Your post is a bit like old home week. I had an off-grid homestead above the Sequatchie Valley west of you... back in the late 70's and 80's. Chattanooga was the center of things generally for me. I kinda wish I had never left.
As far as big cities go, Chattanooga isn’t bad. It isn’t a Memphis, Chicago, or even close to that. There are certain parts of town that you stay out of. My grandparents lived there and I stayed with them a lot so I learned my way around but my grandmother always told me to stay out of certain parts, even back in the 70’s. I’m not familiar with those parts and don’t know my way around in them. When I briefly worked there, my job was on 9th Street that is now called Martin Luther King BLVD, so you get the idea. It was one of the parts I knew about but was told to stay away from as a teenager.
There was a lot of Chattanooga that I loved. There are times that it’s necessary to go there. If you want a really good doctor (specialist) you go to Chattanooga or Knoxville, not one of the small rural towns like mine.