Knoxville, Tennessee, United States

🇺🇸 Knoxville is a city in and the county seat of Knox County in the U.S. state of Tennessee. It is the largest city in the East Tennessee Grand Division and the state's third largest city after Nashville and Memphis. Knoxville is the principal city of the Knoxville Metropolitan Statistical Area.

First settled in 1786, Knoxville was the first capital of Tennessee. The city struggled with geographic isolation throughout the early 19th century. The arrival of the railroad in 1855 led to an economic boom. The city was bitterly divided over the secession issue during the American Civil War and was occupied alternately by Confederate and Union armies, culminating in the Battle of Fort Sanders in 1863. Following the war, Knoxville grew rapidly as a major wholesaling and manufacturing centre. The city's economy stagnated after the 1920s as the manufacturing sector collapsed, the downtown area declined and city leaders became entrenched in highly partisan political fights. Hosting the 1982 World's Fair helped reinvigorate the city, and revitalisation initiatives by city leaders and private developers have had major successes in spurring growth in the city, especially the downtown area.

Knoxville is the home of the flagship campus of the University of Tennessee, whose sports teams, the Tennessee Volunteers, are popular in the surrounding area. Knoxville is also home to the headquarters of the Tennessee Valley Authority, the Tennessee Supreme Court's courthouse for East Tennessee, and the corporate headquarters of several national and regional companies. As one of the largest cities in the Appalachian region, Knoxville has positioned itself in recent years as a repository of Appalachian culture and is one of the gateways to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

Economy After the arrival of the railroads in the 1850s, Knoxville grew to become a major wholesaling and manufacturing center. Following the collapse of the city's textile industry in the 1950s, Knoxville's economy grew more diversified. In 2011, 15.9% of the Knoxville Metropolitan Statistical Area's (MSA) work force was employed by government entities, while 14.1% were employed in the professional service sector, 14% worked in education or health care, 12.7% were employed in the retail sector, 10.5% worked in leisure and hospitality, and 8.9% worked in the manufacturing sector.[07] The region had an unemployment rate of 7.9% in 2011.[07]

In the 2010 ACCRA Cost of Living Index, Knoxville was rated 89.6 (the national average was 100).[07] Kiplinger ranked Knoxville at No. 5 in its list of Best Value Cities 2011 citing "college sports, the Smoky Mountains and an entrepreneurial spirit".[08] In April 2008, Forbes magazine named Knoxville among the Top 10 Metropolitan Hotspots in the United States,[09] and within Forbes's Top 5 for Business & Careers, just behind cities like New York and Los Angeles.

In 2007, there were over 19,000 registered businesses in Knoxville.[01] The city's businesses are served by the 2,100-member Knoxville Area Chamber Partnership.[07] The Knoxville Chamber is one of six partners in the Knoxville-Oak Ridge Innovation Valley, which promotes economic development in Knox and surrounding counties.

Major corporations The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), the nation's largest public power provider, is a federally owned corporation headquartered in Knoxville. TVA reported $10.5 billion in revenue in 2021 and employs over 12,000 region-wide.

The largest company based in Knoxville is privately held Pilot Flying J, the nation's largest truck stop chain and sixth largest private company, which reported over $29.23 billion in revenue in 2012. Knoxville is also home to the nation's fourth largest wholesale grocer, The H. T. Hackney Company, which reported $3.8 billion in revenue in 2012, and one of the nation's largest digital-centric advertising firms, Tombras Group, which reported $80 million in revenue in 2011. Other notable privately held companies based in the city include Bush Brothers, Sea Ray (and its parent company, Brunswick Boat Group), Thermocopy, Petro's Chili & Chips, EdFinancial, 21st Mortgage and AC Entertainment. Also based in Knoxville are movie theater chain Regal Cinemas, major operations of Discovery, Inc. (which acquired Scripps Networks Interactive), and health care-staffing firm TeamHealth. Major companies located within the Knoxville MSA include Clayton Homes and Ruby Tuesday (both in Maryville), and DeRoyal and Weigel's (both in Powell).

