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90% of Mason has been built in the last 20 years it is mostly strip malls and cookie cutter subdivisions there is a downtown with a bowling alley, Yost pharmacy, a model train store, the Pleasure Inn redneck bar (speak English for service), Lou's pony keg and a trailer park. I would consider Germantown you won't be in the city and is an easy drive to Miamisburg, the Germantown dam conservancy district metro park is awesome, went there last summer and have pictures posted in the Buckeye photo thread. Kids are better off growing up in a small town than in the city...
This rates as one of the most ill-informed pieces of advice to give to an affluent Louisville family seeking relocation midway between Cincinnati and Dayton. To recommend Germantown (a tiny relic of a town located out in metro Dayton's far flung SW quadrant), then follow it up with a plug for blue-collar, red-neck Miamisburg (all the while, bashing Cincinnati's most publicized, envied, and sought after satellite city - Mason)? Simply unreal.
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Haha, no. Cincy is bland and boring, Catholic Church festivals and fish fries make the news there, every Friday and Saturday night there is a long line of cars on the I-471 bridge heading to Newport on the Levee. Other than the Reds and Bengals, Cincy has nothing going for it other than Northside, MPMF, and Bunbury. In my younger days I did my partying in Dayton, the Oregon District was named one of the top 5 entertainment districts in the country. A lot of my old haunts have gone by the wayside over the last 15 years but I would take it over Cincy any day of the week.
Never has there probably been such an attempt as this to prop up Dayton at the expense of tearing down Cincinnati. Simply unbelievable!
Hey sorry about this kp8888, we needlessly bicker a lot here. It's cheap entertainment after all. Both posts copied below have some good points and a lot of bad ones. I'll do what I can to help and hope others do too.
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Originally Posted by woxyroxme
90% of Mason has been built in the last 20 years it is mostly strip malls and cookie cutter subdivisions there is a downtown with a bowling alley, Yost pharmacy, a model train store, the Pleasure Inn redneck bar (speak English for service), Lou's pony keg and a trailer park. I would consider Germantown you won't be in the city and is an easy drive to Miamisburg, the Germantown dam conservancy district metro park is awesome, went there last summer and have pictures posted in the Buckeye photo thread. Kids are better off growing up in a small town than in the city.
To this point, Germantown has a lot to offer, and a great environment. It has probably the most intact historic core of any city in southwestern Ohio outside of Cincinnati's OTR. Mason has a small historic core and a lot of new build, most of which is decent quality due to the city's restrictive design requirements. woxyrome is right that most all of Mason was built out within the last 20 years.
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Originally Posted by woxyroxme
Haha, no. Cincy is bland and boring, Catholic Church festivals and fish fries make the news there, every Friday and Saturday night there is a long line of cars on the I-471 bridge heading to Newport on the Levee. Other than the Reds and Bengals, Cincy has nothing going for it other than Northside, MPMF, and Bunbury. In my younger days I did my partying in Dayton, the Oregon District was named one of the top 5 entertainment districts in the country. A lot of my old haunts have gone by the wayside over the last 15 years but I would take it over Cincy any day of the week.
I will disagree with this. Cincinnati has a lot to offer. Its metro is 2x the size of Dayton's, so there is more to do. Very comparable in scope to Indianapolis or Nashville. As to "partying", both cities have places for it, but I doubt you will care much about either. The main point is that if you want to go to a nice restaurant with your husband and have a drink, there's dozens of places in both cities that fit the bill. Same goes for family friendly (and not) concerts, events, etc.
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Originally Posted by motorman
This rates as one of the most ill-informed pieces of advice to give to an affluent Louisville family seeking relocation midway between Cincinnati and Dayton. To recommend Germantown (a tiny relic of a town located out in metro Dayton's far flung SW quadrant), then follow it up with a plug for blue-collar, red-neck Miamisburg (all the while, bashing Cincinnati's most publicized, envied, and sought after satellite city - Mason)? Simply unreal.
I will say this is wrong. Germantown is a decent sized place, population is around 10,000 if you include German township, all of the area that encompasses Valley View schools. It's a 10-minute drive to the highway at 75/725 from the center of it, and a nice access point to Miamisburg, Middletown, and points further south like Cincinnati, for you it would make a lot of sense. Wouldn't say "far flung" is a justifiable comment. Also Miamisburg has a wide range of people, calling the city blue collar and redneck is baseless and false. It would be like calling West Chester entirely redneck and blue collar, demographically they are about the same. The main disadvantage with Miamisburg is the schools. Lastly, I believe the distinction of "Cincinnati's most publicized, envied, and sought after satellite city" is Indian Hill, not Mason.
