KENTUCKY

---

A-to-Z Guide to Greater Cincinnati:
"Best Place to Live in North America"

Stepping out of Cincinnati's shadow

Northern Kentucky has often been compared to a teen-ager: Nurtured by the region's economic growth, it's eager to step out of the shadow of parent-figure Cincinnati and develop its own identity.

Today, thanks to the amazing growth and development sparked by that international airport located in Boone County, Ky. - better known as the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport - that identity is coming into focus.

Perhaps the difference between Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky, only separated by the width of the Ohio River, can be traced back to pioneer days.

Kentucky was formed from the Commonwealth of Virginia, which handed out a jumble of land grants to veterans in thanks for Revolutionary War service. Ohio came about from the Northwest Territory, a federally mandated process that divided the land neatly into townships. Although Northern Kentucky was known for its anti-slavery bent, it took the Civil War to remove it completely from the region. Across the river, it was banned from the onset in the Northwest Territory. That prompted many of the region's immigrants to settle in Cincinnati, not wanting to compete against slave labor, which depressed wages.

In the decades that followed, Boone, Kenton and Campbell - the three Kentucky counties touching the banks of the Ohio River across from the Queen City - grew at a different pace than Cincinnati. They eventually became better known for their selection of rough-and-tumble red-light districts and syndicate-controlled gambling.

That began to change around World War II, when Northern Kentucky leaders lobbied federal aviation officials to build a larger airport for the Cincinnati area in a wooded area near the tiny Boone County community of Hebron. It would later become an international airport and a major hub for Delta Air Lines. From that point, most people flying to Cincinnati would first step foot in Northern Kentucky.

The airport, after luring Delta, also attracted other high-profile companies, including Fidelity Investments, Levi Strauss and, in October 1996, the North American manufacturing headquarters of the Toyota Motor Corp. Such growth sparked development, which brought jobs and residents, eager to take advantage of Northern Kentucky's open spaces and lower housing costs. Communities began to blossom, and with that came a renewed sense of pride for the region: People began to assert they were not merely a suburb of Cincinnati, but a neighbor that deserved to be respected as a partner.

Many people here, including myself, love this land because it is Kentucky - the northern tip of a commonwealth, rich with history and proud of its heritage. For example, go to the Florence Mall and count the people wearing caps and T-shirts in honor of the national champion Kentucky Wildcats basketball team. Xavier University and the University of Cincinnati are closer geographically, but don't be fooled: to many, the Wildcats are part of their personal identity.

Others among us are Greater Cincinnatians, people who came here for the job or the chance to build a bigger house. These folks, Kentuckians by default, identify more with the Tristate region than the commonwealth. They remind us that while we are separate from Cincinnati and Ohio, we remain part and parcel of that city at the bottom of Death Hill.

Yet we are different: Our own state, our own legal system, our own politicians. Our leaders, bolstered by our new-found economic muscle, seem committed to becoming more unified as a region and finding ways for the area's cities and counties to work together to build a new future for Northern Kentucky. And at this writing, it appears Northern Kentuckians will not be content to remain in Cincinnati's shadow.