Anybody know what Martin, TN is like? (Jackson, Union City: crime, daycare)

[robnmrcy]

What is it like in Martin? Would you recommend this small town to a family with small children?

[uofmwalton]

Martin is nice. Good schools. Local university. Certainly not the greatest place in Tennessee, but not a bad town, at all.

[JMSTiger]

Originally Posted by robnmrcy

What is it like in Martin? Would you recommend this small town to a family with small children?

Martin is a great town. That whole part of West Tennessee is great. There are several nice small towns in that area- the people in Gleason are wonderful and they have a fine public K-12 school there.

[Jenfiner56]

Martin is not a bad town for a family of small children. There is not a lot of activities for the children other than sports. You will have to drive a minimum of 1 hour to find a shopping mall or cultural events. Martin has excellent K-5 schools but 6-12 is lacking in some areas. The College is great though.
You have to weigh what is important to you. Martin has little crime, friendly people, not many high paying jobs, decent health care facilities, and most important of all - - - a NEW Super Wal-Mart!!!! (grin)

[DagoChick]

My husband, our 2 children (6 & 7 at the time) and I moved to Martin in July 2007 from San Diego. My kids and I were born in San Diego and I had never lived anywhere else for longer than 6 months, so coming here was a huge change. From a city of over 3 million people, packed 5 & 6 lane freeways and a paper that comes out twice a day to a town of less than 20,000 with two main thoroughfares and a paper that comes out twice a week was almost laughable! But I fell in love with Martin the first day here. This is such a nice place to raise children. In San Diego my kids rarely went outside to play; too dangerous. There was lots of crime and just way too much for them to get into. Here they can actually go outside and play and play until the street lights come on. That's something I used to be able to do when I was a kid, but San Diego changed a lot over the years. Martin was the perfect change of pace. No traffic, no smog, great schools and wonderful people. I miss the beaches in San Diego, but we're used to having to drive for 30 or more minutes to go somewhere so to drive an hour to go to a big mall or event is nothing. Besides, you can get everything under the sun at Wal-Mart! :-))

[Amysout]

I went to college at UTM, I lived there for 3 years, my kids were 2 & 3 at the time. I loved it! There is great, quality daycare available. Martin is a very friendly town & the cost of living is low. There are not a lot of jobs there though. UTM and medical are probably your largest employers.

Wouldn't worry too much about major shopping. You can get everything you need in town between grocery, Wal Mart, Lowes, and Rural King/Co-op, your needs should be covered! For wants there is always Paducah, KY or Jackson, TN (@ 1 hr away) or the internet!!

Church communities are tight & a great resource for friendship & fellowship, it was wonderful. We went to church at the FUM of Martin.

Having access to UTM is great too. They have incredible summer learning/fun activities for kids, I wish I still lived there!

[beachmouse]

We spent a couple years in Martin in the late 90s, and couldn't get out of there fast enough. Underneath the thin veneer of Southern Hospitality, the people there tended to be pretty hostile to outsiders. If you don't join a very conservative Christian church, you're treated like a second class citizen. We both worked at UTM, and the running complaint from the student body was how the town didn't seem like a place that was friendly to young people, even less so than the other small towns in west Tennessee they'd come from.

There are also racial issues not too far beneath the surface. Common for the folks born in the area to still have a grandfather or an uncle or a cousin that was a backer of white supremacist groups. (General consensus from the people we'd talk to was that it was unfortunate that Grandpa still felt that way, but it would be rude to call them on it) We's see people out at Realfoot Lake with White Power stckers on the back bumpers of their vehicles. And in terms of sexism, there's a small but vocal minority of folks there who feel like the Bible tells tham that it's immoral for them to have a female boss because a woman is not supposed to give orders to a man.

Schools aren't bad academically. (Helps to have the professor's kids around bringing up the test scores) But from a social and extracurricular standpoint, they were a mess. Consensus was that some thing like 30-40% of the student body at Westview High smoked pot regularly; beer abuse was much higher than that, and the percentage of grade school kids we knew of that were on Ritalin and such were scarily high. In terms of high school sports for girls, they had 2.5 teams (basketball, softball, and like a 4 woman golf team)


As for Walmart, they knew that they had an effective monopoly in the area and their prices reflected that realization. We used to shop at the Kroger in Jackson, and it ended up being cheaper than the Union City Superwalmart, even when you figured in gas costs.

We used to call Martin the armpit of the universe.

