Best small town.

[rnc]

I'm impressed that a thread on the KY forum has generated so much interest, you can usually hear the crickets chirping around here.

My votes go to:

Bardstown: great history, quaint town center, tourist attractions, nice rolling green pastures and the knobs

Danville: A great main street, very well kept town and Centre gives it an air of intellectualism

Midway: The renovated downtown looks great. Surrounded by gorgeous horse farms.

[BigTone]

Being from Princeton myself I believe that they are on maybe a possible turnaround. I visited over Thanksgiving and was impressed on how they are revitializing downtown. New street lights, painting and remodeling the buildings. Like was posted above there is a lot of old money there. Maybe if they ever get a community leader that has a set and want to bring jobs and "new" money to the community Princeton would be a nice town for retirees or even the current residents to prosper.

[fsubelch]

Being from Princeton myself I believe that they are on maybe a possible turnaround. I visited over Thanksgiving and was impressed on how they are revitializing downtown. New street lights, painting and remodeling the buildings. Like was posted above there is a lot of old money there. Maybe if they ever get a community leader that has a set and want to bring jobs and "new" money to the community Princeton would be a nice town for retirees or even the current residents to prosper.

[Rural King]

I am suprised Princeton has not already gotten a SuperCenter, although there current Division I store is very nice and clean compared to most existing stores of that class still in existence. It was probably one of the last new Division Is built in the region by the looks of it, so they may be running out the store's value before building a SC.

I hate to think about what a SC will do to the commercial strip though. It will probably take out one of the three existing groceries, probably EW James (former Winn Dixie), and leave two very nice empty buildings needing to be filled, which will be more than a little fun for the city. Probably could put some hurt on the stores and restaurants in that area too if its built to far away from the current strip.

Its good to hear downtown is being revitalized more, I always thought Princeton has a very nice downtown. Its courthouse and square are all very solid and seemed a good foundation for a vibrant renewed downtown to be built upon.

[Unifour]

I'm going to vote Pikeville for this, mainly because I am so familiar with it. I grew up just across the border in Virginia, and Pikeville was a big town for us to go to shop and so forth. The town keeps it's community spirit even while looking to grow. It has grown a lot over the past 20 years, mainly due to major highway construction. Part of this involved the 14 year Pikeville Cut-Thru Project, which claims to be the second largest engineering project in history. They bored through a mountain to reroute a river, railroad, and U.S. 460/23/119-KY 80. The bypass almost killed downtown, but it has recovered strongly recently, and is home to new banks, shops, restaurants, and a new entertainment complex for the area called Eastern Kentucky Exposition Center. The town is home to a Federal Courthouse and is the county seat of Pike County. It also has a beautiful college downtown with historic buildings and a great hillside location overlooking the valley. Pikeville has some of the biggest highways I've ever seen for a city of it's size. Large overpasses, flyovers, and curving ramps were used to build advanced interchanges that wouldn't look out of place in California surround the town center. Pikeville is a great American town in the mountains and hills of East Kentucky, where bluegrass is played regularly and people are mostly hard working and friendly. I could see myself living there.