Compare Louisville to Covington for me please (Frankfort, Newport: apartments, hotels)

[Topo]

Would like opinions on the differences between Louisville and Covington!!! .

The people, the housing, the general feel of a riverfront city, with an eclectic downtown.

I am assuming the since Covington is farther north the weather is rougher, what else?

Thanks.

[rnc76]

Originally Posted by Topo

Would like opinions on the differences between Louisville and Covington!!! .

The people, the housing, the general feel of a riverfront city, with an eclectic downtown.

I am assuming the since Covington is farther north the weather is rougher, what else?

Thanks.

It is hard to compare Covington to Louisville because Louisville is a city of about 700,000, whereas Covington is an urban suburb across the river from Cincinnati. Covington is about 45,000 people, and part of the NKY area which includes about 400,000 people. A more apt comparison would be all of NKY compared to Louisville or Cincinnati metro compared to Louisville metro.

The weather is essentially the same. Covington is only about 90 miles to the Northeast of Louisville.

[nlschr0]

Covington is basically an extension of downtown Cincinnati, just across the river. Mostly high-rise hotels, apartments, etc along the riverfront, and then "downtown" area of Covington. The city is mostly older, with a variety of historic buildings and urban parks, some good restaurants and bars/pubs/music venues, and several working class and ethnic neighborhoods. The schools aren't great, and most families that are able will choose outlying areas like Ft Mitchell for their homes. When talking about Covington you're talking about one small part of the greater Cincinnati area, which is a bigger city with more offerings than Louisville.

Louisville is an entire city itself, ranging from the urban downtown to historic inner-ring suburbs to outlying sprawl. Your experience with Louisville will vary a lot depending on your interests and where in the city you live. There are a lot of threads on here that talk about Louisville, if you want to browse and get a better idea of it.

Weather isn't really that different between the two, and both are influenced by their location on the river.

If you give us some feedback about your needs and interests, I'm sure you can get some good information about whether Covington or a specific area of Louisville will be better suited for you.

[Peter1948]

Originally Posted by nlschr0

Covington is basically an extension of downtown Cincinnati, just across the river. Mostly high-rise hotels, apartments, etc along the riverfront, and then "downtown" area of Covington. The city is mostly older, with a variety of historic buildings and urban parks, some good restaurants and bars/pubs/music venues, and several working class and ethnic neighborhoods. The schools aren't great, and most families that are able will choose outlying areas like Ft Mitchell for their homes. When talking about Covington you're talking about one small part of the greater Cincinnati area, which is a bigger city with more offerings than Louisville.

Louisville is an entire city itself, ranging from the urban downtown to historic inner-ring suburbs to outlying sprawl. Your experience with Louisville will vary a lot depending on your interests and where in the city you live. There are a lot of threads on here that talk about Louisville, if you want to browse and get a better idea of it.

Weather isn't really that different between the two, and both are influenced by their location on the river.

If you give us some feedback about your needs and interests, I'm sure you can get some good information about whether Covington or a specific area of Louisville will be better suited for you.

The comparison here should be between Louisville metro and Cincinnati metro. Covington is very much an extension of downtown Cincinnati, and in many ways it is more vibrant than downtown Cincy when taken as a whole and combined with Newport, etc (at least from an entertainment perspective). Cincy is a good clip bigger than Louisville. Louiville is 1.3 million metro compared to 2 million for Cincinnati. That said, the two cities offer many of the same amenities arts and restaurants wise. They even have neighborhoods with similar urban vibes, and both are small enough where you may see someone you recogize at the mall, a ball game, or just about anywhere you go. However, Cincinnati has a lot more upscale shopping places, more jobs, and obviously pro sports. Cincy also has alot more traffic, sprawl, and crime.

Like many older cities, Cincy and Louisville are experiencing an urban renaissance. At this point, Louisville is doing a much better job with its downtown, and it currently has the more active downtown at night with the exception of shopping. Cincinnati has some nice shopping downtown: Saks, Macys, even Brooks Brothers. The problem is that it closes early and there are a lot more "sketch" people on the street in downtown Cincy after dark. Also, since Cincy was historically much bigger, there is more of downtown to "clean up" than there is in Louisville.

Both are great cities. In many ways, they are similar, and in some regards Louisville is sort of like a slightly younger brother to Cincy, albeit one that is growing faster.

[Topo]

Thank you for the all the comparisons so far, I am an older single and prefer spending my days at privately owned cafes/bookstores and parks. Also like to spend my afternoons browsing an eclectic array of boutiques along a riverfront. My main interest and hobby currently is bicycling, and looking for either a flat city, for ease of bicycling or an area with many parks, and greenway systems set up......If I can roll out into the countryside, from either of these places that would also be the cats meow for long distance cycling........! Not really into the mtn biking aspect at this time!

[rnc76]

Originally Posted by Topo

Thank you for the all the comparisons so far, I am an older single and prefer spending my days at privately owned cafes/bookstores and parks. Also like to spend my afternoons browsing an eclectic array of boutiques along a riverfront. My main interest and hobby currently is bicycling, and looking for either a flat city, for ease of bicycling or an area with many parks, and greenway systems set up......If I can roll out into the countryside, from either of these places that would also be the cats meow for long distance cycling........! Not really into the mtn biking aspect at this time!

The east side of Louisville sounds like what you are looking for. You can bike around St. Matthews, Frankfort Ave, Clifton areas very easy and get to lots of boutique shops, coffee shops, book stores... From there, you can wander into Cherokee Park which is a very beautiful wooded park with a bike path (I believe). Once you know the back roads, you could probably easily wander over to Old Louisville and the Highlands/Bardstown Road areas too, which is really eclectic with many more botiques, bars and restaurants. Also, there is a long paved bike path that follows the Ohio River going Northeast out of Louisville, it parallels River Road, which is very scenic and flat since it is following the river bank.

In the Covington/NKY area, steep hills start very quickly as you go away from the river. Which is great for views but not so great on a bike.