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Can anyone tell me about Tennessee? (1 Viewer)

SethH

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I'll throw in Charlotte, NC. My wife and I moved to the area fairly recently after growing up and going to college in VA. We've really enjoyed it here. We live just north of Charlotte in Huntersville. One of the benefits of Charlotte is that you have many benefits of a larger city -- lots of things to do -- and you're in good proximity to the mountains and the beach. You can get well into the mountains within 1.5 hours and you can be to Myrtle Beach, SC in 4 hours. The cost of living is actually lower than Raleigh (but I'm not sure how it compares to TN) and recent survey also listed Charlotte higher than Raleigh in value -- which accounted for salaries and cost of living.

Anyway, if you want any more information on the area, or if you decide to come down, please let me know and I'd be happy to help you out in any way I can.
 

Marc S Kessler

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Grew up in Philly, lived in So.Jersey for 6 years now we live near Memphis. First, Memphis is like a miniature Philly. There are really nice neighborhoods as well as bad ones. You would probably want to live outside of Memphis because the real estate taxes are very high (both county and city make the taxes sound like you're back in Jersey).
Living down here is much less stressful than Philly/Jersey. Twenty extra minutes of traffic here is unusual where as up north is typically over an hour. Just try to cross the Walt Whitman bridge on a summer Friday afternoon headed east.
Best deal is no income tax (so far). Sales tax is high. MS has an income tax.
Generally we like it here. We do live in the county east of Memphis which is one of the fastest growing counties in the US. Used to be agricultural now has become a bedroom community for Mem.
As for food, you now CAN get good cheese steaks and hoagies here. I guess enough of us Yanks moved here and fixed that.
If you're a beach person you may be dissapointed. It's at least a days drive to any beach and a day back.
 

drobbins

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Ron,
I was born and raised in NJ in the Mount Holly area. I moved from NJ 12 years ago and came back only once for about 3 hours. Guess I didn't miss it much. With different jobs I have lived 6 months in Indiana, 3 months in Ohio, 4 years in KY, 9 months in Mississippi just out side of Memphis, then moved back to KY where we have lived for the past 7 years. I have family in PA, NC, NJ, VA, GA, & CA. I like the area in KY where I currently live the best.

With all that said, from one New Jerseite to another, What kind of life style are you looking for? It takes about 8 hours to drive across NC and there is just about every life style you could want. I believe that Nissan is currently moving their head quarters from CA to Franklin TN. I would imagine that this will have a big impact on housing prices in that area.

Where I live in KY $250K will can buy a very nice house with lots of land. (depending of course on how much of that is spent in the theater ;) )
If you are looking for a laid-back life you can find it here. Back in NJ I was always complaining about the tailgaters and speeders. Down here, I find myself wishing they would drive faster.

I would definitely recommend the move! :emoji_thumbsup: Once here, you will wish you moved earlier.
 

Lew Crippen

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Owensboro, Haggai. I used to go to Lexington for statewide music and speech festivals. Good fun.
 

Tim Hoover

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I'd also have to recommend the eastern TN area as opposed to Nashville. Nashville's not a bad city by any stretch of the imagination, but the weather, scenery, and overall vibe of the Knoxville area is just so much better.
 

RickER

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How i hate the heat. But i wouldnt leave the south again for anything. My neighbors are from NJ...how i love their accent. They love it here in Tulsa. My other neighbors are new, here from FL, they hate it. It is all what you make of it. I lived in MN for 2 years in a St. Paul burb and i hated every moment of it. Sixty below zero will kill you faster than one hundred will, and that kind of cold just makes you hurt! The thing i missed the most in MN was Quick Trip. Here in Tulsa you cant go 2 miles without one on a corner. In St. Paul there is nothing like it. The people at QT are nice, greet you when you come in to pay for gas, or buy a pop (yea its pop here, not Coke...if i want a Coke i will ask for one!). At most convenience stores up north you have to wait for the clerk to finish her cell phone call be fore she checks you out.
You should see what 250K will get you here in Tulsa in a house. 2400 sf, all brick, lots of nice extras. The people here that are rude dont come from here. When you get on the expressway here, people let you in, they dont try to close the gap. I can get from one end of the city to the other in less than 30 min. and thats going the speed limit too! :)
I have been to TN, nice place, nice people. But i dont know much about it. I just know what its like to live here in the south.
Oh, and people from the south dont like to be called slow. We are not slow minded, or slow in action. The only thing that makes us feel slower is the damn heat. What we are (in general) is respectful, trusting, and helpful. It is going to be 100 today with about a 90% humidity, and i have to mow the lawn now.
 

Robert_J

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Any school's fight song that does not include the word "Razorbacks" is annoying. :D

-Robert (U of A grad school, class of '93)
 

David McGough

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I live 80 miles of Memphis all my life. I hate going to Memphis just a fact
lots of lazy people. Most have attitudes and want hand outs. Dirty.
I must say they have really made Beal Street a top notch place,
Still that same kind of folks hanging around, Watch were you park.

If looking at Tenn look at Franklin/Nashville that is the place to be.
 

