It’s been over 10 years since I’ve lived there but I can give you the highlights I remember. Chattanooga is a great place to live if you love the outdoors – hiking, biking, white water rafting/kyaking. The summers are hot but not crazy hot and the winters are cold but not much snow. Being in the valley protects the city from harshest winter weather. The city is relatively affordable and very casual and friendly. I would move there at the drop of the hat myself but jobs are hard to come by unless you are in the insurance business. It’s a nice drive to Atlanta, Nashville or the Smokies and the no income tax is a huge plus. Go check it out and see what you think!

(I’m the deleted comment, just from the wrong account…)

I grew up there and only recently moved from Chattanooga to Nashville. Chattanooga’s job market is interesting, and as stephlys said, the insurance business is booming. (Not being an insurance salesperson, just everything insurance – Unum Provident, Blue Cross/Blue Shield, and Cigna are all in town!)

Chattanooga itself is a lovely place, with a population of around 160k. The Hixson area on the north side of town is a nice place to live, as is the further suburb of Soddy Daisy. The neighboring (literally bordering Chattanooga) cities of Red Bank and East Ridge are pretty inexpensive, but not neccessarily the prettiest.

Chattanooga is growing, too. The downtown area is adding stuff all the time. Plus as stephlys also said, you’re extremely close to all sorts of wonderful outdoors stuff. As such there are a number of great places to buy fishing, camping, rock climbing, kayaking, etc, etc gear.

I’d highly recommend Chattanooga (especially over much of anything in Alabama) in you can find a job that suits your needs.

(I can recommend Nashville as well, but you wanted to know about Chattanooga)

You may want to look at this:
http://wikitravel.org/en/Chattanooga

Good luck! Let me know if you want to know even more…

Thanks you guys for that information! I’m curious, and maybe you can help me… how supportive is the population there of small businesses. I hope to someday open a coffee shop or cafe of some sort.
Thanks again!

Chattanooga is growing! Lots of opportunities. A trendy city. So, coffee shops will be tough competition. But there is a lot of money and a lot of spending, so you could easily carve a good niche.