Some info on various towns (Lexington, Louisville: low crime, hotel, house)

[TrueIsraelite]

I have narrowed my search down to 3 states and need help lowering the amount of towns in each state. So yall help me ok? Give me the bad and good of each town please. I want something near mountains,within 30 minutes of some other shopping besides wal mart! A must is withing a 1 hour drive of a Sam's or a Costco's. Would love somewhere that homeschooling and guns are not out of place either now here are my choices.

Hillview
Leitchfield
Mount Washington
Corbin
Ashland
Prestonsburg
Louisa
Russell
Stanton
Williamstown

[TrueIsraelite]

Anyone? Come on the people in the other state threads I have asked were very helpful. I need to narrow down this list to a manageable list of towns to look at.

[rbryant]

Originally Posted by TrueIsraelite

I have narrowed my search down to 3 states and need help lowering the amount of towns in each state. So yall help me ok? Give me the bad and good of each town please. I want something near mountains,within 30 minutes of some other shopping besides wal mart! A must is withing a 1 hour drive of a Sam's or a Costco's. Would love somewhere that homeschooling and guns are not out of place either now here are my choices.

Hillview
Leitchfield
Mount Washington
Corbin
Ashland
Prestonsburg
Louisa
Russell
Stanton
Williamstown

Hillview and Mt Washington are in the far southern suburbs of Louisville. However, neither are near any mountains, other than some low lying knobs in Jefferson county. Prestonsburg and Stanton are nowhere near any major city, Stanton is about an hour or more to Lexington. Prestonsburg even further. Leitchfield, no mountains, and about an 1-1.5 drive to Louisville. My vote would be Corbin. Homeschooling and gun rights are held high there. Your about 2 hours or so from the Great Smoky Mountains and 45 minutes or so to Pine/Cumberland Mountains in nearby Pineville and Middlesboro. If you decide on public schools, Corbin has a very good school district. The nearest major shopping is Lexington or Knoxville. Both are equal distances to corbin (80 miles or so). However, there is a decent shopping center on the north side of Corbin with a JCPenneys and Belks. Of course there is the usual Wal Mart, but both Corbin and London have a Lowe's store.

[TrueIsraelite]

Thank you that helped knock 3 towns off. Being near a big town I guess I can deal with as long as there is some shopping there.

[InLondon]

Corbin = Excellent School District (Corbin Independent Schools)

[TrueIsraelite]

Well we are home schooler's so schools don't concern me.

[Freelander]

Originally Posted by TrueIsraelite

I have narrowed my search down to 3 states and need help lowering the amount of towns in each state. So yall help me ok? Give me the bad and good of each town please. I want something near mountains,within 30 minutes of some other shopping besides wal mart! A must is withing a 1 hour drive of a Sam's or a Costco's. Would love somewhere that homeschooling and guns are not out of place either now here are my choices.

Hillview
Leitchfield
Mount Washington
Corbin
Ashland
Prestonsburg
Louisa
Russell
Stanton
Williamstown

The only one I can really comment on is Leitchfield, because I live there. (Well about 3 minutes from it.) It's not mountainous, but very hilly. It's around 30 minutes to the nearest decent mall, which is in Elizabethtown, and about 1 hour from Louisville. I know several homeschooled students from here and nearly everyone has a gun

I know that doesn't fit your criteria too well (especially with mountains and shopping), but I must stick up for Leitchfield to say it's a pretty decent place to live. Slow paced, but packed with friendly people. Very low crime rates, several Elementary schools (even some private ones), and overall a good, albeit slightly boring place to live. (When we're bored we just head to E-Town)

[TrueIsraelite]

Anyone else have any information to give me? I am more than willing to listen.

[johnsonkk]

Originally Posted by TrueIsraelite

I have narrowed my search down to 3 states and need help lowering the amount of towns in each state. So yall help me ok? Give me the bad and good of each town please. I want something near mountains,within 30 minutes of some other shopping besides wal mart! A must is withing a 1 hour drive of a Sam's or a Costco's. Would love somewhere that homeschooling and guns are not out of place either now here are my choices.

