaded sidewalks and go to the park. Here’s a more specific list. I know that it‘s unlikely that one place will have everything. I‘m interested in what M‘Boro and the area offer, however.

An active home schooling community
Parks with playgrounds that are frequented by playing kids
Shaded sidewalks
Big box shopping nearby
A historic home district.
We would love to be able to walk from our house to the places we go --- parks, a place to get a treat like ice cream
Things for kids to do -- I know from reading another post that the mall in Murfreesboro has a soft play area for toddlers and also a children’s science museum. These kinds of things
A variety of protestant based denominational churches to choose from with larger and active congregations
Stay home mothers community -- MOPS, MOMS Club, playgroups
A lot of young families with parents who are college educated
A large population of at home moms
Politically conservative

Thanks everyone!

[Reactionary]

Murfreesboro has a nice area of historic homes between the square downtown and the MTSU. That seems to be the best part of town for sidewalk walking. The newer developments don't seem to have many sidewalks. I don't know about parks / playgrounds in that area yet. The square has a good mix of day business and night entertainment - it's a busy place.

The Stones River Greenway is a terrific couple of mile walk, plus the Stones River National Battlefield (IIRC 600 acre) is in the middle of town. The battlefield puts on a reenactment (end of Dec) with Civil War infantry, artillery, and cavalry (living in TN Walking Horse country has advantages): imagine kids -sitting still- for an hour listening to a Park Ranger describe the battle with the reenactors depicting the action.

IMO, everything in Murfreesboro is pretty convenient. Big box shopping = Wally, Target, Lowe's, Home Depot, ToyRUs, etc. The Avenue is a new shopping 'mall' that mimics a 'Main Street' experience.

Kids and churches are popular. The public schools seem to be among the best in TN. The GOP is strong in Murfreesboro and even the Democrats are fairly conservative.

Franklin has a lot of good points, too, I'm just not as familiar with it...

[4wainwrights]

reactionary -- (: thanks for taking the time to fill me in! i can't believe i forgot to include this in the original post... are the people friendly? i'm an outgoing person who tries to get involved in community groups. so, if there are friendly people and there are community groups, i don't havae trouble making friends. my husband's job requires him to be gone 3 mos. at a time, so making friends is really important to me in a new place!

[Reactionary]

Friendly? Yes. IMO very much so.

Local paper:

Murfreesboro and Rutherford County news from The Daily News Journal - www.dnj.com - Murfreesboro, Tenn.

[UNT_Eagle]

I've lived here over a year now, and I can say that it's very unfortunate what goes on in this city. For the population estimated at around 93,000, there is PLENTY of crime here. Much of it can be thwarted however, if there are greater numbers of policemen on the force, and we take our laws seriously around here. It's sad to hear from the local police that they roughly have the same amount of cops on the street that they did back in 1995, when the population was around 45,000

It seems that all these city leaders care about is building more homes, businesses so that more taxes will come in..

[Reactionary]

UNT_Eagle - reading the DNJ crime articles and comments, it seems that there are plenty of people who share your opinion. Hopefully, all those new homes and businesses will bring in enough tax money to hire more police and improve the courts and jails. It should be a priority in order to preserve Murfreesboro's "brand" - great place to raise a family.

From City-Data:

Crime index: U.S. average = 323.2; Murfreesboro = 460.2 (with big jumps over the past couple of years, wonder why - although it was equally bad in the 90s - 2001 through 2003 seem like golden years).

Full-time Law Enforcement Employees in 2006: 219 (174 officers).

Officers per 1,000 residents here: 2.00
US city average: 3.00

Murfreesboro, Tennessee (TN) Detailed Profile - relocation, real estate, travel, jobs, hospitals, schools, crime, news, sex offenders

[4wainwrights]

crime. ugh, the bane of all of us upstanding folks (: what kind of crime is the current plague? of course i'm not in love with having my car broken into, but i'm mostly concerned with violent crimes: gangs, drugs, personal violent crimes (such as home invasions, rape, muggings).
i lived for years in albuquerque, nm which has very bad violent crime. we moved for a couple of years to lancaster, pa where the police blotter used to include "gas pilfering", the crime was so nonexistent there. we moved back to nm. to be close to our family but are not happy here at all and i definitely don't want to move some place where the gang bangers outnumber the college graduates again.

[applejuice]

If you are considering Murfreesboro keep Bible Park in Mind!

[Reactionary]

4wainwrights - follow the link for details of the types of crime, maybe pull up your city for comparison. I haven't noticed much crime, and while looking at Murfreesboro I was kinda tickled at the crime reports in the DNJ (like your Lancaster story), because there didn't seem to be many violent crimes.

I probably just don't know the town well enough yet...

[alleycat]

Originally Posted by applejuice

If you are considering Murfreesboro keep Bible Park in Mind!

Yeah! And if you go to Europe keep in mind there's a lot of cathedrals. Just a warning.

;-)