I am finally beginning to feel like Columbia is my place of residence. It takes a few months of spending time in a place to really get a feel for it. I was reflecting on the places I have lived or spent significant enough time to have a modest opinion of will follow with some of my thoughts on each of these. I invite our readers who have their own opinions of any of these places to put in their 2 cents. I know some of you still live or frequent these places which I haven't so much lately.
Beaver Dam-- This is my baseline for all comparison. It is a small town and realize that it has all of the pros and cons associated with that. Traffic is minimal; gossip is maximal. Everything else is in between. Of the places I have lived it is the most middle of the road weather wise. I would be interested to hear the other two writers input on this one.
Bowling Green-- I spent the college years here and it has exploded since then as it did a great deal when I was there. It is a great town, but my take on the traffic is that several roads have been rapidly outgrown by the poplulation growth in certain parts of town. I like the cost of living compared to Lexington and Louisville. I really liked the outdoor opportunities with places to run and play sports. If you are a frisby golfer it's heaven. I forget how many courses there are. Ilike the restaurant selection there with several unique places. I would consider settling down there in the long run. I would love to hear everyone's opinion of BG now. Especially Travis's.
Owensboro-- This is the twin city to Bowling Green and living in Beaver Dam nestles you right in between the two. I used to think of it as a residential town than BG and BG a funner place. I am not that I think BG is a bit of both now. The traffic is ok there much better than BG. Though the restaurants are growing rapidly the mall is 20 years behind. It seems like there is little to do there besides movies. I don't know about the parks and the rec leagues. Bratch and Piccu know more about the Softball and high school sports scene there. Of all the places I would consider living it is definitely put this one under BD and BG. I hope all of you will respond to this one.
Lexington, Ky-- I have a lot of mixed opinions about this place. The cost of living is my big issue. If you could afford to live in certain neighborhoods, it would be an awesome place to live, maybe toward the top of my list. If you can't afford some of those really kickass neighborhoods (which even as a doctor would be highly questionable), then the other places are just ok. There is plenty to do with cool parks and good movie theaters, to include the KY theater. I like this one becasue from time to time it has some interesting things showing. Traffic here really sucks for the size of town. The roads are out grown. For some reason the weather is much worse at times. The rest of KY is warmer most of the year, always less windy. I welcome a lot of opinions on this one esp. Trents.
Columbia,SC--this seems to be pretty good so far. It is bigger than all of the above even the city population doesn't reflect this. There are several places that make up the greater Columbia area. As far as traffic it is much better than Lexington. I would argue that it is even better than BG at rush hour. There is one part of the city to the north west that has several interstates coming together. Traffic is apain there, but other that it is awesome. The malls are awesome. There is a lot to do like parks, concerts in the park, and lots of cool unique restaurants. The weather is hot in the summer with really only an extra few weeks of the extreme heat compared to KY. Allegedly the winters are much better. We'll see about that. I know with certainty if we stay in SC it won't be here though.
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Since Owensboro was Sports Illustrated's top sports city of Kentucky, I'd say you just haven't explored the avenues at which you can play sports. They have some interesting things going on there too.
Bowling Green's problem is that they aren't expanding, they're packing everything in one place and then complain about traffic.
This isn't a problem when you attempt to send some businesses out to other areas.
Lexington and Louisville each cost too much. You can spend the same amount of money to entertain yourself for one night in those places that would last you all weekend here in Beaver Dam.
Ahem, aren't your fogetting somwhere? Like the best city (with the best pizza) on the planet?
Owensboro's dying a slow death. There's just not much compelling about Owensboro (other than Moonlite and Old Hickory.) The fact that it was named best sports city in the state was laughable at best. But that's enough digging on Owensboro. Merlin wanted comments on BG, so here goes.
I obviously love BG. That's why we've bought our home here. A big key for me is the large Christian population here. There is a problem with road congestion mainly along Scottsville Road, but it's not as bad as Frederica. And that is a scientific FACT! (Champ Kind quote.)
BG is working to grow out and most of the new home building is on the outskirts of town. Ask me about BG again when they finish their work on downtown. If they can get some life into downtown the city will be great. Right now that's why I'd give Owensboro the nod over BG. The riverfront area is nice and Owensboro is putting effort into it.
But for every day life, I'd take BG. The restaurant are nice, it's large but not overwhelming, price of living is low (just got a property tax cut this week) and having a 19,000 student university certainly helps. If growth is managed well, BG will be a great Ky city in the future.
I beg to differ about the Owensboro sports town reference Travis.
Owensboro has the most organized youth sports system I've ever seen. Tons of soccer and tons of baseball.
Then you have the parks for softball, soccer and tennis. They bring in huge national tournaments for people to participate in and watch.
How many small cities can say they bring in $12-15 million of economic impact from youth and adult softball and baseball tournaments?
