Should Louisville Grow Up?

 Should Louisville grow up? I have been reading about vertical farming and I think this is something that Louisville could implement, on a small scale. For those who don't know, vertical farming is basically farming in a skyscraper. There are many reasons to consider vertical farming. One of those is that by some estimates crop yields will be down 20% because of global warming. By the year 2050 the world will have at least another 3 billion people to feed. We just don't have enough land to do it. 

Those are fine stats, but is this something Louisville should even consider? Afterall we aren't exactly a huge city with millions of people we have to feed. Most vertical farming buildings I've seen are 30 story skyscrapers with all sorts of super cool ego tech built in. Solar panels, rain water catch basins, wind turbines, and the best of hydroponics. I'm not sure Louisville is ready for that. A 30 story building would be one of the tallest buildings in the city. 

If Louisville was to take on a project of this nature I would suggest we go in one of 2 directions. The first is ti build a 15 story tower like the one pictured above. This building will not only have the hydroponic farms, but it would included housing as well as retail. It would have to be a true multi-purpose building. I'm sure there would be no shortage of places to sell the food that was grown. I just wonder if we could make it economically feasible. I think we could make it feasible if we had a physical location to hold a year round farmers market. I think there is also a market for some of our local restaurants and home grown organic food stores. 

The second possibility would be to offer tax breaks for people to install rooftop gardens, and to coordinate a series of urban gardens . The food raised here would follow the same economic model of the vertical farm. 

If these models could produce cheaper produce prices I would like the city to set up a fund to entice our local organic grocery stores to open up stores in Western and Southwestern Louisville. These wouldn't have to be full fledge grocery stores, they could be small neighborhood stores or bodegas. They would use/buy the produce produced from the vertical farms. This should prove cheaper especially in the winter months. 

For more info on vertical farms you can read here and here. 

JCPS students exposed to dangerous chemicals daily

I ran into this study while I was reading news on the net. JCPS ranked last out of 736 counties in the southeast for health risk from air pollution. The study was conducted using the latest available data possible which is 2005. The Louisville Metro Air Pollution Control District refutes the study finding because the data used was a year before the S.T.A.R. program started. S.T.A.R. program is designed to tackle Louisville's historically bad air quality. 

I can see the Metro Air Pollution districts point, but lets be honest. How much ground can you make up in 4 years? Louisville could have gone from last to what middle of the pact at best.  That's good movement, but is it really enough? Here is a link to the article. Enjoy.

What's that smell in the air?

Derby Cruising Pt 2

Another Derby has come and gone. I must admit that this was one of the best derby's yet. Well, at least for me. As far as Derby Cruising was concerned it was pretty much a non-event. It turned out pretty much like I had predicted except they didn't close Broadway. I would say that would made it a pretty good derby.

Louisville has lost a champion

Yesterday morning Louisville lost one of its heros. Former Heavyweight champion Greg page passed away. He was partially paralyzed from injuries he suffered from a fight in 2001. He will be missed. 

City to enforce a "relaxed" version of it's ban on Derby Cruising

It's that's time of year. Derby Time! That means the city will be cracking down on Derby cruising. However, according to the Courier-Journal this year they will "relax" enforcement of the city bans. Basically you will be able to drive on Broadway, the West Ends main business artery, this year. In years past they have blocked all access to Broadway from around 9th street to about 34th street. Which means that you had to drive blocks out of the way to do things like buy groceries, because the only grocer in Western Louisville is the Krogers on 28th and Broadway.  

I almost forgot. We will be able to use parks this year. This is the first time in years that we will be able to use the parks during Derby Weekend. Massa sho is kind.  

I'm interested to see how this turns out. Every year it's a little different. I remember one year when they completely blocked off the West End during Derby. It took me almost 2 hours to find my way home. I don't think I have ever been as mad before in my life. I know the city would never block off the Highlands or Middletown like they did the West End. 

Even with the relaxed standards I'm pretty sure that some things wont change. There will be at least 300 police officers on or near Broadway. They will wind up closing some parts of Broadway or some side streets. Like every year the police helicopter will be a near constant presence.  Starting Friday afternoon to Sunday afternoon the Ghettobird (urbanslang for police helicopter) will be in the skies 24-7. There will be police on the tops of the tallest buildings overlooking Broadway. They will wind up closing Chickasaw Park at least twice over the weekend. Last but not least. You wont be able to drive 5 blocks without seeing the police pull someone over. 

