Tag: economy
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Move to Kingsport: Grounded Growth
Sullivan County Mayor-Elect Zane Vanover coined the term “grounded growth” in his campaign. To my knowledge, he didn’t specify exactly what that meant, but I think I have an idea. The April 2026 Move to Kingsport numbers show a program that has cooled from its post-pandemic peak, but is still producing steady results. For many…
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Tennessee’s Emerging and Mature Places Tell Two Very Different Housing Stories
Third-party rankings are constantly scanning and ranking communities based on “best of” or “worst of”. Frankly, it can be exhausting to keep up with. Some use a city name when they really mean a metropolitan or combined statistical area, leaving neighboring towns to wonder what they missed and the named city to take a bow…
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Move To Kingsport: Ensuring Our City’s Renewal, Not Retreat
When people think about economic development, they often picture industrial parks, incentives, or ribbon cuttings for major employers. Those investments matter immensely. But today’s economy is changing — and so are the tools that drive growth. That’s why programs like Move To Kingsport represent a new kind of economic development: people-centered, data-driven, and remarkably cost-effective.…
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A Cooler January, a Steady Market
Move To Kingsport Monthly Report January numbers can be deceptive. They’re often the first data point people seize on in a new year, but they’re also the smallest, noisiest slice of the calendar. That’s especially true in housing, where closings reflect decisions made months earlier and where construction timing, weather, and financing cycles all collide.…
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Kingsport After COVID
I still remember the mood at Kingsport’s 1999 Economic Summit. Beneath the optimism, there was a persistent worry: we were aging, and some feared the city would slowly become a retirement community—comfortable, yes, but eventually aging out into economic drift. That kind of concern is easy to feel in real time, especially when the loudest…
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Biscuits & Builders: Moving to Kingsport and the New South
The South. Just reading those words probably evokes imagery. For natives, it might be sweet tea, biscuits, and “home sweet home to me.” For others, it might be The Beverly Hillbillies, The Dukes of Hazzard, or The Andy Griffith Show. I follow a TikTok account of a former New Yorker now living in Charleston. She…
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2025 Annual Report
Move To Kingsport Kingsport’s relocation story over the past two years is not one of decline, but of adjustment—shaped by national housing conditions and reflected clearly in local data. By year, Kingsport’s relocation pipeline from outside the region (greater than 35 miles) remained broad and national, but cooled modestly from 2024 to 2025. In 2024,…
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Where $100 Still Goes A Long Way
A recently published map from the Tax Foundation illustrates a reality many Kingsport residents intuitively understand but rarely see quantified so clearly: the real value of a dollar varies dramatically across the country—and Kingsport sits firmly on the favorable side of that divide. Adjusted for regional purchasing power, $100 stretches meaningfully farther in much of…
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Income vs. Wealth: Understanding Kingsport’s Retiree-Driven Metrics
Public discussion about Kingsport’s economy often leans on a single familiar figure: median household income. It is simple, understandable, and widely used. Yet in Kingsport’s case, it can also be one of the most misleading indicators of our true economic condition. Many of Kingsport’s major job sectors—manufacturing, health care, finance, and professional services—offer median wages…
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Of Time and Time Zones
The change to or from daylight saving time always throws me off. It takes a good couple of weeks to feel normal again. I’ve long wished we could settle on one consistent time year-round, but I understand it’s not as simple as it sounds. When I lived briefly in Middle Tennessee, I remember the sun…
Kingsport Spirit 