They also have golf and other sports as well. Along with the activities along the river front. It also has at least 4 institutes of high learning(not counting Mr. Jim's School of Cosmetology).
For a dying city, it is growing at an alarming rate. And I don't even like Owensboro.
The only thing that gets me to BG is Best Buy give Owensboro a Best Buy and BG will be dead to me.
That's because you, like most of Ohio County, live under the guise that Bowling Green is hours away. Really, it's not much further than Owensboro.
I'll grant you that Owensboro is a good sports town for a small town, but I'd have to say Lexington is the best sports town. It has UK, which routinely sells out both football and basketball, it has minor league baseball, minor league hockey, indoor league pro football and I'm sure they have the youth sports that Oboro has.
I'll prove to you that BG is growing and Owensboro is at best stagnant. Pure population.
In 1980;
Owensboro 54,450
Bowling Green 40,450
In 1990;
Owensboro 53,577
Bowling Green 40,641
In 2000;
Owensboro 54,067
Bowling Green 49,296
In 2003
Owensboro 54,312
Bowling Green 50,663
In 13 years, Bowling Green grew by 10,213 (25%) and Owensboro lost 138 people net.
I think if you could find the numbers, economic development has grown in Bowling Green at a faster rate as well. So BG has more than a Best Buy up on Owensboro. It also has two (soon to be three) Zaxby's!
Ok, first off I agree with Travis that most Ohio County believes BG is some far away land. It is a noticeable bit further if you are on the Owensboro end of the county or even toward Rockport. But Liberty road to the two should be very, very close to the same. In Bratch's defense, even after driving to BG for 4 years it seems like it takes eons to get there though it is only at most 10minutes extra from my parents house.
I didn't know that about the SI business. On a high school level down I could see Owensboro competing w/ Lexington. It used to blow BG away in that area, but might be a little closer now.
I don't know, but I am surprised to hear you, Travis, say that about the traffic. Campbell Lane is the one I heard was a nightmare.
I wish Kevin would get on here. I would like to hear his take on this. Also, M James, you cock, you have been exposed to all of these places a lot too. Give your opinion.
Oh and one other thing, I freakin' putting your pictures on here because i don't like being the only one whose mug pops up.
First of all you morons, I could give a crap about population. BG isn't miles away, but it does cost your 2 bucks in toll.
And BG had to wait for roughly 2000 years before they got a decent movie theater that didn't seem like a good place to score some smack.
The reason I don't go to BG is because everywhere I want to go is on Scottsville Road or Campbell Lane and unless it's 1 a.m. both are packed up. Frederica has more easy ins and outs for those of us from OC. I realize that you all know the ins and outs, but none of them are all that convenient for those of us who don't live in a residential neighborhood in BG.
See when I go to O'boro or BG, I treat it like a bank robbery. I want to get in and out as quickly as possible. And if I robbed a bank on Scottsville Road, I'd get pinched... Probably within site of the bank... At a light.
So see if you can find some stats on bank robbery in both cities. O'boro gets jacked up like 3 times a year and it's only after about the 4th bank in two weeks that the robbers get caught.
That's right, suck on that.
And Travis, don't be robbing your own bank to pad the stats.
I'm not sure when bank robberies became an indicator of growth, but I'll indulge your point. Since I work at a bank, I can tell you we get 4 or 5 a year as well. I can even tell you which ones are the most likely to get robbed. US Bank on Cave Mill Road got robbed three times last year alone. Not to mention SCB on Fairview which got robbed by the same guy twice in a week. National City also got hit last year that I remember. So that's 6 baby. That's right.
I'll grant you, our theaters were behind. Oh. Wait. Did I say, "theaters." That's right, BG has more than one that's decent now. So despite how long it took (when did the conversation turn to that) BG is better than Owensboro there as well.
In terms of traffic, you're right Jessie, Campbell Lane is pretty bad on the weekends. But I was thinking of the rush hour traffic. S'ville Road toward the interstate is HORRIBLE after 5. Campbell Lane is only bad because it's got Wal Mart, Target, Lowe's and Home Depot all right there. Oh, and Zaxby's.
If bratch would quit treating these cities like "banks" he wants to "rob" and get in and out of, he'd find the better ways to get around.
Pardon me for wanting to stay on the major thoroughfares when I want to get out of a city. That's probably why BG has grown so much in population.
Everyone is trying to figure a better way to get out and just haven't yet. It took them so long that they just bought a house there so they could continue the research.
I personally don't need to be able to get around, in fact no one does that doesn't live there because everything is on Scottsville Road/Campbell lane.
It's sad when you need to try and figure out an alternate way to get out of that area when there is an INTERSTATE 500 yards or closer from anywhere you want to be.
It's all one big tease. You think it's convenient, but it's not. So apparently many people are just saying, screw it I'll just move there to save time.
There is no use to argue, Lexington is the best city in Kentucky and probably the country. Why? Because it is the home of the Wildcats.
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