Knoxify

24 Responses to “How would you describe Knoxville?”

1. Doug McCaughan 
   August 22nd, 2008 at 9:13 am

   

   “Knoxville: Where Florid­i­ans come to retire!”

   “Knoxville: Where Buck­eyes (Ohioans) come to retire after real­iz­ing Florida was a mistake.”

2. bettis 
   August 22nd, 2008 at 9:36 am

   

   if i had to describe knoxville in one word, the word would be “heartless” — not in a vin­dic­tive sense of the word, but lack­ing heart. strip mall of chain retail after strip mall of chain retail, it is a city that lacks char­ac­ter, with the excep­tion of UT Sports of course.

3. Suzy 
   August 22nd, 2008 at 10:17 am

   

   I talk to peo­ple almost every day who are com­ing to Knoxville from another part of the world and the one thing they all seem to agree on is how absolutely gor­geous our lit­tle cor­ner of the world is. It’s really easy to take for granted when you’ve been here a while, but most places don’t have all of the beau­ti­ful old trees and moun­tain views that K-Town has.

   As for me, I always think of Knoxville as the baby bear of cities — not too big, not too small, but just right.

4. Doug McCaughan 
   August 22nd, 2008 at 11:11 am

   

   “most places don’t have all of the beau­ti­ful old trees and moun­tain views that K-Town has“
   Give it a cou­ple years. The guys with the bull­doz­ers are work­ing as fast as they can to cor­rect that.

5. Jen McClurg 
   August 22nd, 2008 at 11:25 am

   

   I just got this ques­tion yes­ter­day from a new res­i­dent. After liv­ing on the humidity-soaked gulf coast, and the frigid north­east, I say that Knoxville is a won­der­ful mid­dle ground. The cli­mate is rarely extreme, mostly com­fort­able, and we have enough trans­plants here to give the city an “open mind” by south­ern stan­dards, and nice bit of cul­tural influ­ence. We have a won­der­ful, thriv­ing down­town and the best dog park of any city I’ve ever lived. It’s nice and green most of the year and like a paint­ing in the fall. We have rolling hills and chang­ing land­scape and we’re an easy drive to lots of other fun cities. And best of all, it’s not expen­sive to live here! What is NOT TO LOVE ABOUT KNOXVILLE?!! I’ve only been here 2.5 years and it feels more like home every day. I think Knoxville is ALL heart!

6. Matt Heisig 
   August 22nd, 2008 at 11:29 am

   

   I’m with bet­tis. Maybe it’s because I’m not a native Knoxvil­lian, but the whole city just seems to lack char­ac­ter. Every­thing feels very generic, very stamped out, and very new. The place you can find unique char­ac­ter and a more set­tled feel­ing are few and far between.

7. The Modern Gal 
   August 22nd, 2008 at 12:09 pm

   

   A couch.

   Kid­ding, kidding.

   I’m with Suzy. Knoxville is very not too big, not too small and that’s a good thing.

8. CP 
   August 22nd, 2008 at 1:22 pm

   

   Just found this, over here: One is that it is a neg­a­tive image of Austin: where Austin is a big city try­ing to be a small town, Knoxville is a small town try­ing to be a big city. Its down­town fea­tures a sig­na­ture park – Mar­ket Square – full of pub­lic art garbage nobody minds get­ting rained, hailed or sat upon. It is walk­a­ble and you could see all the sights in a week­end. Peo­ple still smile here, and it has got to be the least branded city I have seen.

9. Jen McClurg 
   August 22nd, 2008 at 3:39 pm

   

   CP — Inter­est­ing. I lived in Austin last sum­mer and after return­ing, heard a well-pedigreed, com­mer­cial real estate investor (who lived in Austin 22 years prior to Knoxville) pro­claim Knoxville to be the next Austin. Austin is a heck of a lot of fun (in its own “weird” way of course), but with all that comes a price. Down­town can be sketchy block for block, and very dirty. Get­ting to and then park­ing down­town is a night­mare any day of the week. And hous­ing prices? For­get about it. I had a great job offer to return to Austin, and refused it. I’ll take Knoxville any day.

