Oof. I almost forgot to finish up my “Drive By Review” series from our summer vacation. Our last major city to head through was Cincinnati, which is also the closest big city to home in Columbus. But we’ve been through Cincinnati loads of times, so instead we decided to detour through Newport, Kentucky located right across the river.
Newport is a decent sized suburb of Cincinnati with over 17,000 people densly living within 2.7 square miles of space up against the Ohio River. Newport has been home to a lot of new construction in the past few years including the wonderful Newport Aquarium, the Newport on the Levee Shopping Complex (indoor/outdoor layout somewhat similar to a smaller version of Easton), as well as several new condo and apartment buildings.
A lot of historic Newport reminds me of Victorian Village, but with more commercial cross-streets. There’s loads of beautiful architecture, and what appears to be plenty of walkable amenities. I’m not sure what the average home price is in this area, but I’d say that if I were to move to Cincinnati, I’d probably consider actually living in Newport.
The good:
- Dense layout. Appears to be very walkable.
- Short commute across the river from downtown Cincy.
- Lots of new development.
The bad:
- Density aside, essentially a small city (17k population)
- I’m willing to bet there are some additional cons to living in an out-of-state burb related to taxes, services, etc.
Verdict:
I don’t think I’d really want to live in the Cincinnati Metro Area, Newport or not. The region is struggling (not quite as much as Cleveland though) and as much as I like to keep up on urban development news, I think the negative energy would depress me too much.
We’ll definiately head back to visit though. Would love to stay in Newport and spend a long weekend tooling around.