The West End: What to do with Louisville's Troubled Soul

With the increase in violence we have seen over the last few weeks in West Louisville it's pertinent to discuss what things could be done, from an economic standpoint, to help reclaim the area that is traditionally west of 9th Street and bordered by the Watterson Expressway.  The city has already seen several great neighborhood renaissances over the past decade with NULU and Liberty Green transforming the formerly blighted East Market and Clarksdale Neighborhoods.  Eastern portions of downtown as you head into Butchertown are now bright, buzzing and remarkably removed from the fear and uneasiness that previously might have come over someone who may have walked through those neighborhoods at the turn of the century.  In short, neither were places you especially wanted to be after dark.

Neighborhood revitalization does work and needs to be employed much more rigorously throughout Louisville. The city has already announced the future transformation of the Smoketown Neighborhood as its next targeted project for improvement, but this is another area that is generally bordered by much nicer surroundings, as Old Louisville and its stately homes are just a few blocks away.  What is to be done when you enter an area that is completely ensconced in blight, poverty, crime, drugs, and hopelessness as much of West Louisville is?  We should use Richmond, Virginia as a case study.

In 1999 Richmond started the Neighborhoods in Bloom program that aimed to target specific blocks within the city that had the utmost need for revitalization.  They combined both local and federal funds and identified 300 blocks to begin assisting and improving.  They concentrated on four main areas of improvement: focused code enforcement and improvements, repayment of back property taxes and the sale of some delinquent homes, increased historic home review and preservation, and focused infrastructure improvements in these areas.  The city gave itself a time span of 5 years to do these things.  What happened was quite phenomenal.

At the end of the project the city had invested $21.3 million in total funds (again spread between local and federal sources) with a median investment of $21,000 per block.  And the results that occurred were almost unimaginable:  housing prices in these previously blighted areas increased at an exponential rate (outpacing the rest of the city) beginning in 2001; community ties were strengthened as neighborhood coalitions were created to see the projects through; and private investment into these areas increased to levels never before seen in the history of these neighborhoods.  New jobs were created and people actually began moving into these areas again.  Beyond that, it is expected that the increase in property tax revenues over the next twenty years will cause the project to eventually be cash-flow positive for the city as a whole.  And at the root of all this was a sense of pride and ownership because people were being treated fairly and given positive options.  Self-worth was enhanced because people's surroundings were vastly improved, and morale in these neighborhoods skyrocketed.

So what does this mean for West Louisville?  The city completed the Liberty Green project for over $200 million and it encompassed just six city blocks, with a few additional spillover areas.  And while this transformation is clearly evident, it is still too early to tell how long-lasting it might be.  For a fraction of the cost the city could make a true, total transformation in West Louisville by specifically targeting their investment; starting with the most dangerous, blighted areas, and moving into their surrounding blocks after that.  Studies show that one of the great prevention tools of crime and drug abuse is simply giving people hope by improving their surroundings or providing them jobs.  As I wrote about in an earlier post, it is well past time that we stop avoiding the West End by circumventing it with highways and interstates.  Redeveloping the city's most dangerous neighborhoods will spur job growth, quell crime, and increase morale across the whole city.  And opening West Louisville for enhanced through traffic will only increase interest in its success.  At the end of the day, we should always be looking for ways to improve our current tax base as opposed to always looking for new taxpayers to flow in.  There are only so many Fords and GEs in the world.  (My old argument of growing the pot vs improving the soil).

In July 2007, while on the campaign trail, now-President Obama really said it best: "If poverty is a disease that infects an entire community in the form of unemployment and violence; failing schools and broken homes, then we can't just treat those symptoms in isolation.  We have to heal that entire community.  And we have to focus on what actually works."

Lord knows our community can't endure violence like what was seen last week.  We're better than that.  And if it was possible in Richmond, it sure as hell should be possible here.

Richmond, Virginia should serve as a model of how to  reduce crime through neighborhood revitalization.

The Impact of Economic Impacts

People, get off the ledge - it's going to be OK!  That is what I wanted to scream at the masses who outwardly loathed the findings of the Economic Impact Study Indiana performed on its portion of the Ohio River Bridges Project.  The fact that only 12,000 jobs were projected to be created over a 30 year period and that many of the original impact would last only through construction had people worried about the sky falling and wondering if we should even build anything?  Hell, at this rate we could have had the ONE GUY who has been re-decking the Big 4 Bridge into a walking connector build both bridges AND re-configure spaghetti junction all during his lunch hour during the time it has taken us (some 50+ years) to debate these bridges.

Lets get something straight: Economic impact studies should not be considered the end-all-be-all for decisions regarding community planning and development for the simple fact that despite their headline-grabbing star power, they are inherently flawed and incredibly inconsistent.  I recently completed an impact study for the Kentucky Derby Festival as they were trying to find a way to numerically prove their worth to the local powers that be, and in the pre-study research I discovered at least four separate methodologies for how to effectively perform the research (ultimately we settled on doing what closest resembled past efforts for the KDF in order to obtain results that had a consistent background).  And apparently sample size is not an issue for some of these big firms that are collecting huge fees to conduct this supposedly "scientific" work.  The most recent study was based upon 110 total responses for a project that impacts an entire state.  Our work for the KDF included nearly 800 responses in review of a project that impacts just a single city - how does that make sense?  Furthermore, some so-called experts say that the only dollars that should be counted as part of the impact are those that are brought in from out of town, while others insist that anything spent in regards to the subject matter should be included in the total as those dollars could either not be spent at all or be sent elsewhere.  And beyond that there are huge questions about the multiplier effects really should be considered, it's just not a cookie-cutter thing here.

All of this is to say that, while economic impact studies are important and do serve a purpose, they should only be considered with a grain of salt, and should never be the full-on basis for a decision.  In the case of the ORBP I think the facts speak for themselves.  In the 1960's cities like Atlanta, St. Louis, Cincinnati, Indianapolis, and Nashville began building massive transit-infrastructure projects to increase traffic flow and prepare for future growth.  Louisville sat on its hands, and continues to do so as the old-money powers that be conjure up diversion after diversion to postpone and even threaten the projects existence.  In 1992 the city took a very public, very controversial vote on the issue and it was defeated by a slim margin.  At that time it was proclaimed that an East-End Bridge would never happen.  Well people understand this - IT IS HAPPENING, and if you want your city to grow and prosper and attract world-renown companies to staff jobs and wealth into this city IT MUST HAPPEN.  If Louisville is considered The Possibility City please understand that there are only two outcomes available:  It's either going to be Possible for Louisville to climb into the 21st century as a leader of the midwest and the preeminent neo-American city; or it's Possible that Louisville will shrivel into oblivion as UPS and Humana leave the city for greener pastures where greater economies of scale are available because of closer vendor relationships and improved infrastructure.

If you continue to cry wolf and continue to play scared then the latter will happen and it won't be pretty (see Cleveland).  And that will be the true impact of these so-called economic impact studies.