What the Smoky Mountains DON'T Have Much of Also Draws People Here

I regularly post about all of the wonderful assets of our Smoky Mountain area and how our beautiful scenery, mild weather, and the area's economic opportunity are some of the reasons why people continue to move to the Gatlinburg/Sevierville/Pigeon Forge area. Sevier County does in fact have all of the above but people also choose to live here because of what we DON'T have:

  • No state income taxes!
  • No excessive property taxes (some of the lowest in the nation actually)
  • Almost no severe weather (never had a hurricane, only a very small number of tornadoes, and no serious earthquakes - I've never even felt a tremor in East Tennessee and I have lived here over 50 years)
  • Very little serious crime
That last bullet point is the one that I would like to focus on in this post. When I moved here from Knoxville almost 20 years ago, the newspaper printed every week the entire crime blotter. It looked like something from the old Andy Griffith show. Someone like Otis had been arrested for DUI, probably because a person similar to the sisters were making some of their secret recipe. Someone else had been arrested for petty theft, and just a few other minor events. A few years ago we actually went years without a single homicide anywhere in the county - Not one! Sadly, this has changed as we now do see more alcohol and some drug arrests. Of course, with 10-12 million visitors coming to the area they aren't all going to be model citizens but most of the people who live in our Smoky Mountain community and those who visit here actually are. This isn't just my own believe either. Take a look at this crime map of the Charlotte, NC area:
Those black circles with numbers inside show the number of crimes reported in that specific part of the greater Charlotte area during the past YEAR. The red areas are the specific neighborhoods with the MOST reported crime.

Even my previous home of Knoxville, TN shows some crime hotspots in the downtown area:

And then we come to the area that I am blessed to call home, Sevier County:
No red at all in Sevier County, and no reported crimes. I suspect that there is actually a data error here as our local Mountain Press Newspaper still prints the entire list of arrests each week and I do know that some crimes are committed here in the Gatlinburg area. Still, it is a VERY safe community in which to live.

As you can see, what we don't have here in the Sevier County area are some excellent reasons to live here!!

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Everything You Always Wanted to Know about Smoky Mountain Water Wells but were Afraid to Ask!

Comments Please!!

Comments Please!