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Originally Posted by motorman
Never has there probably been such an attempt as this to prop up Dayton at the expense of tearing down Cincinnati. Simply unbelievable!
Again, we bicker too much. Both areas have benefits and drawbacks, and really kp8888 I get the feeling that all you care about is good info on places to research. You don't want our whining.
So here's a short list:
- Oakwood
- Germantown
- The places RDreisen said
- Lebanon
- Wyoming
- Miamisburg
And that is pretty much what you'll see in this area. Mason is a bit like that (Mason was mentioned) (though it has the big box stores and strip centers, etc), but you don't have to live way over in Mason. Many suburbs grew up around small towns and country villages and, unlike Louisville, these older parts of town retained their character and have not been obliterated by urban sprawl (like, say, Fern Creek, Lyndon and Buechel were).
Even places that are more or less an agglomerations of postwar subdivisions (Kettering) have a lot of niceness to them...sidewalks, wooded streets, easy to get around, easy to get to shopping.
Suburbia here is way better planned and thought out than in Louisville, not such a dreary hodgepodge like you find in Lou, and not as congested (this for the suburbs more around Dayton, not so much closer to Cincy). The scale is more humane.
For what you seem to be looking for Oakwood, though older, fills the bill. If you are on the west side of Far Hills, AKA SR 48 (a boulevard like one of the parkways in Louisville, that later turns into a business street) Oakwood has wealthy people in estates, like Indian Hills, Glenview, or the nicer areas directly on Cherokee Park. East of Far Hills Between Far Hills and Shroyer (another busy street), its more like Lexington Road or Crescent Hill, perhaps, or Trevilian Way/Douglas Loop/Dundee areas. The northernmost part of Oakwood, Shantz Park, is also very nice.
Far Hills turns into a nice walkable somewhat upscale business district (cafes, a Talbots, kids toy store, a very good supermarket, etc) on the southern part of Oakwood, so it is a truly walkable suburb as you could perhaps walk or ride your bike to shopping.
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Nearby the Southern Hills part of Kettering, off of Shantz Ave and along Hills and Dales Park will remind you a lot of parts of the Highlands and the Kenwood Hill area in the South End.
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Though I am mentioning Crescent Hill and the Highlands a lot as a comparison, that hipster/bohemian/artsy side of the Highlands is NOT found in Oakwood....that crowd is sort of ghettoized in Yellow Springs, a country village a bit like Germantown that used to house the very liberal Antioch College. Antioch is diminished, but that crunch granola old hippie/young hipster crowd is still there and gravitates there, so you wont find that in Oakwood (or much of it in Dayton proper).
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Following Far Hills south of Oakwood leads you to Kettering, which more 1940s and postwar suburbia, but all the subdivisions are interconnected, most have sidewalks, and there is a nice little shopping center with a Trader Joes and Kroger in the middle of the suburb.
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Following Far Hills even further south, at the I-675 bypass is Centerville, which has a nice little old part of town, with boutiques, antiques, restaurants, etc. Eminently walkable. Very pleasant place. If this suburb was Louisville the old "four corners" center of town would have been replaced with three gas stations and a mini mart. Here's a link to some pix of Centerville:
Then, to the east of Centerville is Greene County and Bellbrook, surrounded by Sugarcreek Township. I ride my bike here a lot since there is good bike lane connections to Centerville.
Despite the country village vibe there is a lot of shopping nearby and a lot of new development here, but an example of how suburban areas retain their sense of place
Schools. The best are Oakwood, and Centerville and Beavercreek also have good reputations. Kettering/Fairmont also rates usually high. I think there is an Ohio School Report Card out there somewhere so you can see how the schools stack up on proficiency tests, etc.
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Last edited by Dayton Sux; 12-29-2015 at 05:26 PM..
it's not that big of a deal to be close to Cincy. I was just thinking there is more action going on in Cincy and better for down the road if I ever change jobs. The place he is interviewing is in Miamisburg. Someone recommended Centerville...does Miamisburg have a cute downtown?
Theres' more action in Cincy than in Louisville.
But from where I live, between Centerville and the Dayton mall, I am only 45 minutes from downtown Cincy, so heck, if you want to go into Cincy for a Saturday or Sunday, or down for some show or something, easy to do! No worries if you want to go into Cincy to do stuff on weekends. I wouldn't want to make that commute, though!
& yes Miamisburg does have a cute downtown, as in an old main street and market square, and big old Victorian houses.. It's an old river town that has a bad rep among the posters here, but I don't think its that bad. Its a lot better than, say, West Point or even Jeff.
