Ninth Street (Louisville's 8-Mile), 8664, and the Bridges Project

For over 40 years the community has been in a heated debate over expanding the number of bridges that span the Ohio River to Indiana.  Originally the thought was that only an East-End Bridge was needed in order to create a beltway around eastern Jefferson County, Jeffersonville, and New Albany using I-265, but this has been blocked through legislation, public vote, and now legal action manipulated by the mostly-defacto environmental "rights" group RiverFields.  In order to get these issues resolved the city has expanded this debate to now include a downtown bridge and a total re-working of spaghetti junction, two projects that probably need to be addressed for the city to continue to grow over the next fifty years (especially considering the pace that business like this gets done around here - see Westport Road exit ramp from the Watterson).  Proponents of the East End Bridge like the idea because it gets that bridge done quicker and should help end the debate. Those chiming mostly for the downtown portion argue that the Kennedy will soon need to be replaced as well, and that large, national employers such as UPS and Ford will cease doing business in the community if we don't fix our ever-growing traffic problem soon.  And, as is the case in most of the city's debates, those who are against everything in general are part of the dwindling group of aristocratic elite who would prefer Louisville stay the same as it was in 1950, and never change from there.

One problem that has yet to be addressed through all of these debates, though, is the potential to further isolate the West End and other impoverished areas through a further re-doubling of concrete highways, causeways, and other man-made restrictions to society.  Since 1932, with the implementation of The New Deal, residential racial segregation has taken place through the displacement of many inner-city families due to the construction of interstates and the renewal of large downtown centers.  While the leaders of our time thought they were strengthening our country by creating a national highway system, what really took place was a natural dispersion of income by which those who could afford to transport themselves the long distances between home and work moved out into the suburbs and those who couldn't congregated as best they could in metro regions.  The downfall of this displacement is that land was readily available in the suburbs and scare in the urban areas causing the cost of living to skyrocket for those forced to remain near the centers of commerce.  Ultimately all of this led to poorer families having to congregate in housing projects and subsidized communities because it was the only way they could manage to continue to be near their places of work and education and still continue to make ends-meat.  Through time this problem has perpetuated by the fact that the highway system allows people to quickly and easily move through these areas of poverty without having to pay any attention to there state of disrepair and ineptitude, only further expanding the problems and increasing the separation between the two main people groups - essentially the haves and the have-nots.  So while an expanded Downtown Bridges Project may be good for the community in general, it could also create even more blight and income-differential within our fine city.

Throughout the discussion of what has become known as the Ohio River Bridges Project a small sect of individuals led a grass-roots campaign known as 8664, a charge to remove I-64's expanse across western downtown Louisville and revive River Road as the main route for those who need to navigate west through the city.  The idea behind this is two-fold: first it aimed to reduce traffic downtown by completing only the eastern bridge and diverting all unnecessary traffic around the city through Indiana, thus decreasing the problematic congestion and overuse of the roadways.  Second, it aimed to reclaim downtown by forcing those people who might need to get into West Louisville to drive through some of Louisville's poorest neighborhoods, increasing traffic through those areas, and hopefully increasing interest in ways to bring them back into a state of well-being.  The overall sentiment the group had was that Louisville didn't really need to take the easy fix and simply build more interstates, but could much more holistically improve itself by removing the structural and cultural barriers that have weighed down the city for years.

In the end the chimes for 8664 were drown out by bureaucrats who couldn't stand to see their good ideas go by the wayside for some not-for-profit movement, and the city lost another chance to improve itself beyond expectation.  It appears that, for the time being at least, the community will continue to be divided and segregated by its highway system, and that the problems will only be perpetuated in the future.  As Walter Mondale said in a 1967 hearing on the Fair Housing Act of 1968, "[the] basic national policy has been... we might talk about helping you in your ghetto, but we are not going to help you get out of it."

With all the revenue problems the city has had over the last decade, expanding the financial base through the improvement of neighborhoods, tax-payers, and people already loyal to the city and to its well-being must seem like too easy of a plan to ever consider undertaking - at least in the 502.

A picture of 9th Street / Roy Wilkins Blvd, Louisville's divide between the central downtown area and west-end poverty.

A map of West Louisville, the city's most self-contained and most impoverished area.

A digital rendering of the expanded spaghetti junction, its added lanes and overpasses.

A digital rendering of Louisville's West End Waterfront if 8664 had come to fruition and I-64 was removed.

 

Indianapolis and the Story of the Super Bowl

In this mornings Courier-Journal an article ran by USAToday columnist Mike Lopresti describing the ascent of Indianapolis in the 1970's and 80's from a quiet mid-western town that was "evaporating," as a former mayor put it, into one of the region's leading hubs of commerce, and the host site for the 2012 Super Bowl.  Essentially the story goes that the powers that be in Indy realized that their downtown landscape was going to shambles and they needed something to rejuvenate their scene.  Enter the Indianapolis Colts, the RCA Dome, (eventually) Conseco Field House, and (now) Lucas Oil Stadium.  What they did was basically drive interest through the use of sports.  People began to flock back to downtown Indy like the Salmon of Capistrano (to use the parlance of our time) in order to attend these games, go to these events, and be integrated in the city's new sports scene.  And you know what - IT WORKED.

This is a classic argument of what comes first, the chicken or the egg, but it's a great case study for Louisville.  When the Yum! Center was completed last year at the corner of 2nd and Main Streets critics howled about the lack of interest in Downtown Louisville, and the thought that an arena on the waterfront would be unsustainable, and a waste of resources.  And while there definitely questions still to be answered about the former, I think we can all agree that the latter is proving to be false.  Without question the addition of the KFC Yum! Center to our downtown landscape has increased interest in our city's main business corridor to levels I have never seen in my lifetime.  Previously the thought was that it was too expensive, too much of a hassle, and too big of a headache to do anything other than work downtown.  Now the commentary is on how we get MORE things downtown.  People are going to games, going to dinner, attending plays and shows, and experiencing all Louisville has to offer at a record pace.  In a few short weeks Louisville will be host to a portion of the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament's first two rounds, and has the potential to do even more with that event.  Concerts are being headlined in the facility nearly every week, and residents are beginning to see what an asset the building is becoming to our city's landscape.  It might only be one step, but it's a big one in the right direction to Louisville gaining national prominence once again.  Just as Indianapolis discovered forty years ago and are reminded of today, if you build it they will come - it's time for Louisville to continue to capitalize on it's own Field (arena) of Dreams.

The Start of Something Great

The idea for this blog has stemmed from years of living and observing Louisville - the city and its people.  Louisvillians are a great lot that often dream big, but usually find little in the way of coherent support or leadership to tackle big tasks and really get things done.  My goal for this small, intraweb space is to present ideas that are being floated throughout our city and explore them in both a macro and micro sense, and examine what is really needed to make our city spectacular.  Since the 1960's Louisville has really been treading just to keep its head above water, while peers such as Indianapolis, Nashville, Cincinnati, and Atlanta have zoomed by.  What is it that's kept us at bay?  Why do we still have the same problems 50 years later?  What can be done to really begin making waves in the region and once again establish ourselves as one of the premier locales in the Southeast?  I hope we can uncover the answers to these questions and more as we strive to make Louisville a Major League City.