Real estate As of 2011, the median price for a home in the Knoxville MSA was $140,900, compared with $173,300 nationally.[07] The average apartment rental was $658 per month.[07] In March 2009, CNN ranked Knoxville as the 59th city in the top 100 US metro areas in terms of real estate price depreciation. The Knoxville area is home to 596 office buildings which contain over 21 million square feet of office space.[07] As of 2010, the average rental rate per square foot was $14.79.[07] The city's largest office building in terms of office space is the City-County Building, which has over 537,000 square feet of office space. The First Tennessee Plaza and the Riverview Tower were the largest privately owned office buildings, with 469,672 square feet and 367,000 square feet, respectively.

Knoxville's largest industrial park is the 1,460-acre (590 ha) Forks of the River Industrial Park in south-eastern Knoxville. Other major industrial and business parks include the 800-acre (320 ha) EastBridge Industrial Park and Midway Business Park in eastern Knox County and the 271-acre (110 ha) WestBridge Industrial Park in western Knox County.

Finance The largest bank operating in Knoxville in terms of local deposits is Memphis-based First Tennessee, with $2.6 billion in local deposits, representing about 16% of Knoxville's banking market. It is followed by Charlotte-based Truist Financial ($2.5 billion), Birmingham-based Regions Bank ($1.9 billion), and locally headquartered Home Federal Bank of Tennessee ($1.6 billion). Other banks with significant operations in the city include Bank of America, First Bank (based in Lexington, Tennessee), and locally owned Clayton Bank and Trust. Major brokerage firms with offices in Knoxville include Edward Jones, Morgan Stanley Smith Barney, Wells Fargo, and Merrill Lynch. As of 2011, Knox County's largest mortgage lender (by dollar volume) was Wells Fargo with over $300 million (13% of the local market), followed by Mortgage Investors Group, SunTrust, Regions, and Home Federal. Knoxville's largest accounting firm as of 2012 is Pershing Yoakley & Associates, with 49 local CPAs, followed by Coulter & Justus (44), and Pugh CPA's(43).

Manufacturing Over 700 manufacturing establishments are scattered throughout the Knoxville area.[07] Sea Ray Boats is the city's largest manufacturer, employing 760 at its south-east Knoxville complex in 2009. The city is home to several automobile parts operations, including ARC Automotive (air bag actuators) and a Key Safety Systems plant (seat belts and other restraints). Other major manufacturing operations include a Melaleaca plant (personal care products), a Coca-Cola bottling plant, and a Gerdau Ameristeel plant that produces steel rebar. Aircraft manufacturer Cirrus also has its main customer delivery centre based in Knoxville, that deals with aircraft maintenance & repair, flight training, and design personalization. Major manufacturing operations in the Knoxville MSA are conducted at the Y-12 plant in Oak Ridge, the DENSO plant and the Clayton Homes manufacturing centre (both in Maryville), and the ALCOA plants in Alcoa.

Retail The Knoxville area is home to 182 shopping centres and factory outlets, and over 2,400 retail establishments.[07] One regional mall (West Town Mall) is located within the city, and two others (Foothills Mall in Maryville and Oak Ridge City Center in Oak Ridge) are located within the Knoxville MSA. Knoxville retailers reported $6.47 billion in sales in 2007, with just over $35,000 of retail sales per capita.[01] Knoxville's primary retail corridor is located along Kingston Pike in West Knoxville. This area is home to West Town Mall, the 358-acre Turkey Creek complex (half is in Knoxville and half is Farragut), and over 30 shopping centers. Downtown Knoxville contains a number of specialty shops, clubs, and dining areas, mostly concentrated in the Old City, Market Square, and along Gay Street. Other significant retail areas are located along Cumberland Avenue on the U.T. campus (mostly restaurants), Broadway in the vicinity of Fountain City, and Chapman Highway in South Knoxville.

Technology and research The University of Tennessee is classified by the Carnegie Commission as a university with "very high research activity", conducting more than $300 million in externally funded research annually. U.T.-connected research centres with multimillion-dollar National Science Foundation grants include the Appalachian Collaborative Center for Learning, Assessment and Instruction in Mathematics, the National Institute for Computational Sciences, the National Institute for Mathematical and Biological Synthesis, and the Center for Ultra-wide-area Resilient Electric Energy Transmission Networks (CURENT). U.T. and the nearby Oak Ridge National Laboratory jointly conduct numerous research projects and co-manage the National Transportation Research Center.

The Tennessee Technology Corridor stretches across 7,000 acres (2,800 ha) between West Knoxville and Oak Ridge. The Corridor is home to 13 research and development firms employing nearly 2,000.