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View Poll Results: Indy or Louisville?
Indianapolis 23 67.65%
Louisvile 11 32.35%
Voters: 34. You may not vote on this poll

 
 
Old 02-17-2014, 07:51 AM
 
Location: Fishers, IN
4,967 posts, read 6,231,286 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by discardedwolf View Post
Sorry to bump such an old thread to the top of the forum, but figured I'd ask for feedback myself given that it's been almost three years since the last post and things may have changed since then. In the near future I will be moving to either Indianapolis or Louisville and won't have the opportunity to travel to either location and scout them out in advance, so I figured I might as well post here for some outside opinions (and for what it's worth, I'm already leaning towards Indianapolis).

As my wife and I will be coming from El Paso, TX, either city will offer more than we could ever hope for here, as we truly are in the middle of nowhere (takes a 4 hour drive to get to the nearest major cities). While my wife has lived in El Paso her whole life, I've spent the majority of it in Burton, MI, Chillicothe, OH, and Miamisburg, OH and liked all three far more than El Paso (though Chillicothe less than the others due to its small size). So for me, I'm viewing this as more of a return to 'home' and she's coming from the perspective of escape. I've seen some negative comments in this thread and others about suburbs in general, but as that is more or less what I'm accustomed to, that's not really an issue for me. I don't see myself actively seeking out an urban environment.

Preliminary info aside, I suppose one of the things that causes me the most frustration anywhere would stem from traffic, so my first question would be which city has the more palatable traffic situation? Beyond that, as a personal reference point, I would assume winter in Indianapolis is pretty similar to winter in the Dayton area, correct?

As far as what I'm looking for in a city? Well again, coming from El Paso, the drive between Indianapolis and Louisville will seem like nothing compared to what we have to do to get somewhere where we're currently at, so whatever one has that the other doesn't won't really play a huge role. We're generally go with the flow kind of people, so whichever we choose, we'd be looking for somewhere pretty tranquil. We're not really the type to seek out bars or nightlife, so those aren't really considerations either. I'd bring up safety, but I've not heard horrible stories out of either city so I'd have to assume they're both largely safe (though obviously any city has its good areas and bad areas).

From what I've written it doesn't really seem like I have many considerations to sway me one way or the other, I guess. As stated, I am leaning towards Indianapolis already, and that's largely due to Dayton being 2 hours away and Burton just about 4.5 hours away, which puts me closest to my sister and aunts/uncles respectively.

This is my first major move on my own (city-to-city moves previously were with my family), so if there's anything else I should take into consideration, please feel free to enlighten me and help make your case for one of these two cities. Sorry if I've rambled, but hopefully you forum-dwellers can help sway my decision one way or the other.
I honestly can't really compare Indy and Louisville because my only experience with Louisville so far has been just driving through on I-65. Indianapolis as a whole is very suburban. Some people here complain about it. A big factor in why I moved here is because it is a big city with a lot of big city amenities, but it doesn't have the feel of a big city, like say Chicago. Growing up in a smaller town, about 25,000 to 30,000, I like the small town feel. It's also a reason I have no problem living in the suburbs, though my job is also in the suburbs so that was a big incentive.

I would assume weather here in Indy would be similar to Dayton given that it's just a couple hours drive to the east. Louisville, though it's just 2 hours away, can have drastically different weather. They tend to be a bit warmer in the winter even just 2 hours further south.

I know this isn't much info but you seem to know quite a bit already. Also, I can't really talk much about Louisville so I have no opinion on it one way or another. Never heard anything bad about it except traffic if you live in the suburbs on the Indiana side of the Ohio River and have to cross into Louisville itself for work. There are only 2 or 3 bridges across the river.
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Old 02-20-2014, 07:29 PM
 
261 posts, read 415,356 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by indy18 View Post
Indy's metro area is growing leaps and bounds over Louisville's. The Indy metro area is about 500,000 people larger than Louisville. Indy had 14% growth from 00-09 while Louisville just had just 8%. Indy added 200,000 residents in it's metro area while Louisville added just under 100,000.
That's kind of misleading because if I'm not mistaken, If Indy metro is growing by "leaps and bounds", one reason could be that Indianapolis now claims far off places like Anderson, Muncie, New Castle, Columbus and even Greencastle as part of the Indianapolis metro area. It's a long drive thru the country from any edge of the Indianapolis metro area to any of those towns. I wouldn't count them as part of the Indy metro area. I doubt that many people in Muncie work in Indianapolis area. Not enough to make a difference, anyway.