McPaul

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Bet you didn't expect to see a response from a Canadian. I went to TN this past May. Landed in Nashville, small airport, remember a lot of road construction, we didn't stay there though, went down to Sewanee for most of the week I was there. One day that week was spent in Chattanooga. Beautiful small town stuck in the pit between Georgia, Alabama, and South Carolina. It's a small city (about 300k). it has the appearance of being very modern. Many areas of downtown have been revitalized, there is a beautiful riverfront right on downtown, a very modern looking river pier. We spent most of the day at the Tennessee Aquarium: absolutely gorgeous, they've just finished a new salt water building, again absolutely gorgeous... we spent some time on their river walk, beautiful, sunny, warm, probably a little too early or else there'd be more people in the water and down by the river. There's a fairly large shopping mall on the north side of the city that has a traditional mall that is ringed with big box stores. We spent some time at that mall, and ate at Outbacks before seeing a movie (you do NOT want to know which movie: it was bad) and going home.

The landscapes were beautiful... and this is coming from someone from Western Canada... they were a different kind of beauty though. I believe there's a national park nearby and a large lake just a little bit further. Not that far from Atlanta, and if I had the time, we would have went down there too. You have to dip in and out of Georgia near Alabama to get to Chattanooga, there's a few fireworks warehouses scattered along that highway. I wish I had taken more pictures outside the aquarium.

The only thing that I wouldn't have been cool with is the lack of professional sports. Sure, there's UTC there, but I don't suppose they have a hockey team now do they?! :)

http://www.google.com/search?client=...UTF-8&oe=UTF-8
 

Adam Lenhardt

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But aren't you from Rochester? I've lived in several places across upstate New York, and Rochester was by far the least-friendly on average (I met some really great people in Rochester too, but it wasn't the norm). Farm country in Western New York by contrast has always seemed much friendlier.

As for cost of living, I think any can find a nice place to live in their price range in any of the 50 states if they don't mind being a ways out from things. I know my relatives up in rural St. Lawerence county have a whole different cost-of-living picture than we do in the suburbs of Albany. And then with my Boston place, I find myself moving further out each year as the rent continues to escalate. I'm facing a 30 minute commute into the city starting in September, and I consider the place I found a real lucky find.
 

Chris

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Ron-

Let me say, welcome to real living.

Between my wife & I we've managed to live in a lot of the "nice" and "hustle" places ;) From Seattle to with friends in NY to Miami, and so on.

I have just a few comments.

I hate the consideration of anything in the south as "backwards" or in some way super negative in comparison to anywhere else. The pace is slower, but I generally find that so much easier to deal with and I think the service is infinitely better. I think this is something that is a very different take, having read above. While our experiences in Miami, Seattle, NY had things constantly offered to us and people constantly doing this and that, I really prefer the much more laid back service that lets you decide when you want things to happen instead of pushing it on you. I just find that so much more relaxing that it basically lowers my blood pressure numerous points ;)

As far as natives attitudes toward northerners.. I think sometimes way too much is made of this. I think the problem is that the culture is built a little differently, but as long as you don't act completely disrespectful of the differences, nobody really cares. That's the other beauty. If you're thinking about moving to TN, here's the big tips as a change from NJ:

(1) Remember, most people have a couple of cars. And while honking may occur in traffic, it's a rarity, not the rule, and people will generally interpret you as a psycho road-rage person if you lay on the horn or swear in public at someone. :) Very different from my experiences in other larger cities.

(2) If you are in TN, at least be casually aware of the Vols. You'll be moving from a state where College Football is played by "blah" preppy universities and has doesn't have big meaning except to gamblers to a state where college football is KING. Do not disrespect it ;)

(3) Your dollar will go so much farther in TN then NYJ that you may feel as though you're suddenly a whole lot better off in the pocket book, that is if your current level of income is moving with you. And if that's the case, it pretty much inerts all other negatives.


#3 is so mindbogglingly important that you could basically say "to hell with the other stuff" and realize that the gigantic financial savings in land values, cost of living, etc. is so significant that the other factors are pretty minor and easily overcome ;)

My joke goes like this:

My BIL is about to consider housing in Kansas City as his college career is ending. He will be buying a 3 bedroom, 2 bath townhouse for $127,000. (New construction). Meanwhile, my brother is looking at a small appt. in NYC, where he will be paying $2,200 a month for a simple apartment.

Yes, Cost of Living can be a kick in the ass.
 

Julian Reville

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Beautiful small town stuck in the pit between Georgia, Alabama, and South Carolina.

Could you explain this a bit? Just like to know what kind of pit I've been living in most of my life.
 

Marc S Kessler

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"(3) Your dollar will go so much farther in TN then NYJ that you may feel as though you're suddenly a whole lot better off in the pocket book, that is if your current level of income is moving with you. And if that's the case, it pretty much inerts all other negatives."

Agree the cost of living is cheaper for real estate and the present lack of an income tax. But in the retail sector everything is more expensive and a 9.25% sales tax is added to everything including 7% on groceries.
 

Grant B

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Ron
I think you should try it for at least a few weeks before you buy it!
If you are climbing the walls after 2 weeks, maybe change is not so good.
Good Luck and Happiness what ever you might do!
Grant
 

BrianB

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And believe it or not, not everyone holds the dollar more important than their quality of life. I'm happy to pay more to live where I live for the options, variety & style of life.
 

McPaul

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Sure, the Alabama/Georgia border is just southwest of Chatanooga, and South Carolina is not too far from the east. (I'm not exactly sure how far, but one of my friends is in Greenville this week and it was not too far a drive, I believe 2 hours or less from Atlanta. Chattanooga is in the SouthEast corner of TN.)
 

DaveF

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I've been in Rochester for a while now; but I don't have any sense of whether it's more or less friendly than the rest of the NE.

Unfortunately, jobs in my field are mostly in the East and West; few options in the Mid-West and SouthEast.
 

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