I live about 2 blocks from Broadway on a busy street that feeds Broadway. Personally, cruising never really bothered me.  I just did like everybody else. Set up tent and sold food from in front of my house. The cruisers pretty much stayed on Broadway, so getting around wasn't that bad. I could just take the many side streets to where I wanted to go. 

I can understand the city wanting to stop Derby because it was a "problem." The main problem being that it didn't fit in with the image of the Derby. Yeah traffic was really bad on Broadway, but like I said most of the side streets were open.  All the LMPD had to do was call the Daytona or the Panama City police departments and get some ideas on how to effectively "police" cruising, but I digress.

Now that Derby Cruising is no more, I'm at least happy they opened Broadway and the parks. However, there are several night spots on broadway that can now operate normally on Derby weekend. The problem is that like most night spots in urban neighborhoods parking is limited. Usually that's not a problem because you could just park on the street. However, you can't park on the street. I wonder how that will be resolved? 

We will see what happens. Here is the link to the Story in the C-J.

Bringing Boxing back to Da Ville

Back in the 50's, 60's, 70's, and early 80's boxing was a major sport in Louisville, KY.  We had a local television show dedicated to local ametuer boxing, the mayor had a big tourney, and ever community center had a gym with a paid trainer. All of this investment in boxing paid off. Louisville produced 3 heavyweight champions in that time period. Jimmy Ellis, Greg Page and Muhammad Ali. For the record, Louisville has been home to 4 heavyweight champions. No other city on the planet has had more heavyweight champions! The first one was Marvin Hart in 1906. When you think about it that's amazing considering the size of Louisville. 

Unfortunately, sometime in the early 80's the funding dried up. When the funding dried up so did the talent. Why not bring boxing back to Louisville as part of the city's overall economic development strategy? You would think a city with such a rich history in the sport would try and revive it. Luckily for us a group of people are trying to do just that. I'm happy to say that I am one of them.

For those that don't know me my name is Haven Harrington, and I am the host of the Main Event Sports Show. I'm also a member of CARR and the guy behind the blog. Several months ago we at the Main Event Sports Show got the idea that we want to resurrect boxing in Louisville. We just weren't sure how we were going to accomplish that goal. Then last week we got an e-mail about a boxing match taking place last Friday. The fight was being put on by Dennis Page, the brother of ex-heavyweight champ Greg Page. We contacted Mr. Page about the fight and decided to go. We had a blast. More importantly we ran into someone who wanted the same thing as us. To bring Boxing back to Louisville in a major way. 

Dennis Page has a deep love for boxing and is putting on a series of fights to determine the Kentucky champion. This is the first time in years that local professional boxers will be able to fight in their home state. He is also heavily involved in ameture boxing as well and will soon be putting on a tourney for them.  His gym, Baxter Memorial Gym , will be home to both pro and ameture fighters. This will give kids a chance to see how their workouts now could become careers of the future. They will be exposed to all sorts of tourneys, AAU boxing, and even collegiate boxing. If nothing else they will learn discipline and how to keep in shape. However, this is just the first step. We have to reintroduce boxing to Louisville. We also have to introduce the local fighters to Louisville as well. People us to know the local fighters. Their fights were in the paper, and most people knew where the local gym was. 

There are only 2 boxing gyms in Louisville. 2. In it's heyday the city use to have about 15. To add a little perspective on this subject, St. Louis has about 40 gyms, Indy has close to 25-30, Ashland, Ky a city of about 22,000 has 7 gyms, and the midwest boxing mecca Cincinnati has about 30-40 gyms. Granted, not all of these are pure boxing gyms. Some of these gyms also serve as MMA gyms, but they have a strong boxing training. Louisville has about 4-5 MMA gyms that also have boxing trainers, but it's mainly boxing as it relates to MMA and not the complete sport. This puts Louisville at a serious disadvantage. The city has also lost its Golden Glove membership. However, with only 2 gyms it's  not really worth the effort to get another one. There aren't enough fighters or fans to support one.

So, where do we go from here? I think the first step has already been taken. We have to put on fights. No matter how small they are. We also have to be consistent. The fights need to be on a regular basis. We need to get people use to going to fights. I honestly don't think that will be a big problem. Louisvillans love sports. We supported boxing once before and I think we will again. 