Hillview
Leitchfield
Mount Washington
Corbin
Ashland
Prestonsburg
Louisa
Russell
Stanton
Williamstown

I don't know how you streamlined these cities vs. the hundreds more. I see you wrote to Tennessee as a potential destination too. Most if not all these cities have either wikipedia pages or are listed in here (city-data) and provide enough to pique your interest. What about West Virginia? Serious mountains there, lots of areas within an hour of shopping and still being remote in a lot of areas. Most of the towns you listed don't compare (with the mountains) near Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg.

[EclecticEars]

Originally Posted by TrueIsraelite

I have narrowed my search down to 3 states and need help lowering the amount of towns in each state. So yall help me ok? Give me the bad and good of each town please. I want something near mountains,within 30 minutes of some other shopping besides wal mart! A must is withing a 1 hour drive of a Sam's or a Costco's. Would love somewhere that homeschooling and guns are not out of place either now here are my choices.

Hillview Within 10 minutes of Sam's, 30 minutes of Costco. A southern suburb of Louisville in Bullitt County, a rather traditionally blue-collar suburban county where guns are not an issue whatsoever. A decent stock of 1960s- and 1970s-eras homes, but nothing even remotely remarkable can be said about Hillview.

Leitchfield They have a decent courthouse square and a relatively new super Walmart, but the rest of the town is very dumpy. It is 30 minutes from Elizabethtown, a much nicer town that does have a Sam's Club and is basically a small city. I've quite literally been to Leitchfield hundreds of times and not once have I caught myself saying or thinking, "Gee, what a nice town" or "Gee, what a clean place."

Mount Washington In eastern Bullitt County and not near mountains but instead knobs, which are basically like large ridges or mini-mountains that surround the low river plains of Louisville. A nice, clean town that is not very progressive in its economic growth policies but that has kept crime low, traffic fairly manageable and the atmosphere rural. You're close to Taylorsville Lake, Bernheim Forest and Fort Knox for good day trips and only ten minutes from Louisville.

Corbin DUMP!!! I used to date a girl from there. There seriously is a road there that roughly follows a creek that...well, both the creek and road until the 1980s were named after a horrible racial slur. True story, her parents told be about it. Plus the people aren't particularly friendly there. Nowhere close to Sam's or Costco.

Ashland I don't know much about Ashland except that it's near Portsmouth, OH and Huntington, WV, two cities in rapid decline and with increasing drug trade problems. I'd skip Ashland, although I hear that they have this nicely refurbished 1920s-era performing arts center and the Ashland Plaza Hotel. It's been 15 years since I've been to Ashland but I don't remember anything remarkable about it. I think Huntington has a Sam's; if not, I'd be surprised.

Prestonsburg The ONLY place I've ever been to anywhere in the United States where people gave me strange looks b/c, apparently, they could tell that "I wasn't from there." Plus, Speaker of the House Greg Stumbo is from there, which says A LOT, and not in a good way. Nowhere close to Sam's or Costco.

Louisa Read Ashland. This is a small bedroom community about 30 miles south of Ashland. At least they have Yatesville Lake.

Russell Read Ashland and Louisa. This is a small bedroom community about 10 miles north of Ashland. At least they have one of Kentucky's best public school systems and are close to Greenbo Lake.

Stanton More dumpy than Corbin... Let's just say that Powell County has a "reputation" and leave it there. There is at least a Sam's about 35 minutes away in Lexington.

Williamstown Actually, I haven't been to W'town, but I have been to other Grant County towns such as Dry Ridge and Crittenden. There's not a whole lot going on in Grant County except that the county just had its pants sued off because some jailers allowed and watched an 18-year-old inmate being raped by other jailmates. This was all over Cincinnati news in early 2009. Doesn't law enforcement in this county just make you feel safe already? I guess Grant Co. is a good option if you enjoy the easy proximity to Cincinnati, Lexington and Frankfort, and there are several Sam's and Costco stores in the Cincinnati/Northern KY region and one Sam's in Lexington.

My responses in red above.

My top pick among all these towns: Mount Washington. I'm a Kentucky native--8th-generation, in fact--and I've lived and traveled this state enough to know that I wouldn't dare consider any of these other towns. It's a good thing that you don't want to place your kids in Kentucky's public schools b/c, sweety, you just don't want to (the exception on this list is Russell.)