10. Michael Wender 
    August 23rd, 2008 at 9:54 am

    

    @Jen McClurg: Jen said, “we have enough trans­plants here to give the city an ‘open mind’ by south­ern stan­dards, and nice bit of cul­tural influ­ence.” I agree.

    Being a Knoxville native, I enjoy shar­ing this city with my friends who hail from all over. It’s as if the south­ern graces inher­ent to this area mix with the influx of trans­plants to cre­ate an envi­ron­ment that is warm and wel­com­ing. At least, that’s the type of vibe and hos­pi­tal­ity my friends and I enjoy shar­ing with those we meet.

    Regard­ing our cli­mate, the biggest kick I’ve got­ten out of someone’s descrip­tion is from one of my friends from Tijuana, Mex­ico. As we drove her around town she said, “You live in a rain­for­est!” Fur­ther­more, there is actu­ally some truth to that as parts of the Great Smoky Moun­tains are a conif­er­ous rain­for­est.

    @bet­tis: I agree that there are too many strip malls around here; how­ever, if you’re look­ing for the true “heart” of an area, you will find it in the peo­ple who live there. That’s what makes Knoxville home for me. Knoxville is non­de­script enough to not dis­tract me from what mat­ters most: peo­ple, yet charm­ing in a way that will sur­prise you from time to time.

11. Jody Collins 
    August 23rd, 2008 at 10:59 am

    

    Under­rated.

    There are plenty of naysay­ers. To them I say, in a non-redneck sort of way, either leave or attempt to make the city bet­ter. Mon­day morn­ing quar­ter­back­ing it doesn’t do any good.

    I’ve lived her my whole life, and have a love/hate rela­tion­ship with the city. There are times where I can think of no bet­ter place to live, other times when I feel the strong urge to escape.

    What always brings me back is the peo­ple and the area. There’s noth­ing like our town. Noth­ing. We have great music, great food, gen­er­ally nice peo­ple and enough stuff to do to keep one busy ’til king­dom come.

    My love for this town far out­weighs any hate. Those are merely flashes every once in a blue moon.

12. CK 
    August 25th, 2008 at 1:34 pm

    

    I think there a four types of Knoxvil­lians:
    1) natives who irra­tionally love it (and UT Sports)
    2) natives who hate it and will escape as soon as pos­si­ble
    3) trans­plants who see all the wasted oppor­tu­nity and strip malls and start look­ing else­where
    4) trans­plants who dig a lit­tle and are suprised at the city they find.
    I have become No. 4 in the last 10 years. Knoxville is not an obvi­ous city, but it can be an inter­est­ing one if you look around. Basi­cally, stay away from the west end of town. Most of the No. 3s I meet live and work out there, and I don’t blame them for their atti­tude. If Cedar Bluff was my main impres­sion of Knoxville, I’d be get­ting out soon too. But start hang­ing in the Old City or Mar­ket Square and see if you you don’t shift to No. 4.

13. TN_Newbie 
    August 25th, 2008 at 3:11 pm

    

    I think CK hits the nail on the head with the four types of K’towners. I started at #4 and now after three years I am solidly at #3. There is so much poten­tial yet I am not sure if any sen­si­ble plan­ning is being done when it comes to growth. I think down­town has done a bet­ter job with plan­ning, but the burbs still are too car depen­dent. I moved here from a burb that was 20+ miles from down­town, yet I did not have/need a car. I would describe Knoxville as a bg rural town with some much potential.

