The Movoto Blog, which is a real estate website that brands itself as the lighter side of real estate, named Fort Thomas the 5th best place in Kentucky.While this isn’t breaking news to the people that live here, it was nice to text my buddies from Louisville and Lexington with the tagline, “Read it and weep, boys.”

Here’s what the writer, Natalie Grigson had to say about the Fort (Shoutout to #FTMFamily members Fort Thomas Coffee and Cobblestone Cafe):

With over 3,400 total amenities, Fort Thomas certainly ranked as one of
the places in our study with the most going on—and a good thing, too, because
with a median household income of just over $60,000, it seems like residents
here can afford to have a good time. 

What does a good time look like in Fort Thomas? Well, you’d have to ask
a resident, but if you ask me, starting the day with a cup of joe from Fort
Thomas Coffee, grabbing some brunch at the Cobblestone Cafe, and then maybe
checking out Fort Thomas Tower Park, before heading to the Old Fort Pub, well,
that all sounds pretty good. (Like we said, lots of amenities.)

Fort Thomas also ranked the very best when it came
to real estate, with a median home value of $191,300. Plus, it had one of the
lowest crime rates on our list as well: 45 percent lower than the Kentucky
average.

Here’s the article in full:

Kentucky may be known for its horse racing, bluegrass,
bourbon, and, of course, delicious, crispy fried chicken; but as residents will
tell you, it is home to so much more. We’re talking about great education, tons
of amenities and things to do, beautiful weather, and, yes, delicious, crispy
fried chicken, too.

It’s also home to some pretty impressive communities; places like Fort
Knox, Burlington, and Murray—which, according to our latest study, in an effort
to unveil the best places all over the country, was the best place in Kentucky.

Of course, it wasn’t the only winner of this veritable horserace. Here
are the 15 best places in Kentucky.

1. City of Murray


2. City of Jeffersontown


3. Burlington


3. City of
Erlanger


5. City of Fort Thomas


6. City of Fort Knox
   7. Fort Campbell North   
8.
City of Lyndon
   9. City of St. Matthews
   10. City of Glasgow
   11. City of
Madisonville
   12. Lexington-Fayette
   12.
City of Louisville
   14. City of
Henderson
   15. City of Owensboro

What is so great about Murray? What’s with all the Forts? And how in the
world did we come up with this order? Keep on reading to learn about the method
of our study and just why each of these 15 places ranked so well. Giddyup!

How
We Created This Ranking

In order to determine which places in Kentucky were the very best, we
needed something a little bit more measurable than horse racing, bourbon,
bluegrass, and crispy fried chicken—no matter how delicious. So, we settled on
the following seven criteria, broken down into 13 total:

•   
Total amenities

•   
Quality of life (Cost of living, median home price, median rent price,
median household income, teacher per student ratio)

•   
Total crimes

•   
Tax rates (Sales tax, income tax)

•   
Unemployment rate

•   
Commute time

•   
Weather (Temperature, air quality)

With these criteria in mind, we took a look at the U.S. Census data for
all of the places in Kentucky with populations over 10,000, which left us with
a total of 42. Then, we ranked each from one to 42 in each criteria, with one
being the best and 42 being the worst. After that, we averaged our rankings
into an overall Big Deal Score, with the lowest score being the winner.

Of course each of the 15 places listed are unique–some excelled in
affluence; others did better in school. Overall, though, they all had a high
number of total amenities, a well ranked overall quality of life, a low number
of total crimes, a low tax rate, low unemployment, a shorter commute time, and
since it’s the South, we awarded points for summer temperatures averaging at
around 80 degrees—because ya’ll know anything below is sweater weather, and
anything above, is just too hot.

If you want to see where your city ranked, you can
hop down to the bottom of the post to see the complete list.

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