"The Burg" also has restuarants, craft beer places, and one restaurant, One Bistro, was the model for that new "The Table" place that recently opened in Portland. One Bistro | Our Neighbors Eat
...so, yes, Dayton is a great place, better than Lousiville, if you are looking for a good family oriented suburban lifestyle. And the public schools in most of the suburbs around here are a lot better than you would find in Kentucky (ok, Oldham County has a good school system..thinking of JCPS).
I think you'd like it here. Very "Midwest nice". And...a tip...take up bike riding. The Dayton area is 20 years or more ahead of Louisville when it comes to bike lanes and bike riding as part of the local culture.
Oh! Festivals...well, there is a very good festival culture here. A lot of them that I go to are Oktoberfests (since I am part German) and music oriented (since I am a music fan0. But there are others. Americana Fest in Centerville is a big deal, as is Saurkraut Festival in Waynesville (also a very cute country village) and the Street Fair in Yellow Springs.
There is a big festival venue in downtown Dayton at Riverscape that has things, too....
If you want more rural, exurban, try Waynesville. Miamisburg via OH-73 (which can get congested through Springboro, though there are other back road options to consider). I believe it has more going for it than Germantown, easier to get into and out of than Germantown (you have to get to the other side of the Great Miami, which isn't as easy as it sounds), there is more new build and resale would be better.
Some will say it is mainly antique shops, but I disagree. While the downtown in mostly antique-focused, it is a decent and healthy old village. Also, bike-trail is right across US 42 (careful crossing the highway). US-42 can take you north to US-35 and Xenia or south to Lebanon and eventually via the connector to US-71, Mason and onward towards Cincinnati.
Otherwise, to be closer to Dayton and inner-ring suburbs (vs. Waynesville's exurban / rural nature), Oakwood is where you want to be.
Other areas mentioned (such as Centerville, Kettering (around Rahn and Whipp Roads) and parts of Beavercreek would be options as well. If you want newer, Hunter's Pointe and Hunter's Ridge are popular. Access to the bike trail network via Rotary Park, which has playground, wetland trails and softball fields. High school is roughly a mile walk (I did that a lot before I began driving to school). Cincinnati is about 45-60 minutes either via I-675 --> I-75 or US 35 --> US 42 --> I-71. Either way you go on your location decision, you obviously have plenty of options.
kp8888, if you're still out there, you just received the best advice you could find on this forum from Dayton Sux. Hard to beat getting advice from a Louisville native that has 20+ years of experience studying Dayton history and culture in-depth.
If you want more rural, exurban, try Waynesville. Miamisburg via OH-73 (which can get congested through Springboro, though there are other back road options to consider). I believe it has more going for it than Germantown, easier to get into and out of than Germantown (you have to get to the other side of the Great Miami, which isn't as easy as it sounds), there is more new build and resale would be better.
Some will say it is mainly antique shops, but I disagree. While the downtown in mostly antique-focused, it is a decent and healthy old village. Also, bike-trail is right across US 42 (careful crossing the highway). US-42 can take you north to US-35 and Xenia or south to Lebanon and eventually via the connector to US-71, Mason and onward towards Cincinnati.
Otherwise, to be closer to Dayton and inner-ring suburbs (vs. Waynesville's exurban / rural nature), Oakwood is where you want to be.
Other areas mentioned (such as Centerville, Kettering (around Rahn and Whipp Roads) and parts of Beavercreek would be options as well. If you want newer, Hunter's Pointe and Hunter's Ridge are popular. Access to the bike trail network via Rotary Park, which has playground, wetland trails and softball fields. High school is roughly a mile walk (I did that a lot before I began driving to school). Cincinnati is about 45-60 minutes either via I-675 --> I-75 or US 35 --> US 42 --> I-71. Either way you go on your location decision, you obviously have plenty of options.
Good points about Waynesville, but a quicker route to I-71 from there would be to just take 73 east. Less than 10 miles.
Thank you for the advice, especially the comments comparing Louisville to Dayton by: Dayton Sux. I'm continuing reading these posts and planning a trip in Jan. He's also looking at Columbus OH as well.
Columbus to Miamisburg would be a bear of a commute. I wouldn't wish it on anyone, personally. You'd have to be out in London or perhaps far western Hilliard to have that commute make sense. From my parents home in eastern Beavercreek to OSU (rather central to the Columbus metro) was around 1.15 hours back in 2010. From anywhere east of downtown (I live in Gahanna), it would be 1.45 - 2 hours due to traffic getting through Columbus.
Miamisburg from Hilliard or Far West Columbus would be looking at near 1.5 hours minimum of commute time. You might think that isn't terrible as driving 10 miles takes 45+ minutes in many major metros, but after a year or two (including winters) of making an 80+ mile commute one-way becomes a burden on health, car and QofL.
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