When I lived in Muncie, back before cable, our only connection on a regular basis with Indianapolis was we got the 4 Indianapolis television channels. Channels, 4,6,8 and 13.
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Old 02-21-2014, 02:15 AM
 
1,478 posts, read 2,399,541 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by qwertyasdf View Post
That's kind of misleading because if I'm not mistaken, If Indy metro is growing by "leaps and bounds", one reason could be that Indianapolis now claims far off places like Anderson, Muncie, New Castle, Columbus and even Greencastle as part of the Indianapolis metro area. It's a long drive thru the country from any edge of the Indianapolis metro area to any of those towns. I wouldn't count them as part of the Indy metro area. I doubt that many people in Muncie work in Indianapolis area. Not enough to make a difference, anyway.

When I lived in Muncie, back before cable, our only connection on a regular basis with Indianapolis was we got the 4 Indianapolis television channels. Channels, 4,6,8 and 13.
Muncie, Newcastle, and Columbus are not part of the metro area. The MSA is now Marion+the 8 collar counties + Putnam + Brown + Madison. Using the current boundary definition consistently from 1990 to 2010 to form an "apples to apples" comparison, the metro grew 35.7%. If you just limit this to metros of 1+million in 1990 using current definitions, then there are 43 of them in the US. 22 of them are in the northeast/north central, ie, north of Charlotte+Nashville and east of Denver. Indy grew faster than the other 21 of these metros:

Indy 35.7%, DC 35.4%, Columbus 30.7%, Minneapolis 29.2%, KC 24.4%, Hartford 23.3%, Louisville 21.6%, VA Beach 17.4%, Chicago 15.6%, Cincy 15.5%, Baltimore 13.8%, New York 12.2%, Boston 10.1%, Rochester 10.1%, Philly 9.8%, Milwaukee 8.6%, St. Louis 8.2%, Buffalo 5.2%, Providence 3.4%, Detroit 1.1%, Cleveland -1.1%, Pittsburgh -4.5%.

It's not Sunbelt level growth, but it's not to bad at all. If you put Indianapolis with the 21 1million+metros in 1990 in the higher growth south and western US, they'd rate 13th out of 22, ahead of LA, San Diego, San Francisco, San Jose, Seattle, Miami, Tampa, Memphis, and New Orleans.

Last edited by Chicago76; 02-21-2014 at 02:33 AM..
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Old 02-21-2014, 03:08 AM
 
261 posts, read 415,356 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Chicago76 View Post
Muncie, Newcastle, and Columbus are not part of the metro area.

List of metropolitan areas of the United States - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This list has the Indianapolis-Carmel-Muncie, IN Combined Statistical Area ranked 29th largest, with 2.3 million people. New Castle and Columbus, North Vernon, Greensburg and Seymour are included.
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Old 02-21-2014, 06:55 AM
 
Location: Fishers, IN
6,485 posts, read 12,480,695 times
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MSAs and CSAs are different.
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Old 02-21-2014, 07:31 AM
 
Location: Fishers, IN
4,967 posts, read 6,231,286 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by qwertyasdf View Post
That's kind of misleading because if I'm not mistaken, If Indy metro is growing by "leaps and bounds", one reason could be that Indianapolis now claims far off places like Anderson, Muncie, New Castle, Columbus and even Greencastle as part of the Indianapolis metro area. It's a long drive thru the country from any edge of the Indianapolis metro area to any of those towns. I wouldn't count them as part of the Indy metro area. I doubt that many people in Muncie work in Indianapolis area. Not enough to make a difference, anyway.

When I lived in Muncie, back before cable, our only connection on a regular basis with Indianapolis was we got the 4 Indianapolis television channels. Channels, 4,6,8 and 13.
My best guess for why Indy is growing by "leaps and bounds" is Hamilton County. Hamilton County, which is most definitely in the Indy metro, has grown by at least 30% every decade starting in the 1960s. Between 1990 and 2000 it grew by 67.7% and between 2000 and 2010 it grew by 50.3%. Marion County, meanwhile, grew 7.9% during the 1990s and 5.0% during the 2000s. Hendricks County also had population growths of more than 35% in each of the last two decades. This is part of the reason I think people who trump how amazing Indianapolis is will talk about it being the 13th largest city in the country (only inside the city limits) but when it comes to growth talk about the metro as a whole, not Indianapolis alone. They pick and choose what they think makes it look better. For the record, I love Indy but I know the difference between stats for the city itself and stats for the whole metro.
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Old 02-21-2014, 10:06 AM
 
1,478 posts, read 2,399,541 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by qwertyasdf View Post
List of metropolitan areas of the United States - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This list has the Indianapolis-Carmel-Muncie, IN Combined Statistical Area ranked 29th largest, with 2.3 million people. New Castle and Columbus, North Vernon, Greensburg and Seymour are included.
As has already been mentioned, MSAs and CSAs are different. CSAs are more or less extended economic markets that includes areas outside of the metro.

