musician couple looking for cool city to settle down in (Memphis: house prices, college)

[Huckleberry3911948]

NO but being cool can be terminal.
if you can shoot high brow boston is your place.

[creeksitter]

Sham, Vestal is a bit iffy WRT to property crime, there are areas around it that are pretty safe. You can PM me about a specific address. South Knoxville is pretty safe as far as personal crime goes, that is as long as you don't run with a troublemaking crowd.

As always, its good to rent for a while to get a better sense of the area.

[billy wood]

hello folks i have been here 20 yrs now and feela like you have been reading my mail. anyway hot springs n.c. is a wonderful place not far from asheville and just down the road from newport a red neck place but they keep to themselves see to it you do the same. i have a spot in monroe co. up in the mountains. tellico plains is nice small friendly some music, great food, and a hour or so from major cities. they need good teachers i think. i now reside in blount county and it has become a bedroom community of knoxville. it has expanded in all directions and banks on every corner. i left 2 states for that reason they let progress run over them a bank on every corner then they went into recession. i am now moving into a smaller town in a county with less growth. people tend to live simple and with less greed and day planner dreams. hope you find your spot, good luck billy

[CueHound]

shamity, Knoxville would fit you fine I think. Based on your love for Neil Young, Flatt and Scruggs, and Muddy Waters you should check out Knoxville radio station WDVX. www.wdvx.com. As far as places to live, I think you may find something that fits in North or South Knoxville, close into town. Knoxville has more of a mountain feel to me than Chattanooga or Nashville.

[LazyP_Acres]

We recently moved and built our "retirement" home in Manchester, TN. We absolutely love it there! We found 20 acres at a reasonable price and built our own home(as contractor) and found all of the people in the area to be charming and friendly. Our children are college age, so they did not return with us to the area, but from what we see and hear it sounds like there are good schools in the Manchester/Tullahoma area and there seems to be a lot of things for children to be involved in. Huge recreation park and ball fields in the area. There are beautiful lakes and scenery. We are only about an hour from Nashville and there are music venues galore! We have friends in the area who do bluegrass and understand there are festivals and such. Manchester hosts the huge event, Boneroo(sp??) every year and it's a huge music fest. We are currently out of the country for a contract job, but will return in the late summer and look forward to it. The one drawback may be jobs. My husband is a professional civil engineer and it was hard to find work, thus the overseas contract, but I had lined up an office manager position without much trouble and teaching should be an easy job to acquire. AEDC at Arnold AFB nearby may have some positions available as well. You may want to go to www.arnold.af.mil and click on the AEDC link to view available positions. Wish you well in your search!

[BRH]

I kind of agree with some of the earlier posts. When I read your description, Chattanooga was the first thing in the area that popped into my mind. It is comparable to Knoxville in most aspects that you mentioned (hard working, down to earth, people), but to me, Chattanooga has a bit more of the "artsy" and progressive vibe that you are talking about. The downtown area is wonderful and there are always lots of interesting people and lots of things going on. (more so than in downtown Knoxville. Although downtown Knoxville is finally coming back to life itself in recent years with lots of new development).

Also, I wouldn't dismiss Chattanooga as necessarily being "too far south". I'm not sure how familiar you are with the area, but Chattanooga is only about 90 miles south of Knoxville and is only about an hour and a half drive, so it's not a lot farther south. (Personally, I live in between the two cities, about 30 miles south of Knoxville and 60 miles north of Chattanooga. I work in Knoxville and am there daily, but I also visit Chattanooga a couple of times a month as well, and you really can't go wrong with either. I think you would enjoy both. And as I said there are a lot of similarities, but basically I would say that Knoxville is a bit more conservative and work minded, while Chattanooga seems a bit more progressive and artsy.)

[BlueCuzco]

Also, I wouldn't dismiss Chattanooga as necessarily being "too far south".

Ditto. What problem, exactly, were you anticipating with Chattanooga's degree closer to the equator? (not rhetorical) Climate? Little difference.

[shamity]

Originally Posted by BlueCuzco

Ditto. What problem, exactly, were you anticipating with Chattanooga's degree closer to the equator? (not rhetorical) Climate? Little difference.

No, it's that I need to make sure my family is within a reasonable day's drive to come visit, and vice versa. I can't expect them to drive much more than 7 hours, 8 hours at the LONGEST, and Chattanooga makes it much closer to 9 or more.

Thanks for all the tips and comparisons everyone! I can't decide if we are more artsy or working class. We are like working class types with severe music obsessions. We were thinking more bands we like might come to Nashville rather than Chattanooga (we hate ATL) so that might be a better choice for us. But mainly we wanted to stay pretty far north in TN... we would be in VA a lot, too. We're going to head down in a few months and check out the whole area again though.

[jabogitlu]

Depends on the kind of bands you like, but you might want to check out some websites for Asheville's concert venues. If it looks pleasing to you, that would put you back in the realm of Knoxville or the Tri-Cities. Together, Knoxville and Asheville (and the occasional jaunt to Chatty, maybe) should satisfy a lot of your music needs.

[CueHound]

shamity, in my opinion Knoxville attracts much better concerts than Chattanooga. I'm mostly talking about small theatre and club shows. Chattanooga rarely hosts anyone I would be interesting in seeing while Knoxville has really stepped up in that regard with the renovation of the Tennessee Theatre and the Bijou.

I never really thought of Chattanooga as an "artsy" city. Always seemed a very traditional, conservative, Southern preppie type of place. Knoxville wouldn't really qualify as artsy either, but seems at least as artsy as Chattanooga to me. Don't get me wrong though, I like both cities.