I think we can build on the first fight and make them bigger and better each time we will begin to get some of those old fans back and also attract new ones. Once awareness has been raised it will make it easier to recruit kids. Especially if they can see an upgrade path. Then maybe we can open up another gym. we will also do our part by trying to get sponsors and using our Sports Talk radio show to introduce the public to boxing. 

These are just the first few steps. We have an idea on where we want to go from here and how to do it. But we have to get started first. Check back for updates. I'll keep you posted.

Inner City Blues Pt 2.

I've been giving a lot of thought as of late on how to revitalize Russell and for that matter other inner-city neighborhoods. What's the best way to reinvigorate an inner-city mostly minority community? Should we push for lower taxes? A special financing district? Honestly, I don't think any of those will work in the long run. What will happen is what has already happened in Russell. You get a lot of light industry that moves in to take advantage of the tax breaks, but they never hire anybody from the neighborhood.  Hence the neighborhood doesn't get any better. It looks good in the paper, but the community stays the same.  Louisville has tried to revitalize Russell. Tearing down dilapidated homes and building new ones. The City has gone as far as tearing whole blocks to build a new neighborhood called the Ceder Street Development. I haven't seen the master plans for the development, but the few that have been built so far look like those in another western Louisville neighborhood called Park DuValle.  Personally, I think the architecture is a bit out of character for neighborhood, but it still works. Currently, they only have about 6 houses sold. 6 out of about 40. Once the housing market picks up hopefully more houses will be built.

I think there are several avenues that cities can pursue to revitalize these inner-city neighborhoods.  I know I said tax breaks may not be the way to go. And I agree to a certain extent. I think there should be a certain conditions on the tax breaks like the business (especially if they employee more than 25 and indeed are the warehouse/light industrial type) have to hire some people from the community. 

I would also like to see the use of forgivable 2nd mortgages.  I know when we purchased this house in Russell we were given a forgivable second mortgage. We were lucky, because the program we used was only for new construction. Our houses isn't new. However, we qualified, because we complete gutted the interior of the house. So in essence it was like a new house. I would like to see that program expanded to also included rehabbed houses and not just new construction. We still have a lot of old homes that need a lot of TLC. A program like this might help to save some of these houses. This program was federally funded, and the funds have dried up. I know Louisville has a severe budget shortfall so I don't expect this program to be reinstated, but it should be reinstated as soon as things turn around.

I also think cities have to do a much better job of reaching out to the community, and let people know that it is a priority that we revitalize Russell and neighborhoods like it. Take the forgivable second mortgage. If the city sent a representative to the area churches, civic organizations and actively told people that we have up to 15k in a forgivable second mortgage I think the city might be surprised at how many people would bite. The only way we found out about it was because we dug through the city's website and happen to stumble upon it. It shouldn't be so difficult. A revitalize urban neighborhood can only benefit the city in the long and short run. Why hide such a valuable tool?

One big mistake I see cities do all of the time is that they tear town whole sections of their inner-city neighborhoods, and then replace them with suburban style infill. A neighborhood that once had a lot of density and alleys now has a lot less density, no alleys, and a form factor that doesn't fit the character of the surround neighborhood. What usually happens is that the neighborhood gentrified. Hence reformed. But what happens to the poor people who use to live there? You can only reshuffle the chairs on the deck so many ways.

I'm not advocating that cities shouldn't try this sort of gentrification. I'm just saying that there are better ways to do it. I'm not against having poor people stay in the neighborhood. Quite the opposite. I think any infill projects such as these need to keep the density that have always had. instead of kicking all of the poor people put build a mix use/ mix income neighborhood.  Build apartment buildings that have market rate apartments, income based, and public housing in the same building. It's been done before, and it seems to have worked. an example of this would be Park Du Valle and Liberty Green.   