Current definitions of MSAs are published by the OMB. Page 35 contains the Indy metro.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/defa...13/b-13-01.pdf

Just about everyone's CSA contains really far flung areas outside of metros.

Quote:
Originally Posted by ischyros View Post
My best guess for why Indy is growing by "leaps and bounds" is Hamilton County. Hamilton County, which is most definitely in the Indy metro, has grown by at least 30% every decade starting in the 1960s. Between 1990 and 2000 it grew by 67.7% and between 2000 and 2010 it grew by 50.3%. Marion County, meanwhile, grew 7.9% during the 1990s and 5.0% during the 2000s. Hendricks County also had population growths of more than 35% in each of the last two decades. This is part of the reason I think people who trump how amazing Indianapolis is will talk about it being the 13th largest city in the country (only inside the city limits) but when it comes to growth talk about the metro as a whole, not Indianapolis alone. They pick and choose what they think makes it look better. For the record, I love Indy but I know the difference between stats for the city itself and stats for the whole metro.
City population and rankings makes very little sense as a comparison because the boundaries are entirely political rather than market-based. If NYC split its 5 boroughs into 5 separate cities, it doesn't really change the regional size or the feeling of how big the region is. Same goes for if Indianapolis annexed the entire metro. The most central portion of the metro, where roughly 50% of the people live (Marion Co.) is growing very slowly while the edges are growing more. This pretty much holds true for all of the older metros in the country. In a lot of areas, the inner portion is actually shrinking. Cook County is, but Chicagoland is growing: St. Louis city+county is declining while the rest of the metro grows, etc.

Last edited by Chicago76; 02-21-2014 at 10:15 AM..
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Old 02-21-2014, 10:52 AM
 
Location: Englewood, Near Eastside Indy
8,942 posts, read 17,173,721 times
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And for comparison sake, the Louisville CSA includes Elizabethtown, KY. Downtown E-town to Downtown Louisville is 44 miles. Downtown Columbus to downtown Indianapolis is 46 miles.
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Old 02-24-2014, 11:59 AM
 
Location: Central Indiana/Indy metro area
1,705 posts, read 3,053,623 times
Reputation: 1810
Quote:
Originally Posted by discardedwolf View Post
Sorry to bump such an old thread to the top of the forum, but figured I'd ask for feedback myself given that it's been almost three years since the last post and things may have changed since then. In the near future I will be moving to either Indianapolis or Louisville and won't have the opportunity to travel to either location and scout them out in advance, so I figured I might as well post here for some outside opinions (and for what it's worth, I'm already leaning towards Indianapolis).
I've lived in Indianapolis all my life, and the bulk of my family has as well. I've only driven through Louisville, but have spoken with others who like to visit. There are two things that stand out to me, because they are important to me. One is weather and the other is distance to vast acreage of forested mountains.

It seems that once one gets south of Seymour, IN, or in that area, the winters aren't as harsh as they are in Indy. I was just watching the news last week and saw that Evansville has had much less snow than we have had this brutal winter in Indy. My guess is that Louisville totals are likely similar. Of course a bit warmer climate could mean they got more ice than us, which is worse than snow. This winter is not the norm though and I've read past posts that Louisville usually doesn't really get the snow and very cold temps we get here in Indy.

As for outdoor hiking and scenery, I was told many years ago that KY state parks are better than the IN counterparts. A few places in KY do seem to be more well known than places in Indiana for things like hiking, boating, etc.. The Daniel Boone National Forest is huge in the eastern portion then you have the Land Between the Lakes area in the west. With Louisville, you are just that much closer to the Appalachian Mountains, thus weekend getaways to mountain areas might be a bit easier.

Where Louisville lacks is professional sports. I'm not really a huge sports fan, and I would rather watch them on TV than spend a ton of money to actually go watch a game in person (costly tickets, costly parking, costly food and drinks). What keeps us in Indy is simply jobs, family, and affordability. I don't need all the big city things like museums, professional sports, performing arts, variety of places to eat, high end shopping, etc.. so I could deal with a smaller sized metro closer to the mountains, but for now we will likely stay here for the foreseeable future.
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Old 02-27-2014, 08:39 PM
 
Location: Fort Worth, Texas
4,876 posts, read 4,175,793 times
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If I could vote I would Choose Louisville, Kentucky, because its different and for its Milder Climate year round. I would also say that Louisville has a lot to offer such as six flags Kentucky Kingdom among other things. I would say that my time in Indianapolis has overstayed its welcome and I have considered moving back to Texas. I would move to Louisville Kentucky if I had any Family living there which I don't. I would also say that crime as of 2014 in Indianapolis far surpasses many major cities comparable in size to Indianapolis. Indianapolis is overrated in my opinion, and Louisville is way to Underrated as a City.
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