There are too many counties...

[buckethead1978]

...when a fellow Kentuckian tells me they are from ______ county, I have no idea where the hell that is more than likely.

How do you fix Kentucky’s county problem?

I think they should be reduced immediately to 90. Then bring it down to 60 in 5 years until it finally stops at 30 counties.

 

[Ukbrassowtipin]

The reason there are so many is because they wanted to make it days horse ride to get to each county seat. True story.

 

[funKYcat75]

As long as Jessamine County isn’t absorbed into Fayette County.

 

[GYERater]

Can we just give the 606 to West Virginia? Think that would give us around 50 less counties.

 

[CatOfDaVille]

There should be no more than 60 counties in KY. About a quarter of our counties are so rural and sparsely populated that they can't even fund a proper sheriff's department.

I think the politics and logistics of merging counties is what will keep it from happening anytime soon.

 

[Brandan Stroud]

Meh, breaking governable units down as small as possible makes a lot of sense. I also don’t know that it really hurts a whole lot either. I don’t think the Menifee, Wolfe, Magoffin microplex is suddenly going to take off once they’re consolidated.

 

[Ahnan E. Muss]

Meh, breaking governable units down as small as possible makes a lot of sense. I also don’t know that it really hurts a whole lot either. I don’t think the Menifee, Wolfe, Magoffin microplex is suddenly going to take off once their consolidated.

Exactly. The founding fathers knew exactly what their doing.

 

[Brandan Stroud]

Exactly. The founding fathers knew exactly what their doing.

Your gimmick is very cool! Valuable asset to this board!

 

[Ahnan E. Muss]

Sorry, I forgot the Paddock is for serious replies only.

 

[CatOfDaVille]

Exactly. The founding fathers knew exactly what their doing.

What founding fathers? Pretty sure KY wasn't a state when the founding fathers were writing the Constitution, nor would they have had any influence over how many counties we have.

Either way, this many counties made sense when people were riding horses like another poster mentioned, but it makes no sense now. I'd like to hear a good argument why we need so many.

An argument for fewer counties is that many rural counties can't effectively fund their governments.

 

[WayneDougan_rivals170043]

There are 58 counties in California. They have ~9.5X as many people as we have. I'd argue we should have around 15 counties. It would make people in Kentucky significantly better off.

 

[buckethead1978]

I’d prefer to keep Bullitt Countians out of Jefferson

 

[btodd0224 n/a?]

Can we just give the 606 to West Virginia? Think that would give us around 50 less counties.

They gave it to us years ago. Pretty sure it had a no return clause

 

[*CatinIL*]

...when a fellow Kentuckian tells me they are from ______ county, I have no idea where the hell that is more than likely.

How do you fix Kentucky’s county problem?

I think they should be reduced immediately to 90. Then bring it down to 60 in 5 years until it finally stops at 30 counties.

GEOGRAPHY is your friend...how about learning all 120 counties and where they are????

Geeez, some people complain about anything...


[sick][sick][sick][sick]


:stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye::stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye::stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

I'm just messin' with you. I'm a Geographer/Alien hunter but it's stupid to have 120 counties IMO. Think about it, you have 120 local governments/school districts that have to be paid for. I say skip the step to 90 counties and go straight to 60 counties.

 

[buckethead1978]

I wanted to go straight to 60 but didn’t want to offend some of the necks.

 

[Ahnan E. Muss]

What founding fathers? Pretty sure KY wasn't a state when the founding fathers were writing the Constitution, nor would they have had any influence over how many counties we have.

Either way, this many counties made sense when people were riding horses like another poster mentioned, but it makes no sense now. I'd like to hear a good argument why we need so many.

An argument for fewer counties is that many rural counties can't effectively fund their governments.

So you're saying the Founding Fathers couldn't/didn't anticipate the changes that were happening to a young United States when they wrote the Constitution?

Why do you hate America so much?

 

[bigsmoothie]

...when a fellow Kentuckian tells me they are from ______ county, I have no idea where the hell that is more than likely.

How do you fix Kentucky’s county problem?

I think they should be reduced immediately to 90. Then bring it down to 60 in 5 years until it finally stops at 30 counties.

Cool. Let's get rid of the county you live in first.

 

[bigsmoothie]

Can we just give the 606 to West Virginia? Think that would give us around 50 less counties.

How about giving Jefferson co to Indiana.

 

[Tskware]

How about giving Jefferson co to Indiana.

Great idea, and 25% of the jobs and tax base of the state! Why didn't Bevin think of it? Lets give Kenton, Campbell and Boone to Ohio while we are at it?

 

[Gassy_Knowls]

As long as Jessamine County isn’t absorbed into Fayette County.

Build that wall.

 

[funKYcat75]

Build that wall.

On second thought, we might keep Wilmore. Good God-fearing folks down there.

 

[Gassy_Knowls]

On second thought, we might keep Wilmore. Good God-fearing folks down there.

Wilmore. Former home of Icthus. Gotta preserve the culture, man.

