Moving to Athens Tn/McMinn County (Knoxville, Chattanooga: appointed, for sale, crime rate)

[journey1]

Please, anyone with any info on Athens Tn area on crime, home market, jobs, weather, etc. would like to hear from you. Our home is up for sale here in FL, Marion County (Citra FL).

Last year my husband and I visited Athens to look around, and the area had a good feeling to it. But one never knows what the area is like until you have had a chance to talk with some folks.

Please reply soon. Any input would be great.

Thank you.
Journey 1

[Braves_fan]

I lived there for 2 years. Its quiet, peaceful, but finding jobs are another story. Mayfield Dairy is the best place to work, but you need to really know someone "tight" in the community in order to even stand a chance getting in there. I lived in a quiet historical neighboorhood right down the Rd form the plant.
Theres all the typical shops you need. But, no large shopping malls.
You're 48 miles from Knoxville and about the same from Chattanooga depending how qwikly you can get to I-75. Sweetwater is 10 minutes North of Athens on RT11 and they boast the biggest Indoor Flea markets in the country.

[diggity]

Welllll, since you're asking for OPINIONS here...I have lived in Athens my entire life, have raised my family here, and I'm not planning to ever move away; I'm happy here overall, BUT.....this town is run by "the good ol boy" system of politics. It has always been that way, and it will continue to be that way!! It's a repulican town that doesn't want to see any new growth except what will benifit the few and they are doing a very good job at keeping it "in hand"! The job market sucks big time! Jobs have been leaving this area in droves and still are. My husbands company, which is one of the biggest employers in the county presently, is set to close up any time and put everyone there out of a job; they are all setting on a time bomb just waiting to see what is going to happen next! They keep telling them that there is a possiblibility that the company will sell and stay open, but even if it does, their wages and benefits will be severly slashed; maybe by as much as 50%!!! That will be killer!!!!

Our sheriff is continually spouting off about how the crime rate here has improved over the years he has been in office! The man has to have painful elbows as much time as he spends patting himself on the back!!! But the thing is when you "manage" the numbers the way he does, anything can look good! Why do we have the unsolved murder cases still on the books? Actually our crime rate regarding murder and rape (the really BAD stuff) isn't too bad. Oh but we can surely be proud that we have those 500,000 speeding and rolling through the stop sign tickets every month can't we??? If you move here, be very aware of a cop in EVERY bush ready to jump out at you and get you for every known (and unknown) moving violation there ever was! Oh and while you sit and wait for your ticket to be written out, you can entertain yourself by watching the rest of the police force racing by you and count the number of red lights they run through without benefit of their lights and sirens on!! (YES I'm talking from personal experience!!! I counted three and when I confronted the cop about it who was writing the ticket his response was "I didn't see HIM"! I said "I guess you wouldn't have seen me either if I had been driving a police car!" and I had only gone through a YELLOW light!)

Home market-hmmm, I'm not quite sure how to answer that question. There are houses being built all over the place here. I suppose that means the market is good? There are also houses for sale all over the place here. I see new houses going up everywhere, then I see people live there for a little while, then the next thing you see is the house for sale. What does that mean? I don't know. I've lived in the same house now for about 20 years. We paid our house off and are happy living in the same place, have no desire to move so we haven't checked into the prices or anything like that, so I guess I can't help you there. I can tell you that taxes here, to me, are way too high, and are going higher all the time! We are taxed to death, and the city/county government are working all the time to find new ways to tax us! They are now talking about adding a new tax for "the schools" of course!! When government bodies decide they want more money out of people what is the first words out of their mouth every single time??? EDUCATION!!! They always try to use our kids on us! They think if they use the kids they can get a person to turn loose of all their money! TAX TAX TAX "but it's for the kids"! Give me a break!! It's never for the kids!! It's just another way for them to get in our pockets and at our money, and the kids are just an excuse, then they take the money and do with it what they want!!

Weather; the weather here is normally very good. Right now it's hot and dry! We are having a drought, and that's pretty unusual for this area. We normally have 4 pretty good seasons and that's really the good part of living here. I don't personally like summer very much, because I don't like heat, but I do like 4 seasons, so I can take it, along with the other 3. Fall is wonderful, as is spring. When the drought is over and we get back to normal, the weather here is good.

The people here...the general population is really a wonderful bunch of people. They are just good down to earth, mind their own business, love God and their family sort of people. They wave when you go by, speak when you pass on the street, talk to you in line at the grocery store, smile at your child, pet your dog, help you in a crisis; On the other hand, we do have an element of "society folks". You know the type, the ones who THINK they run/own the town, the ones who can't look you in the eye because their neck is in a permanent back position because they've had their nose stuck up in the air for so long!

Shopping, not much to offer in that respect. There is of course Walmart and Kmart, Goodies and Belks and a few other smaller stores. For grocerys we have two or three kind of large grocery stores and a few small ones, one of the large ones just closed and left this area. Restaurants...One steak house, a couple of Chinese restaurants, a few Mexican restaurants, Ruby Tuesdays, Shoneys, Applebys, and a Cracker Barrel being built. There are several fast food places and a few little mom and pop places too. One shoe store, no mall, no specialty kitchen store for cooks, one small book store but they don't carry much, no fabric or sewing store for seamstresses, one small craft store that has carried the same craft supplies so long that you have to blow off the dust to read the name of what it is! Most magazines have stopped being carried here, if you want some particualar magazines you have to travel to Knoxville or Chattanooga to get them. I just drove to Knoxville last week to buy one that I haven't been able to subscribe to yet. (Walmart used to carry it, but no more!!!)

