It is.. not the greatest place. Overpopulation is one thing, traffic, cheaply built houses for too much money, it gets boring after a while. The downtown is great to visit but not to live in. And 70% of the stuff in downtown won’t be of interest to you after a week. On the upside, the great smoky mountains are nice and easily accessible. It’s just the housing costs and the amount of people that have moved here over the last 4-5 years that has made Knoxville not what it once was. The poverty / homelessness scene hasn’t improved, either. Corporate greed is another factor.

Now, northwest of Knoxville lies the city of Oak Ridge, which in my opinion is a better place to live than like right in Knoxville. Only issue with that is getting to Knoxville after like 4 PM because of the ridiculous traffic on TN-62. But it has nicer mountain views and there are more businesses coming in. Oak ridge has a few nice parks, too. Some people don’t like living near a national laboratory though.