14. bettis 
    August 25th, 2008 at 5:07 pm

    

    for what it’s worth, i am stick­ing with “heart­less”. i am a born & raised knoxvil­lian, with the excep­tion of my 5-year col­lege stint in chat­tanooga — a town with excep­tional heart. return­ing to knoxville for work made me real­ize how much char­ac­ter chat­tanooga has — thriv­ing, locally owned cof­fee houses, restau­rants, & gro­cery stores. it has a down­town set­ting unlike few I have seen, where locals rel­ished in the unique char­ac­ter of their home­town. when my knoxville friends came to visit, i could wine & dine them with all that was unique to chat­tanooga. now when my chat­tanooga friends come to visit me in knoxville, i woo them with chili’s, star­bucks, & panera.

    to me, knoxville just seems…blah. it’s not bad, but it’s not good. it’s…blah.

15. sassyanne 
    September 6th, 2008 at 10:33 am

    

    I also agree with CK and I per­son­ally am a No. 4. I moved here 7 years ago for a tem­po­rary job and knew that it would only be a tem­po­rary stint here. Knoxville at first glance was ugly, way too car depen­dent, and lacked any sort of char­ac­ter that I could see. Seven years later and i’ve grown to love the place. I’ve met some of the nicest, most inter­st­ing peo­ple here, there is always some­thing to do if you open your mind and look in the right places. I sug­gest to those who are No. 3’s, just give it time. Mar­ket Square and down­town has made a mirac­u­lous change since I moved here when there was only the Tomato Head down­town. Now it’s become a bustling town cen­ter with a Farmer’s Mar­ket, free con­certs and plays, and muse­ums and restau­rants, and I think it’s just going to get bet­ter. And the new Down­town North plan is look­ing to get under­way soon, which will fur­ther help beau­tify Knoxville and make it more acces­si­ble to those who don’t want to drive any­where.
    I think alot of peo­ple who base their impres­sions on Knoxville haven’t got­ten off of Kingston Pike and out of West Knoxville to really explore and see what’s Knoxville’s all about. And I know that I’ per­son­ally have never been forced to wine and dine my out-of-town friends at places like Chili’s and Applebee’s.

16. Stacy 
    September 12th, 2008 at 6:45 pm

    

    I find Doug McCaughan’s com­ments of par­tic­u­lar inter­est to me. The Ohioan trans­plants and retirees is fas­ci­nat­ing to me. It could be the fact that I mar­ried one of these “Ohioans off to Ten­nessee guys”…but, I’m not sure. Real­iz­ing that we have trans­plants from every­where, it still seems that the num­bers of Ohio to Ten­nessee peo­ple are huge. I would be inter­ested in see­ing a “study” on this. I just think it is very inter­est­ing. I won­der how many “Ten­nessee to Ohio” there are. I have vis­ited Cleve­land once, and while it was a nice visit, (and we do love our Browns) I def­i­nitely would not want to live there.…but then, I wouldn’t want to live any­where but East Ten­nessee, I am fairly cer­tain. (LOL!)
    I also agree with his com­ment about giv­ing the “bull­dozer guys” time, and they will clear out what is left of our nat­ural beauty. (It is also true to say that I’m mar­ried to one of those “bull­dozer guys”…a “bull­dozer guy” that comes home sad­dened much of the time because of this very fact.)

17. Mark Simmons 
    September 14th, 2008 at 10:17 am

    

    It’s inter­est­ing read­ing all these impres­sions about Knoxville. My part­ner and I are mov­ing there next sum­mer tem­porar­ily from the San Fran­cisco Bay area. We’re not expect­ing the same kind of cul­ture, of course, but hope to find some inter­est­ing things, like old neigh­bor­hoods, cafes (not Star­bucks!), farmer’s mar­kets, and hope­fully some some diver­sity. We drove North Knoxville a few weeks and got a good feel­ing about it. Whereas the rest of Knoxville didn’t strike us as that inter­est­ing, although we haven’t really got­ten to know the city yet. Does any­one have any com­ments on North Knoxville? And where the most diverse and tol­er­ant neigh­bor­hoods might be?
    Thanks for any input.