I would also like to see cities advocate urban gardening and famer's markets in poorer inner-city neighborhoods. Urban neighborhoods tend to be food islands. That means that residents usually don't have that many options for buying food. Take the west end of Louisville. Louisville's West-end comprises several neighborhoods and has about 75,ooo residents. There are only 3 grocers to service the community. To put it another way. Louisville averages 1 grocer for ever 12,500 residents. In western Louisville it's about 1 grocer for 25,000 residents. I would bet that it's about the same in most other urban neighborhoods across the country. I think this is one area where cities can provide some assistance. Urban gardening and farmers markets may not be the answer, but they are a piece of the answer. Cities and community agencies have to do a better job of explaining the "urban market" to large retailers. Most chain retailers are set up to cater to the suburban customers. Hence, they chose to place stores based on number of cars passing a certain point, and number of credit card transactions. That works well in a part a town that is geared toward automobiles. In a poorer part of town it doesn't work so well. In poorer urban communities people tend not to drive and pay for a lot of items with cash. Cities have to advocate building smaller stores. They all don't have to be huge big box retailers to serve urban communities. Smaller stores will work and would be just as profitable. I don't expect this change to come quickly if at all. Which is why I think farmers markets are the way to go. Maybe cities can offer grants and other incentives to local non-profits/businesses to open up small store farmer market grocers. Like this neighborhood stores of the past century.   

These are just some of the things I think cities could do to revitalize their urban neighborhoods. If nothing else this might help stabilize them. I don't think any one person or group has all of the answers. In the end, the community itself, with help from city government will be the best course of action.

 Earth day is fast approaching, and CARR along with the families , teachers, and Staff on Byck Elementary plan on doing our part. On Saturday, April 18 we are going to have a community clean up. We will begin gathering in the playground area of Byck Elementary (2328 Ceder St.) at 10:00 A.M.

All volunteers will be assembled into various groups and disbursed around 10:30. We will all meet back at Byck at noon for a FREE lunch. 

I know this is Thunder Over Louisville Weekend, but you can give up your morning for such a worth while cause. Operation Brightside will provide gloves, garbage bags, and everything else we may need. All you have to do is show up.

You don't have to RSVP, but it would be appreciated. That way we can make sure we have enough food and supplies. If you have any questions or just want to RSVP contact the Angela Zito at 502-259-8490 or e-mail her at Zito.Angela@hotmail.com

An interesting look at who is getting hit hardest by the economy

In a previous post I talked about things Louisville could do to boost its economy and to make it a more competitive city. I was planning on writing a follow up post when I ran into a article in the New York Times entitled "How Some Places Fare Better in Hard Times" . 

The article is by Harvard economist Edward Glaeser. When he compared unemployment statistics across metropolitan areas and he found an interesting pattern. Cities that tended to have high unemployment rates shared similar commonalties.  The cities had a reliance on manufacturing, most of their employment was outside of the city center, and they tended to have low share of their adults with college degrees. 

While most of the cities that are really doing poor have unemployment rates well into the double digits, Louisville's is at 9.2%. We aren't as bad off as some of the other cities, but we have a lot of the problems that they do. we use to be a heavy manufacturing town.  Most of that has left, but Ford and GE are still here. We also trail most of our competitor cities when it comes to percent of population with college degrees. However, we have made great strides in that area. As far as being centralized. That's a good question. A lot of the jobs either have moved or are moving to east end of town, but with the resurgence of downtown that may be changing. 

I think Louisville has been going through the transformation from manufacturing to service economy. We have just been doing it at a very slow pace. I think we will weather this economic downturn without losing to many more large manufacturers. But their days are numbered. Ford, GE, and the plants that make up Rubbertown wont be here to much longer. DuPont has already closed. I'm sure others are next. 

Louisville is trying to be a medical and distribution hub. I think that's nobel and something we should pursue, but I don' think that's going to keep us going. We have to embrace our artsyness, and push forward with creating a truly creative economy. We can continue to try and prop up manufacturing (which in the case of Ford and Ge we should until we can replace those high paying jobs), or we can reach for the future with something that will differentiate us from the pack. 

What Louisville should do

Economic development is tricky. How exactly do you set your city apart when almost every other city is trying to do exactly the same thing that you are doing? Every city has something unique about it. Indy has the Indy 500. Louisville has the Derby. Nashville has country music. Those are very unique things that each cities leverages to its advantage. However, it's not enough. You still need more. You have to be diversified. Especially in our increasingly global economy. Cities are no longer just competing against each other for business HQ. They are also competing for talent. Talent that isn't afraid to move at the drop of the dime from city to city or even country to country. 

According to Greater Louisville Inc, the metro chamber of commerce, Their focus is on building Louisville niche growth markets. Logistics and distribution, and health related enterprises, and  entrepreneurism. Health related enterprises would be things like going after the biomedical industry. Entrepreneurism is pretty much like it sounds. making it easy for people to start small to medium sized businesses. Which is a pretty good strategy. Louisville is known for being a place where its pretty easy to start your own biz and be pretty successful. Tumbleweed, Papa John's, Ralleys, Chi Chi's, KFC, and many more had their starts in Louisville. 

