5 Reasons to Visit® · United States
How Chattanooga Became the City Everyone’s Moving To
A faded railroad town on a bend of the Tennessee River reinvented itself into one of the most coveted addresses in the American South — fast internet, faster rivers, and a downtown that finally came back to life.
By 5 Reasons to Visit® Editors · Chattanooga, Tennessee · Updated for 2026 · 7 min read
Not so long ago, Chattanooga was a cautionary tale. In 1969, a federal report named it the most air-polluted city in America — a soot-choked rail and manufacturing hub where the mountains that ring the valley sometimes vanished behind the smog. The factories thinned out, the downtown emptied after five o’clock, and for a generation the city on the great bend of the Tennessee River was a place people left. What has happened since is one of the more improbable comeback stories in the country, and it explains why Chattanooga now turns up on every “best places to move” list in America…