The thing is that we were actually very excited to move there after spouse got the job offer. Everyone seemed friendly, the cost of living was low, and we had family just across the border in Kentucky. But once reality hit, it got ugly for us.

Looking back, I figure that the whole Martin experience has made me feel more grateful for where I am now, even though that current location is far from perfect.

[Capt. Dan]

Originally Posted by beachmouse

We spent a couple years in Martin in the late 90s, and couldn't get out of there fast enough. Underneath the thin veneer of Southern Hospitality, the people there tended to be pretty hostile to outsiders. If you don't join a very conservative Christian church, you're treated like a second class citizen. We both worked at UTM, and the running complaint from the student body was how the town didn't seem like a place that was friendly to young people, even less so than the other small towns in west Tennessee they'd come from.

There are also racial issues not too far beneath the surface. Common for the folks born in the area to still have a grandfather or an uncle or a cousin that was a backer of white supremacist groups. (General consensus from the people we'd talk to was that it was unfortunate that Grandpa still felt that way, but it would be rude to call them on it) We's see people out at Realfoot Lake with White Power stckers on the back bumpers of their vehicles. And in terms of sexism, there's a small but vocal minority of folks there who feel like the Bible tells tham that it's immoral for them to have a female boss because a woman is not supposed to give orders to a man.

Schools aren't bad academically. (Helps to have the professor's kids around bringing up the test scores) But from a social and extracurricular standpoint, they were a mess. Consensus was that some thing like 30-40% of the student body at Westview High smoked pot regularly; beer abuse was much higher than that, and the percentage of grade school kids we knew of that were on Ritalin and such were scarily high. In terms of high school sports for girls, they had 2.5 teams (basketball, softball, and like a 4 woman golf team)


As for Walmart, they knew that they had an effective monopoly in the area and their prices reflected that realization. We used to shop at the Kroger in Jackson, and it ended up being cheaper than the Union City Superwalmart, even when you figured in gas costs.

We used to call Martin the armpit of the universe.

The thing is that we were actually very excited to move there after spouse got the job offer. Everyone seemed friendly, the cost of living was low, and we had family just across the border in Kentucky. But once reality hit, it got ugly for us.

Looking back, I figure that the whole Martin experience has made me feel more grateful for where I am now, even though that current location is far from perfect.

You are certainly entitled to your opinion sir. But you are in the vast MINORITY in your opinion of Martin. As a university town, it has many races and cultures and we hear few complaints of racism. Do some of the old Southern racism and religious fanaticism still exist in rural areas of west Tennessee ?Yes. But Martin is a modern, diverse,multicultural town that has certainly come into the 21st century. And some of us simply dont want a shopping center and the attendant traffic on every street corner. We will gladly drive a ways in exchange for elbow room.

[beachmouse]

I actually thought it was cool how someone at UTM way back when figured out how to market a couple of developmental English programs to Japanese and Korean students looking to learn strong English skills. The foreign students really added something interesting to campus.

But it terms of minority opinion of Martin, I probably am in some ways because the 'love it as it is or leave it' attitude drives a lot of educated people out of town. I can remember spouse talking about the faculty meeting where the administration admitted that they'd had to replace 10 out of 12 faculty positions in the School of Education in a two year time frame because people kept leaving those positions, even when they didn't have anything else lined up after that.

[Kim918]

Originally Posted by beachmouse

I actually thought it was cool how someone at UTM way back when figured out how to market a couple of developmental English programs to Japanese and Korean students looking to learn strong English skills. The foreign students really added something interesting to campus.

But it terms of minority opinion of Martin, I probably am in some ways because the 'love it as it is or leave it' attitude drives a lot of educated people out of town. I can remember spouse talking about the faculty meeting where the administration admitted that they'd had to replace 10 out of 12 faculty positions in the School of Education in a two year time frame because people kept leaving those positions, even when they didn't have anything else lined up after that.

When you move to a smaller town, you should expect to "Love it or Leave it" Not everyone wants their town to change. Change has caused a lot of problems, especially in the state you are now living in. "Where in the heck is Niceville, FL?" LOL! I watched the county I lived in FL change so much, that peole started running for states like TN, to get away from all the change and growth. So I strongly believe that when you do move to a place like Martin, you should love it for what it is and not for what it could be. I have to admire the power of the natives there that hold so strongly to those beliefs that people actually leave because of it. They get to keep their home the way it is!