Going after the Biomedical industry is going to be an uphill struggle. The hardest part is that we just don't have a prestigious top tier research university that would attract the type of talent needed to keep something like that going. The university of Louisville has come a long way. The medical school has grown by leaps and bounds. The number and size of the National Institute of Health of grants have grown every year. However, we still lag far behind our competitor cities and regions. Louisville's biggest problem is that the state of Kentucky will never adequately fund its universities.  The other problem with going after biomed is how many jobs would it actually create. I'm sure there would be a lot of jobs for scientist, but what about the average folk. Will people with regular degrees be able to take advantage of the growing Biomed sector? I know the high paying jobs will do a lot for the cities coffers, but what about the vast majority of the populace? The other downside is that most biotech firms seem to almost always get taken over by Big Pharma. Usually once that happens Big Pharma buys all of the intellectual property dissolves the company and moves on. What would Louisville have left? The guys who started it would make a killing, but what about the city in the long run? I'm not saying this isn't a worthwhile goal. It is a very worthwhile goal. It's just going to require a lot of work, and take decades before we can really start to reap the benefits.  

Louisville should keep pursuing those economic development strategies. I just think that Louisville should just take advantage of its other strengths. Strengths, I think once properly cultivated, could lead to greater prosperity for the city. It would also help to Louisville to stand out amongst its peers. What are those strengths. Simple. The Arts. 

Louisville is a quirky artsy town. Why not take advantage of that. The city with the help of Greater Louisville Inc.,  should start a film commission. Like most film commissions they should try and recruit hollywood films to be shot in and around Louisville. However, I think their biggest function should be to cultivate the local talent that's already here.The film commission should educate the venture club (local meeting of venture capitalist in Louisville) about investing in low budget movies. Then educate local filmmakers on how to present their ideas to the venture club. The Film commission would keep track of all of the movies made in Louisville so we know just how much the local film industry is contributing to the local economy. I would also like the commission to sell locally made movies on it's website. This would be a way for the commission and local filmmakers to make a little bit of money. The commission would also fund education programs for youth. You always need to groom the next generation of talent. 

As you can tell I'm pretty high on the local filmmaker angle.  I think this would be a natural fit for Louisville and something that can honestly be done in short order. The reason I would concentrate most of the commissions energy on local films is because I think they offer the greatest return on investment.  If you're lucky you might attract one medium budget hollywood film to your city. A film that has the budget of say $40 Million. However, most of that money will not be spent in Louisville. They might higher drives, rent some homes, get hotels, catering, and the like. But as soon as filming is wrapped up they are gone. That's not a bad thing, and if Louisville could do it great. However, if Louisville could produce 10 $1 million dollar low budget movies a year the money would have a greater impact in the community. First, most of the people who worked on the film will most likely be from Louisville. Their wages would stay here. Second, you will be building up a film workforce that will make attracting bigger budget movies easier since you would have built up a talent base. It's a win win. Thirdly, the education barrier isn't as high and the pay is usually above average.

I also think the city needs to get more serious about cultivating local businesses. 4th street live is great. The Center City project looks cool. However, Louisville has spent hundreds of millions of dollars to prop up an out of town company. Why not put several million dollars in a fund to try and lure local businesses to finish building out the rest of 4th street. You could make the money forgivable loans up to $250,000. If you could add a lot of local flavor to say several national chains I think it would do a lot for the city. you can go to any city and go to a HardRock Cafe. You can't get Wick's pizza everywhere.

Louisville should also try and become the green capital of the Midwest. We should have the most LEED certified buildings in our region. We should have more bike lanes, houses with solar panels, and first rate mass transit. While this may not be "economic development" per se it does create a progressive environment. That progressive environment is what will attract the younger (and young at heart) talent. People want to believe that they can make a difference in their hometowns. Even if they they really don't have voice they need to believe that they do. Being a progressive town that is a quirky artsy place gives people the feeling that they can make a change or try something different. If a town can tolerate and even cultivate it's funky, quirky artsy folks, then it will also do the same for the straight and narrow guys. It makes everybody feel like they can fit and that they do have a place. More importantly, it makes people like you have their back. Which means, that I'm not as afraid to try something new because I have support. 

This might be the biggest economic development tool Louisville has. Making people feel like they belong.