Title says all.

Give me positives, negatives of living in the area.

Schools, shopping, medical care, etc.

Bonus if you have info on living in TN and commuting to Huntsville.

Living in TN and commuting to Huntsville can be a huge pain if you travel during typical rush hour times. 53 and 231/431 get congested as hell, especially if/when someone creates a wreck. 45 minutes to an hour should be expected during those times, but I get to the state line in 30 minutes or less from south Huntsville during non-peak times.

I don't have kids and attended a county school so have no recommendations on city schools, other than you probably should avoid sending your kids to school on the north side.

There is shopping everywhere. There is now a publix in almost every corner of town, and you can't drive 5 minutes without passing a little strip mall of some sort. Bridge street seems to be a popular place to shop/eat dinner on a night out, and downtown has plenty of great bars and restaurants too.

Huntsville is having some growing pains because it is a modern boomtown. But overall its a pretty nice place to live.

Yeah if they'd get that northern bypass going it would really help the traffic some I think.

North Huntsville schools are sketchy.

There are magnet schools like AAA - Academy of Arts and Academics, and  ASFL - Academy for Science and Foreign Languages.

Unless you live somewhere upper middle class, like Blossomwood, etc. you're likely going to want to send your kids to private school.

Honestly, from my perspective as a transplant (I'm from B'ham), I think Madison is more promising than Huntsville. I'd hate to try to get established in H'ville nowadays.

The H'ville real estate situation is insane. I have a realtor friend that says inventory is extremely low. I just heard that the rental market in H'ville is at 97% capacity. Heres a link to back that up: Hville hottest rental market

I know nothing of S. Tenn. It may be a good option aside from the drive. But the drive from Madison, depending on where you're headed, can be really really bad as well. Problem is, IMHO, is the infrastructure isnt up to speed with the influx.

Shopping isnt an issue, but as a fat guy I can tell you the restaurant situation is bleak. I'm familiar with places like Atlanta that have literally any genre of food you can think of and really good places to get it. You're choices in H'ville are basically Mexican, Mexican, Mexican, Chinese, Asian (Chinese), Mexican and a couple ok Italian restaurants. Yes there are outliers like Mangos (carribean food), Dolce Pan (cuban), but for the most part there'll be a Mexican place within 5 miles of where ever you live.

YMMV

[edit] couple good German places. because Hville was once populated with German rocket scientists and whatnot [/edit]

We moved to Madison a couple of years ago from TN.  Pretty nice place.  House prices are skyrocketing and many are selling within a day for over list price.  Madison city schools are the best public schools in the area and both James Clemens Bob Jones high schools rank in the top 5 or so in the state.  

There’s a few ranges to shoot USPSA.   The place that did 3 gun lost the MD, and I haven’t been able to find anyone else running then.  

Pretty nice overall.   If I didn’t have school age kids I would look a little further out, like north Harvest.

It's crazy all over this area. Got a BPO on my house that I bought 2 /12 years ago in the Limestone county part of Harvest and we picked up $80,000 in equity. And they didn't even take the improvements we made into consideration. A shitty house nearby that gets a pond in the front yard every time it rains lasted a whopping two days on the market. And my understanding is that Madison is even worse because the schools are so good.

Thanks! I take it the North Side is the wrong side of the tracks to be on for reasons.



Any ranges that go way out distance wise around?



Similar here in VA, people buying cash way over asking price before the damn things hit the market.

HUGE understatement!!!

What round for north Huntsville?

Unless you know somebody with land you have to drive a ways to shoot long-distance.  1-2 hour drive to get to 1k yards depending on where you live.

Circumference. Go around.

From short to long:

100 yards:  Swan Creek (Athens/Tanner), Wren/Hurricane Creek (Bankhead NF)
200 yards:  Skyline (Skyline north Jackson county), Blue and Gray (Guntersville Dam)
1000 yards:  Arnold Air Force Base (Tullahoma, TN)
CMP range:  CMP (Anniston); don't know the range

There's a private range off of Hobbs Island Road (south Hsv), but I don't recall the name nor how long it's range is.

Hobbs Island Shooting Range

Website is under development, I hope.

CMP is 600 yards I believe.

Been living in this area 20 years now.  

Better schools are Madison County schools.  Check state school rankings.

Real estate is insane right now.  A house that cost $126K on a 1/3 acre plot in 2000, is on the market for $220K.

Lots of changes happening, new entertainment springing up around the TopGolfg.  Huntsville itself is fairly old.

Lots of good solid employment here and in the area.

Madison is great! I just moved to the area for school and the housing situation is a mess.  I got lucky and landed a great apartment.  I also have 2 jobs now but I've met a bunch of folks.  I got a job in Florence and one in Huntsville so let's see how this goes!

Unless something has changed recently Arnold AFB is not open to the public except during organized matches.  
Various clubs organize matches of assorted formats there.  

Strategic Edge is 1200yds.  Membership only and 1.5 hour drive from North Parkway.
CMP range is 600yds and 2 or more hour drive.  
K&M is 1000(more?)yds and can be a 3 hour drive.  

Again, unless you have or know somebody with land there is no nearby place to shoot long distance.

Thanks for all the reply’s thus far.

Crap!  How did I forget about SE???

Everything I know about Arnold I got from the Blue and Grey High Power page i.e. High Power Match Schedules.  

There is also the Elk River Training Center outside of Pelham TN, NW of Monteagle.  It goes out to 1000 yards.


https://www.elkrivertrainingcenter.com/

There's another range in TN:  Dead Zero Range, Spencer TN.  About a 2 hour drive +/- from Huntsville.  Another CMP/NRA High Power type range going out to 1000 yards.

https://deadzeroshooting.com/

It is pretty sweet!