knoxville-i-40

Update (12/18/08): After receiv­ing a num­ber of valid com­ments that I’m look­ing unfa­vor­ably on cer­tain parts of Knoxville, I’ve decided to write a follow-up entry to this one with my cur­rent view of liv­ing in Knoxville. The cur­rent entry was orig­i­nally pub­lished on my per­sonal site in June 2008 before I had a chance to really explore, and eval­u­ate the city. As a results my opin­ions of the city have changed. Thanks for all of your feed­back — it’s great to hear how pas­sion­ate folks are about their city!

Update: Look­ing for a house in Knoxville? I wrote an entry on that too.

Liv­ing in Knoxville, Tenn., like most mid-size South­ern cities, is pretty easy. Cost of liv­ing is cheap, and folks here go out of their way to accom­mo­date most anyone.

But with the good qual­i­ties of Knoxville come some bad ones too. Ter­ri­ble air-quality, overly fran­chised shop­ping and restau­rants, and poor road engi­neer­ing can make life in the “scruffy city” difficult.

I’ve been a Knoxville res­i­dent for almost two years now. Here is my guide to liv­ing in Knoxville.

Where to live in Knoxville

When I accepted a job that brought me to Knoxville, I had no idea about where to live. My fiance and I are huge fans of eclec­tic hous­ing — old, with char­ac­ter — and didn’t know whether this was available.

Lind­say didn’t have a job at the time so we decided it might be best to look for some­thing out west. Many of the rec­om­men­da­tions from my co-workers were in this area.

We looked at sev­eral places in the Cedar Bluff area before decid­ing on Walden Legacy Apart­ments, located near the inter­sec­tion of Cedar Bluff and Mid­dle­brook Pike. Unfor­tu­nately, these apart­ments are far from eclec­tic — they’re your stan­dard shoe-box vari­ety — but they’re clean, quiet and safe.

Our apart­ment is also three miles from my office, which makes for a cycling-friendly com­mute. It’s also close to two gro­cery stores and sev­eral decent restaurants.

Hip apart­ments do exist in Knoxville, but you’ll pay a premium.

For a well-located 2 bed­room apart­ment in west Knoxville, expect to pay in the range of $600 to $1,000. Just make sure you can stom­ach the blandness.

Where to eat in Knoxville

Knoxville is blessed with many unique eater­ies through­out the city lim­its. Here are my favorites, none of which are national chains:

For those that don’t mind the regional chain, try Cal­houns and Mel­low Mush­room.

Unless you just need a quick bite of any­thing, stay clear of the Turkey Creek area near Far­ragut. This is a franchise-laden abom­i­na­tion that will only frus­trate you with traf­fic and ticky-tacky.

Where to shop in Knoxville

If you’re mov­ing to Knoxville for shop­ping, do your­self a favor and revise your des­ti­na­tion to some­where else. Sure, we have the usual assort­ment of chains like GAP, J Crew, Banana Repub­lic and oth­ers, but very few orig­i­nal shops.

There are a num­ber of unique places down­town. Some of these are: Bliss, Yee Haw and The Mast Gen­eral Store. The Bear­den area has many art shops and small-scale retail establishments.

Knoxville does have a mall, and you can get your main-stream fix at Turkey Creek, Cedar Bluff or, if you can stom­ach it, down the inter­state in Sevierville, Tenn. Just make sure you take your Tums first.

Per­son­ally, I do most of my shop­ping online.

Where to get a drink or cof­fee in Knoxville

The first thing my fiance and I ask of a city is “where can I find a cof­fee shop?” Knoxville is a lit­tle lack­ing in this area, but does con­tain two cof­fee shops that are worth a visit.

The first is located across the street from the Uni­ver­sity of Ten­nessee cam­pus. It’s called Golden Roast, and feels very aca­d­e­mic with old wooden tables and book shelves in back. Park­ing is nonex­is­tent, so it’s best to find a place on the Strip or walk from cam­pus after-hours.

Golden Roast does roast its own beans, but the cof­fee is only so-so in my opin­ion. I think this is due to how they brew it, but I can’t be sure. Also, they pre­fer cash — credit pur­chases must be above a cer­tain amount — so swing by the ATM first.

The sec­ond option is Old City Java, located in Knoxville’s Old City (near down­town). This shop is more hip than aca­d­e­mic and plays some great music. They also source their beans from Golden Roast (I think the cof­fee tastes bet­ter than Golden Roast).

Old City Java is kinda rough around the edges, so don’t expect the Star Bucks crowd here.

Both Old City Java and Golden Roast offer free WiFi, which is a pre­req­ui­site for a good shop IMHO.

Also, check out Cof­fee and Choco­late for a clean, mod­ern place to get your buzz. Beware the high prices however.

If your drink pref­er­ence is beer instead of cof­fee, you have sev­eral options to choose from in Knoxville. And almost all of them are downtown.

First, check out the Down­town Brew­ery on Gay Street for local beers that are only $2 dur­ing happy hour. None are spec­tac­u­lar, but all are bet­ter than the usual fare.

The Crown and Goose in Old City has three locally brewed beers. The bit­ter and IPA are the best. Both are $2.50 dur­ing happy hour, which unfor­tu­nately only lasts until 6 p.m.

Other places with great non-local beer selec­tions include:

Note that Ten­nessee has banned smok­ing in restaurants/bars that allow any­one under the age of 21.

Where to play in Knoxville

For the out­doorsy types, Knoxville has sev­eral options. But beware the bad air qual­ity dur­ing the warmer months.

On orange or red days, you will have trou­ble breath­ing. This alone should prob­a­bly deter many folks from liv­ing in Knoxville because they occur with such frequency.

There are sev­eral parks through­out Knoxville, each with var­i­ous acreage and options. You can also choose from green ways, such as those in Far­ragut or near the University.

Though not in Knoxville proper, I visit Oak Ridge’s Haw Ridge trail sys­tem to ride my moun­tain bike often. I believe these trails are the only within a short drive of Knoxville in fact.

I ride my road bike out west because the back-roads tend to har­bor less aggres­sive dri­vers than those closer to the inter­state. I can’t com­ment on roads in other parts of town.

There are sev­eral group rides to choose from includ­ing a decent ride that meets every Tues­day and Thurs­day at Cedar Bluff Cycles, a bike shop at the inter­sec­tion of Cedar Bluff and Kingston Pike.

Numer­ous hikes can be had for about an hour’s drive towards the Smokey Moun­tains — just avoid Pigeon Forge and Gatlin­burg like the plague.

The good and bad

This guide, like oth­ers, is sim­ply a snap­shot of my expe­ri­ence liv­ing in Knoxville. Oth­ers might like it more, some might hate it. I think I’m some­where in between.

Here are my favorite things about Knoxville:

  1. Low cost of living
  2. Tomato Head
  3. Old City
  4. Nearby Appalachian Mountains
  5. Local cyclocross series

And here are my least favorite things about Knoxville:

  1. Bad air qual­ity and high car­bon emissions
  2. Unfriend­li­ness towards cyclists
  3. Turkey Creek
  4. UT orange
  5. Ticky-tacky, sprawl­ing neighborhoods

If you have any­thing to add to this entry, or if you dis­agree with any of my points, post a com­ment and con­tinue the discussion.

Note: This entry was orig­i­nally pub­lished on Patrick’s blog.

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