Men's Journal Picks Chattanoga As a Best Place to Live

As part of the annual Best Places to Live feature, Men’s Journal selected Chattanooga as the Best Place to Ride a Resurgence, calling it “a city of good ideas” and applauding its transformation over the past 25 years.  

 The editors based the choices off of the idea that a Men’s Journal reader might move somewhere for a specific reason. They also took into account other factors, such as access to activities and culture.

Here is an excerpt from the magazine:

Geographically blessed Chattanooga — flanking the Tennessee River beneath Lookout Mountain, humanely

scaled with a population of 170,000 — has risen from decrepitude and thwarted the recession with moxie and

family-friendly flair. Basically, it’s a city of good ideas: A river flows through it, so why not line that river with 10

miles of parks and rec trails? Downtown’s Warehouse Row?

Reinvent it as a hub of boutiques and artisanal goods. Knock down the old Terminal Hotel? Nah, let’s turn it into a microbrewery.

“It’s the one city in the South we used to make fun of,” says Ed McMahon, senior resident fellow at the Urban

Land Institute in Washington, DC. “Boarded-up buildings, polluted — but its visionary, 25-year turnaround is one I cite as an international model of development.”

Chattanooga also awaits the 2011 arrival of Volkswagen’s $1 billion plant and, with it, 2,000 new jobs; meanwhile, the local Business Development Center energizes small businesses and entrepreneurs.

All this prosperity has bred a new trend — inspired eateries. James Beard semi-finalist chef Daniel Lindley just

opened his third, Alleia, in the Main Street arts district.

What hasn’t changed is Chattanoogans’ zeal for the outdoors: rowing on the Tennessee, climbing and hang gliding

on Lookout Mountain, riding bike trails and country roads, paddling the frothy Ocoee 45 minutes away.