Top Cities in Kentucky

Alan Woods

10,413 views

Kentucky at a glance
Living in Kentucky is like living in four or five different states. According to an old joke, Kentucky was built on the three big sins of tobacco, bourbon and horse racing. Though bourbon and horse racing are still big money makers in the state, there is a lot more to living in Kentucky. Kentucky is one of the smaller states in the country, but it is nearly 400 miles from east to west. Therefore, what it means to be a Kentuckian will depend on whom you ask and where you are at the moment.

For cosmopolitan tastes, Louisville boasts restaurants and eateries to match nearly any city in America. Kentuckians do not always agree if the state is southern, northern or somewhere in between, but Lexington offers a dose of small-city, southern sensibility in both its attitude and style. There is the suburban atmosphere of northern Kentucky, which is part of the Cincinnati area. At the other end of the spectrum, small mountains, forests and waterways comprise the Cumberland Plateau in the eastern part edge of the state, while rolling hills, lakes and caves make up much of the Pennyrile and Jackson Purchase regions in the west.

Top Cities in Kentucky

Why you’ll love living in Kentucky
One of the best parts of living in Kentucky is the relatively low home prices. Taking the state as a whole, the median sales price is about $137,000, and $68 per square foot. Compare that to the national median sales price at $206,500 at the end of 2015. Prices vary by area, but the median sales price in Louisville has hovered around the $155,000 mark. Lexington has risen a lot in the past year, and is now around $210,000. In Kenton County, home to many popular communities just across the Ohio River from Cincinnati, the median price is around $168,000.

Kentucky is not yet the new Detroit, but the automotive industry employs about 85,000 workers in the state, which includes Ford (two plants in Louisville), Toyota (in Georgetown near Lexington) and General Motors (The Corvette plant in Bowling Green). Other industries with large employment in the state include transportation, healthcare and the restaurant industry. YUM! Brands, which is the parent company for Pizza Hut, Taco Bell, KFC and others, is headquartered in Louisville. So is Papa Johns. Other major Louisville employers are Fortune 100 company Humana, UPS, and GE appliances. Amazon is also a big jobs producer with four fulfillment centers throughout the state.

Another larger employer is higher education, so here is a quick tip about living in Kentucky: Basketball is big. The natives root for the University of Louisville or the University of Kentucky. Sometimes both. Root for whomever you want, or neither. If you want to fit in, however, refer to the schools as “U of L” and “UK.” Never “UL” or U of K.”