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Thanks everyone! I'll have a closer look at some of these options.
What are your experiences of crime in places like Tennessee? According to the Internet, Tennessee is a very dangerous state. Outside of big cities like Nashville, do you find this to be true?
Also opinions on Kentucky vs Tennessee?
Understanding crime is difficult. Some states report crime differently from others while others barely report. An example is if cops don't show up, there's nothing to report. So all these defund police areas appear like their crime is decreasing because there police are not entering new reports. If doesn't mean there is not crime it means it's not getting investigated or prosecuted.
Some states over report. And I've heard Tennessee is one of them. If someone breaks into your car and steals money, that might count as 2 separate crimes but was only 1 incident. Crime 1 vandalism for breaking a window, crime 2 theft for stealing money from the car.
Also, depending on what size town you are looking for Hendersonville NC might be a fit.
I think my favorite climate on the east coast is the upland south. If you get some elevation and get off the coastal plan it knocks the temp down and humidity down to be more tolerable. You get 4 seasons and it's still hot in summer but it's not as oppressive as the low elevation Atlantic coastal plain area becomes.
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I'll second Cookeville as I strongly considered it when I had the opportunity to move. I'll throw the tri-cities area of TN too, specifically Johnson City. It's where I landed and I really enjoy it, though I'm almost retired so my priorities were probably quite different than yours are.
Crime is/was reported differently in TN than in many other states making it harder to do an apples to apples comparison, so if you're going off older reports take it with a grain of salt. If you aren't in the larger cities and you aren't into domestic violence or drugs, crime is not a major problem for most of us. https://crimeinsight.tbi.tn.gov/tops/
IF climate is a high priority and you want to stay in the eastern half of the US I'll suggest looking at the higher elevation small towns along the I-81 corridor.
Thanks everyone! I'll have a closer look at some of these options.
What are your experiences of crime in places like Tennessee? According to the Internet, Tennessee is a very dangerous state. Outside of big cities like Nashville, do you find this to be true?
Also opinions on Kentucky vs Tennessee?
I don’t believe any part of Tennessee is dangerous save maybe Memphis.
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My first thought reading the list of preferences would be somewhere in Tennessee. I think Knoxville might actually be perfect. Also the suburbs to the South and East of Nashville.
I don’t believe any part of Tennessee is dangerous save maybe Memphis.
Part of Nashville (the part where tourist won't really go to) and even Knoxville (which has arguably improved quite a bit) or Chattanooga (which has a surprisingly high crime rate) aren't all THAT safe.
But as other said, if you have some money and live in an area that has some money, pretty much anywhere is safe as long as you don't decide to do shady businesses.
This may be helpful. Be mindful that states will extract funds from your wallet one way or another.
Even with this, some parts of states may do so more than other parts of the state. So, check to see what goes on in the specific area you are looking into.
If you're European as in from Europe - like myself - you have to remember that European immigrants are relatively rare these days. If there are notable clusters it's mostly Eastern Europeans i.e. from Poland, Balkans, former USSR, and these would mostly be in big cities like Chicago, New York or Miami.
If you're Western European (i.e. UK/Ireland, Nordic countries, German-speaking Europe, Benelux, France but even Italy/Spain/Portugal) you will be relatively isolated from your compatriots, except in some relatively specific contexts.
The reason I point this out is because you ask for a place for immigrants, but your experience will most likely have very little in common with the experience of the typical immigrant to America. Most immigrants to America are from developing countries in Latin America, Asia or Africa and often prefer to live in dense clusters where they have a significant presence and try to live like they did back home. In other words, pretty similar to such immigrant areas in Europe really.
As a European you will find mainstream American middle-class culture much more familiar and most people will 'at face value' assume that you are just a regular middle-class American, so most likely that's where you slot in. In other words, you're really looking for the same type of area many Americans have recently been looking for i.e. a nice, reasonably prosperous area away from the big city but with a good selection of amenities and a certain level of development that means you won't be attacked by a pack of stray dogs while getting your mail or your neighbors fire their guns in the air randomly every weekend. Exurbia beckons.
Boise, Idaho has a large Basque population. If that's your group then many of Boise's suburbs would work well. Wiser, Marsing, Parma, or Fruitland are small suburbs/communities near Boise propper. Further out you could look at Baker City, Oregon. Also in Oregon take a look at Prineville as a great small town about 40 miles from Bend Oregon as your bigger city, about 4 hours to Portland, and 5 hours to the Oregon coast beaches.
If you're European as in from Europe - like myself - you have to remember that European immigrants are relatively rare these days. If there are notable clusters it's mostly Eastern Europeans i.e. from Poland, Balkans, former USSR, and these would mostly be in big cities like Chicago, New York or Miami.
If you're Western European (i.e. UK/Ireland, Nordic countries, German-speaking Europe, Benelux, France but even Italy/Spain/Portugal) you will be relatively isolated from your compatriots, except in some relatively specific contexts.
The reason I point this out is because you ask for a place for immigrants, but your experience will most likely have very little in common with the experience of the typical immigrant to America. Most immigrants to America are from developing countries in Latin America, Asia or Africa and often prefer to live in dense clusters where they have a significant presence and try to live like they did back home. In other words, pretty similar to such immigrant areas in Europe really.
As a European you will find mainstream American middle-class culture much more familiar and most people will 'at face value' assume that you are just a regular middle-class American, so most likely that's where you slot in. In other words, you're really looking for the same type of area many Americans have recently been looking for i.e. a nice, reasonably prosperous area away from the big city but with a good selection of amenities and a certain level of development that means you won't be attacked by a pack of stray dogs while getting your mail or your neighbors fire their guns in the air randomly every weekend. Exurbia beckons.
Fair enough, I wasn't expecting to live amongst other Europeans.
It was more that.... I guess I was uncertain how we'd be received, as immigrants ourselves, by conservative Americans. Since it is well known that conservative Americans don't like immigrants. But perhaps it is only immigrants from Latin America that they don't like?
Fair enough, I wasn't expecting to live amongst other Europeans.
It was more that.... I guess I was uncertain how we'd be received, as immigrants ourselves, by conservative Americans. Since it is well known that conservative Americans don't like immigrants. But perhaps it is only immigrants from Latin America that they don't like?
I mean would we be able to make friends?
I wouldn't worry about that aspect. Making friends comes easy to some, and less so to others. I think that's a bigger factor than being a foreigner.
One thing to note is that you shouldn't assume that being foreign matters at all to people. There are some people who will be intrigued and all over it, asking loads of questions etc., but there will be others for whom it is about as relevant as your uncle being called Dave. It will simply not register with them as anything other than a bit of trivia. That sort of 'apathetic ignorance' mode will be much more common than negativity.
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