 

[*CatinIL*]

Actually, it would probably take more than 60 counties when you look at the population map. Granted, this is from 2010 but it probably hasn't changed all that much. The tough area is EKY. There would be some BIG counties there if you went with the 60 county model. I thought there would be more people in EKY.

75 might be a better geographic number.

 

[buckethead1978]

They can just move

 

[ekywildcat_rivals26726]

They gave it to us years ago. Pretty sure it had a no return clause

Actually Virginia and some drunk surveyors gave us a pretty good chunk of the 606.

http://appalachianmagazine.com/2017...rginia-kentucky-border-is-in-the-wrong-place/

 

[btodd0224 n/a?]

I saw a show about how the different states lines were changed over the years. Didn’t remember which Virginia gave it to us but it was because they couldn’t police the other side of the mountain

 

[bigsmoothie]

Great idea, and 25% of the jobs and tax base of the state! Why didn't Bevin think of it? Lets give Kenton, Campbell and Boone to Ohio while we are at it?

Works for me

 

[JumperJack]

So you’re going to take a bunch of small poor counties and make big poor counties? Or are you to graft these poor counties onto Lexington and Louisville?

Also, too many states.

 

[vhcat70]

Actually, it would probably take more than 60 counties when you look at the population map. Granted, this is from 2010 but it probably hasn't changed all that much. The tough area is EKY. There would be some BIG counties there if you went with the 60 county model. I thought there would be more people in EKY.

75 might be a better geographic number.

At various times I've combined counties to get down to around 50. For instance, in the Purchase area, easy to get 3 from 8 total by following the two north/south lines. Jefferson & maybe Fayette ought to be left alone for population & Pike for physical size. Rest are fair game.

 

[wyomingcat]

Ive lived in several other states because of my career, Kentucky does have way to many Counties, they are some the smallest in the US, those county governments cost lots of money and also tend to help lead to some corruption. We need about 30.

 

[*CatinIL*]

It would have been nice if KY would have fallen under the Township & Range system.

 

[SkyPrince1]

There are 58 counties in California. They have ~9.5X as many people as we have. I'd argue we should have around 15 counties. It would make people in Kentucky significantly better off.

15? Yeah until you had jury duty.
Topic for a really slow day.
Zero chance it will happen in most of our lifetimes.
Political suicide.

 

[-Mav-]

At first glance I saw the thread title as “too many countries” and immediately thought, “Hell yeah, and it’s about time we conquered a bunch of ‘em.”

#MakeImperialismGreatAgain

 

[TortElvisII]

,The largest ranch in the US is 510,000 acres. Bigger than counties in KY.

Actually, it would probably take more than 60 counties when you look at the population map. Granted, this is from 2010 but it probably hasn't changed all that much. The tough area is EKY. There would be some BIG counties there if you went with the 60 county model. I thought there would be more people in EKY.

75 might be a better geographic number.

Here is the 1820 County Map.

Not perfect but a start.

 

[TortElvisII]

From above.

Graves and McCracken can be added to the Purchase. Maybe combine Calloway and Marshall and have three counties in the purchase.

Christian and Logan should meet, no more Todd County, or combine Todd and Muhlenberg.

Warren County extends to Tennessee, Simpson and Allen sorry.

We would need to get real busy in Central Kentucky because there's way too many counties there.

Gallatin, Henry and Owen combine.

The four counties around Boone Campbell Grant Pendleton.

And so on.

in the end we keep Robertson County to remind us of how stupid having 120 counties was.

 

[BlueVelvetFog]

On second thought, we might keep Wilmore. Good God-fearing folks down there.

Collateral damage. JessCo is an X-Y-Chromosome crapshoot

 

[dgtatu01]

Actually, it would probably take more than 60 counties when you look at the population map. Granted, this is from 2010 but it probably hasn't changed all that much. The tough area is EKY. There would be some BIG counties there if you went with the 60 county model. I thought there would be more people in EKY.

75 might be a better geographic number.

That dark green area in EKY is the ridgeline of the Appalachian mountains. You either live on the I-75 side of it or you live in Appalachia which is the other side. Not much going on on the other side. The southern part could be governed by Hazard, eastern part by Pikeville, and the northern part by Ashland IMO.

London/Corbin could easily be the governing seat over Laurel, Clay, Whitley, and Knox county since so much stuff overlaps down there. It would help all of those counties to consolidate education, street, police, and development $'s IMO.

 

[Ryan Lemonds Hair]

You must be from Boyle County considering your obvious disdain for the mountain area of KY.

Can we just give the 606 to West Virginia? Think that would give us around 50 less counties.

 

[Rebelfreedomeagle]

Let's modernize the transportation standard. Instead of a day's ride on horseback, let's change it to how far a 1997 Ford Ranger will go before it drops another f'ing timing chain.

The big reason for me is education. Ky has over 170 school districts. Consolidation may mean more travel time but much more opportunity for students, particularly in the eastern region, and especially vocational education.

 

[DSmith21]

Kentucky has the 4th largest number of counties of any state. Only Texas, Georgia and Virginia have more.

https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/County_(United_States)