by Art West

Created on: August 05, 2009

Tennessee is a great state! It has great history, a low cost of living and beautiful scenery. So where is the best place to live in Tennessee? It depends on what you are looking for. You can select nearly every city in the state of Tennessee and have a fairly low cost of living.

Memphis has Graceland, you are next to the Mississippi River and has a fairly warm winter. The average high temperature in January is 48.6 degrees, the rest of the months have average high temperatures over 50 degrees.

Nashville is the country music capital of the world. Nashville also has the Tennessee Titans of the NFL and the Nashville Predators of the NHL. There is also a race track that hosts NASCAR and IRL races.

Knoxville is home to the University of Tennessee and their very successful football team. You are also getting into the Smokey and Blue Ridge Mountains as you enter Eastern Tennessee. It is very easy to travel to Gatlinburg, Seiverville and Pigeon Forge.

Chattanooga has some nice attractions with Ruby Falls, Rock City and Lookout Mountain. Chattanooga is about as far south as you can get and stay in Tennessee. Because of that, Chattanooga has the warmest winters in the state. The average high temperature in January is 48.8 degrees. The December average high temperature is 52 degrees and February averages 54.1 degrees. The rest of the months average over 60 degrees for a high temperature.

Johnson City has an extremely low cost of living. Johnson City is located in the Northeast part of Tennessee very near to the Virginia border. If you like mountains, this would be the best area to live. The only problem would be the fact that the winters are among the coldest in Tennessee. That still is not terrible as the average high temperature in January is 44.2 degrees. The average high temperatures in December and February are 47.9 and 48.4 degrees respectively. The rest of the year the average high temperatures are over 50 degrees.

Cookeville may have the lowest cost of living in the country and certainly has the lowest cost of living in Tennessee. Cookeville is the home of Tennessee Tech University. It is a city of about 25,000 people and is about 100 miles east of Knoxville, 70 miles west of Nashville and 70 miles from Chattanooga. Cookeville has 2 months a year when the average high temperature is under 50 degrees. January has an average high of 45.7 and December has an average high of 49.7 degrees.

Cleveland gets my vote for the best place to live in Tennessee. Cleveland is about 20-30 miles ENE of Chattanooga so it has fairly warm temperatures. Cleveland is a city of about 35,000 so it is large enough that it has pretty much everything you would need. If it doesn't, you are only about 30 minutes from Chattanooga so you can get to a larger city fairly quickly. The advantage of Cleveland over Chattanooga is simple, it has a slightly lower cost of living otherwise it is a toss up between Cleveland and Chattanooga.

For those of us that like Palm Trees, Tennessee does have sections in the Southeast (Chattanooga) and Southwest (Memphis) parts of the state that are in USDA growing zone 7a. There are some cold hardy palms that can grow in USDA growing zone 7a such as the Windmill Palm.

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