I know from the sound of it, I'm trying to discourage you from moving here, but actually I'm really not! I'm telling you from my perspective what it's really like here from a realistic point of view. I'm also not trying to be pessimistic either. Athens is a good place to live and I'm happy here, the things I've told you are things that people who live here talk about when they get together and get frustrated about things going on! We love our life, and we mostly love living here, but just like everybody we get frustrated with things around us at times. I wish that our chief of police was an elected position, but it isn't. The guy is appointed and he's been in the postion for many many years. I don't know how to change that, so we gripe about it and these are the things we say, yet we continue to live here and deal with it.

If you decide to move here, I wish you the best of luck and I hope you settle in and love your life as much as I do. I hope you find friends and family and inner peace and that all the things that go on around you that happen here (and in everytown USA) will be things that irritate, but not really phase you as they do us. I've tried to be as honest as possible without discouraging you (hopefully). If you have any questions, I'll try to answer you if you like. Good luck to you, and God Bless you whatever you decide.

[journey1]

Well, thank you for all of the info. Now, I am not so sure if this is the right area for us. Maybe Roane Tn. might would be a better place to find work and a good place to live.

Thank you for your input.

Best regards.
Journey1

[Rayman421]

Journey1 I moved here from Ocala last fall.

Jobs: Very hard to find a decent paying job. I've been here over 6 months and all I've been able to find is PT that pays well, and now my hours have been cut. I'll probably be coming back to Ocala.

Weather: Everyone says how hot and humid it is - 93 degrees today, but I think the weather is lovely! Even winter wasn't that bad. It smells good here too!

People: Wonderful people. As previously mentioned, they love God, their families, their communities. Nice, nice folk. Genuine honest country type.

Bottom line: I love it here, and if I could find a halfway decent job would probably never leave. I'm looking closer to Knoxville right now.

Roane county probably isn't going to be much better for you. As I see it, the best opportunities are around KNoxville, and 15-20 min radius around it. Sweetwater, Athens is just a little too far to drive at 36 mins a day.

(My job: Bookkeeper, Office Assistant)

[JMT]

Originally Posted by Rayman421

Roane county probably isn't going to be much better for you. As I see it, the best opportunities are around KNoxville, and 15-20 min radius around it. Sweetwater, Athens is just a little too far to drive at 36 mins a day.

(My job: Bookkeeper, Office Assistant)

Roane County is actually a good suggestion. While it would be a bit far to commute from Kingston to downtown Knoxville (although people do it), it's only about 15 minutes from Turkey Creek. As metropolitan Knoxville continues to quickly expand west, I really think Roane County is going to be East Tennessee's next "boom" county.

[Antiquin]

I read all the responses, and more or less they seem adequately correct. But you need to consider that even all this compared to lots of bigger cities is not the worst element. Find a nice community and you will have the best of all worlds. For the most part, compared to many, this is a Friendly City. If you want to be a friend, you can find a friend. If you want more in shopping, Turkey Creek is just minutes (about 35-45) away - make a day of it, eat and shop to your heart's desire. Then come home to your calm, down to earth piece of the planet and have a much less stressful place of normalcy. I live in just such a community, and love it. I have lived in McMinn County all my life (50+) and don't have any plans to leave. If I put my house on the market I will let you know....we've been talking about downsizing. Just wanted you to understand - it's not such a bad place to live.

[SPLIT]

The news yesterday reported one of the biggest auto employees will be going bankrupt and everyone about 500 people layoff.
Not good on week of record high temps, yesterday 102 degrees.
Nice scenry, but maybe need to do some homework.!

[TnImplant]

I don't mean to seem negative, but I wouldn't recommend this area(McMinn Co) to anyone. Me and my family moved here four years ago, and are desperately doing what we can to get the hell out of here. I have a good job and get paid well, but that's not enough to make up for everything else. Yes 'they' call this(Athens) the friendly city, but 'they' are only friendly to those that have roots here. Everyone will wave at you as you drive by, but if stop they'll pull a gun and ask you 'what da hey'll yur doin'. The government is a joke. The area is a poster child for 'good ole boy' monthly. Although we have a couple of good newcomers on the city council whom are really trying to move the area forward, they are consistently shot down by the majority of 'good ole boys' on the remainder of the council. Check the Daily Post Athenian in past papers to see just how ridiculously crooked the governing body really is. Everyone knows and no-one cares. If you have kids, keep them on short leashes, for their own sake. If you enjoy the outdoors, you can hunt on the few thousand of available public acres, along with the tens of thousands of other hunters that hunt there. Or if you fish, you can drop a line into any one of many watershed lakes. Just keep an eye your lure, cause once it hits the surface of the water, you won't see it again until you pull it out of the water. Put your hand in up to the wrist, you can't even see your palm. As far as smells good, that person obviously doesn't live downwind of of the paper plant in neighboring Calhoun. When that place starts pumpin' the whole county smells like a huge barrel of rotten eggs packed in sulfur.

Other than all this, it's great here!. Good luck.

[mcarideo]

I must disagree with other posts regarding Athens TN!

We moved here almost two years ago and it was the best move we could have made. We have lived all over the south and this town is just right-not too small but small enough to know someone every now and then when out which makes for a great community feel.
The city officials and planning commission were more than welcoming us as a new business owner and family. Whenever we have had a problem the city has been quick to respond. The downtown business association and TWC put alot of work into the town as well.

We love all the outdoor activities offered within 30 minutes are less, the downtown is precious, the museums, all the parks, yearly festivals...and more.

My elementary kid LOVES it here and says they will never leave Athens.
The churches and schools have been a blessing.
I would recommend McMinn Co to anyone who wants to enjoy all four seasons, go for a walk without having to lock every door, and have people smile when you jog by.

Feel free to contact me anytime for more info.