18. Marc 
    September 17th, 2008 at 1:41 pm

    

    I ususally describe Knoxville as hav­ing a lot of trees and feel­ing like a sauna. My Dad lives in Cal­i­for­nia near Oak­land, and all my friends from out there ask me if we have the­aters, elec­tric­ity, roads, etc.
    Bay Area, huh? That’s awe­some, but I’d imag­ine not very afford­able. I really have no idea about the diver­si­fi­ca­tion and tol­er­ence of the neigh­bor­hoods here, sorry to say, but most of the peo­ple here are either accept­ing of alter­na­tive lifestyles or sim­ply keep their thoughts to themselves.

19. Sassyanne 
    September 20th, 2008 at 9:01 am

    

    @Marc: Mark – I have lived in Knoxville since 2001 and have always loved liv­ing in North Knoxville. The most tol­er­ant and diverse neigh­bor­hoods would prob­a­bly include Old North Knoxville, Fourth and Gill, and even North Hills. The neigh­bor­hoods are quirky, have lots of char­ac­ter, are very con­ve­nient to down­town, and have quite a few older, his­toric neigh­bor­hoods that are con­stantly improv­ing. A new rede­vel­op­ment plan is in the works for Cen­tral Street and Broad­way, which will hope­fully bring more cul­ture and enter­tain­ment to an area that has been over­looked for quite some time. Check out the fol­low­ing web­sites for more info:
    http://www.oldnorthknoxville.org/
    http://www.fourthandgill.org
    http://www.northhillsneighbor.org/
    http://www.knoxmag.com/issues/current/articles/edens/index.php4

20. CP 
    September 21st, 2008 at 9:09 am

    

    @Sassyanne: Sorry for the com­ment error. Yours got caught up in the spam fil­ter. Every­thing should be good now.

21. Mark 
    September 21st, 2008 at 11:27 am

    

    Sassyanne, thanks for the com­ments and the links! I’m look­ing for­ward to com­ing around christ­mas time and get­ting the know the neigh­bor­hood better.

22. Brad 
    December 14th, 2008 at 2:05 am

    

    I had lived in Knoxville for 14 years by way of Boston, MA where I also spent 14 Years. I moved to Knoxville, West Side, and Started High School there, need­less to say it took me about 2 or 3 years before I did not want to imme­di­ately move out of there and leave. I went through High School and Col­lege in Knoxville and spent a ton of times explor­ing every­where from Lenoir City to Gatlin­burg to Asheville, NC. I have been every­where inbe­tween and I must say that Knoxville has some very inter­est­ing aspects and sights to see, like most places in the south that are small and have a his­tory reach­ing back into the 1800s.

    I have now moved to Chicago, IL and live in the sub­urbs. We have been liv­ing here for a year and Knoxville has Noth­ing on it. Knoxville has barely an vari­ety of jobs in the tech sec­tor, there are NO telecom­mun­ci­a­tions jobs there. If you can work in health­care or in a call cen­ter, you will find TONS of jobs!

    Chicago has a cost of liv­ing that is 1/3rd more than knoxville and my wage is much more than dou­ble for the same expe­ri­ence I had in Knoxville. The short spring, Nice Sum­mer, and Long fall in Chicago are breath tak­ing. Beau­ti­ful trees, parks, out­doors, side­walks EVERYWHERE so you can ride you bike any­where you want with­out clog­ging traf­fic. They also pro­vide a nice walk. Chicago has fan­tas­tic eth­nic food, great small and orig­i­nal local owned shops and food, etc.

    Mov­ing out of Knoxville (Which I was fond of) was one of the best things I have ever done. I still miss Knoxville some­times, those nights in the old city at all the bars, antique stores, shops, etc., those days and nights in mar­ket square and on South Gay street enjoy­ing the shops, the music, etc. but you can find all of that x 1000 in the Chicago land area, let alone going into the city of Chicago.

    The Sub­urbs of Chicago remind me of every­thing knoxville has plus so much more that I can­not list it.

23. Knox Animal 
    July 28th, 2009 at 4:16 pm

    

    Knoxville: Laid back col­lege town

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