Relocation

Greater Cincinnati makes up eight counties in three states, but the suburbs keep expanding farther away from the center of the city.

New neighborhoods are being created yearly and the housing boom just never seems to stop. The four counties in Ohio (Hamilton, Warren, Butler, and Clermont), three counties in Kentucky (Boone, Campbell, and Kenton), and Dearborn County in Indiana have all seen a lot of new home construction. All green spaces in communities are being filled with new subdivisions and the farmland in outlying counties is quickly being converted into suburbs as well.

Hamilton County Regional Planning Commission said that the metropolitan area had 2.1 million people in 2006; that’s a 13 percent increase from 2000, when the population was 1.85 million.

Most of that growth is in the suburbs. Hamilton County had a decrease between the year 2000 and 2006. But Butler, Clermont, and Warren Counties are expected to have more than a 10 percent increase in population between 2000 and 2010. And the growth is even higher in Northern Kentucky’s Boone County, which is estimated to grow by 16.5 percent between 2000 and 2010. Campbell and Kenton Counties will have a more modest growth with 1.3 percent and 4.6 percent, respectively.

There are some areas of Greater Cincinnati that are expected to experience a decrease in population growth—mostly the urban areas in the central part of the city and Covington and Newport.

One reason for the expected overall population increase is that people are discovering Greater Cincinnati is a good place to raise a family, especially compared to other large cities. That’s one reason Places Rated Almanac ranked Greater Cincinnati as America’s Most Livable City in 1993, and one reason why in 2004 the Greater Cincinnati region was named one of the “Most Livable” cities (population 300,000-plus) in the United States by the national, nonprofit organization Partners for Livable Communities. Some of the communities also received praise. The suburb of Blue Ash was listed in 50 Fabulous Places to Raise a Family in 1993 and 1996. It’s why so many sports figures who come to play for the Reds or Bengals end up staying here, even though their careers take them to other cities during playing season.

And it’s cheaper. The median price of existing homes in Greater Cincinnati is $140,800 compared to $172,000 in Atlanta and $224,200 in Raleigh/Durham, North Carolina. Cincinnati also is below the national median price of homes, which is $217,800.

Greater Cincinnati offers house styles from ultracontemporary to historic and a wide range of neighborhood types. Some river communities have hardly changed since the days of paddle wheelers. Some neighborhoods are like their own small towns. There are golf course communities and enclaves of Victorian and antebellum homes on streets with gas lamps. But best of all, even the most distant suburbs are only 25 minutes from downtown, allowing residents to be near the city but still live in a very rural setting. And none of the neighborhoods are far from community or county parks, churches, or shopping.

Greater Cincinnati also has a wide variety of schools from which to choose, with 50 public school districts and more than 250 private schools. There are schools that place a heavy emphasis on religion and those that place a heavy emphasis on the arts. There are preparatory schools that require students to take Latin, while others have strong vocational programs. There are schools for the deaf and schools for the learning disabled. Wherever you live in Greater Cincinnati, you won’t be far from a school that meets your child’s needs. See the Schools and Child Care chapter for more information.

The most important thing to know if you’re looking for a home in Greater Cincinnati is that the East Side and the West Side (Vine Street is the dividing point) are as polar-opposite communities as any one city could have. The West Side is the working-class side, with lunch buckets, bowling balls, old homes handed down for generations, and people who drink beer and grill burgers on the back porch while listening to the Reds on the radio, where everyone went to school with each other and where there’s a church and/or bar on just about every street corner. The East Side is the suit-and-tie side, with art galleries and upscale shopping centers, where people drink imported beers on the back deck of their new and expensive homes and where they can afford Bengals tickets and BMWs. People joke about the differences between the two sides of town, but we’re all really just one big happy family. Sort of.

A real estate agent should be able to help you find what you are looking for. Many agencies in Greater Cincinnati have computerized listings of all the homes for sale in the area.

If you want to get a head start finding a home, check the homes section in the Cincinnati Enquirer or one of the local real estate magazines or TV shows. Many families like to first find an area they would feel comfortable in and then search for a home within that area. The Greater Cincinnati Relocation Services, (513) 271-4900, www.gcrsi.com, provides fully furnished apartments for a day, week, or month in Cincinnati, Northern Kentucky, and Dayton if you want to take your time looking. (Also see the Hotels and Motels chapter for furnished apartments and extended-stay options.) See the Senior Services chapter for retirement communities.

Although we couldn’t possibly mention all the multitudes of communities that make up Greater Cincinnati—some communities, such as O’Bryonville, in fact, aren’t even recognized by city officials—we’ve tried to give a brief description of most of the larger communities in the area. The Greater Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky maps in the front of this book will help you locate some of these communities.