Special thanks to our first regular Broken Sidewalk contributor, Diane Deaton-Street, who will be sending in sidewalk views from around the city in upcoming weeks.
Well, we finished skimming over a couple thousand headlines and now feel sufficiently caught up with the goings on in the River City and the related blogosphere. Here’s today’s news along with a few notable headlines from the past few weeks. It’s a lot and you probably have read many of them, but this will hopefully bring us up-to-date.
Local News
- Joe Davola’s finally opens on Barret Avenue (Consuming Lou)
- YUM going green with LEED certified KFC restaurant (Biz-First)
- 4th Street Live vs City Block controversy still going strong (Ville-Voice)
- Are local bars boycotting Maker’s Mark because of 4SL? (My Loueyville)
- JCTC still looking into Wayside’s Hotel Louisville property (C-J)
- While Wayside pays thousands in interest daily on the building (Ville-Voice)
- And the city is helping Wayside find another home (Ville-Voice)
- Updates from the arena which costs $1000 a minute (Ville-Voice)
- And a traffic study is set to begin around the arena site (Biz First)
- And the arena safety investigation explained here (Page One)
- Jarfi’s Bistro moving to ZirMed Towers from B-town Rd. (Lou HB)
- And Zaytun on B-town Rd. is expanding in Douglass Loop (Consuming Lou)
- St. Matthews’ Sustain store to close permanently (C-J)
- More ideas on how to revitalize the Russell neighborhood (Russell blog)
- Louisville tops voter chart of best cities overwhelmingly (Imagine Lou)
- Louisville th 10th safest city in the country according to FBI (Page One)
- With a critical mass in sight, can New Albany stay the course? (NA Confidential)
- $200 million proposed for State Street in New Albany (N & T)
- More on New Albany’s attempts to trade defeatism for revitalization (LEO)
- It’s still difficult to live car-free in Louisville (Presta vs Shrader)
- Rubbertown chemical company fined for chemical discharges in air (Fat Lip)
- Some great photos of Southwestern Louisville (a pretty pickle)
- Levee trail to be extended 2.5 miles in southwest Jeff. county (C-J)
- Louisville & Lexington join up for mutual gain (Biz Lex via Urbanophile)
Other news of interest
- Michigan governor calls for making trains at car factories (Infrastructurist)
- What should we get out of High Speed Rail & how to pay for it (StreetsBlog)
- Fix rail as it was in 1920s, forget High Speed Rail techno-glitz (Kunstler)
- DIY laser bike lane idea enters prototype phase (GOOD)
- Chart shows how slow it’s been to improve fuel economy (How We Drive)
- Great comedy about cars, driving, and transportation by Stephen Wright (How We Drive)
- Study: Urban residents twice as likely to exercise than suburbanites (CEOs4Cities)
- More single females than males in Louisville (Creative Class)
- Greater population density increases exchange of skills, ideas (Creative Class)
- What is “Gen-Y” looking for in cities and who ranks in the top-25 (Creative Class)
- And how to attract talented outsiders to a city (Urbanophile)
- This map showing human development doesn’t look good for the South (Creative Class)
- Sense of community increased as economy slows (CoolTown Studios)
- Construction sites can be pedestrian-friendly, too (Spacing)
- Study: Green sector ‘poised for explosive growth’ (World Changing)
- And Louisville certainly has room for green job growth (World Changing)
- And green jobs have outpaced the economy for a decade (LA Times via Infrastructurist)
First, I have to say how delighted I am to see BS back and running, and that the move to NY seems not to have killed this excellent site.
You know, looking over this backlog of posts, especially the one on the 4SL v CB story, it strikes me that the smart folks in Louisville (and I know that’s the people who come to BS) need to organize some kind of Summit, a live discussion, debate, forum in which powers-that-be and powers-that-want-to-be argue and brainstorm over the direction and shape this city should take. Do we become a truly unique, local-centric, innovative, funky, off-beat town with a sense of place or just another mid-sized city with nice, corporate amenities?
I moved back to Louisville 3 1/2 years ago (after 35 years in Rochester NY)and have been delighted with the vibe here. At first I thought Abramson was a big part of that vibe, but recently have realized that he is in large part, and despite good intentions, a shill for corporate vision. We need the Cornish v Local issue discussed in a public forum; we need the 8664 proposal adequately debated… We need the Arts, Transportation, Placemaking, Architecture, Food, Creatives, Energy, Technology and Blogging all really passionately, publicly debated in a large enough venue that it gets noticed and the conversation becomes part of everyday life – to everyone in town.
I will return to reading this site every day. I read CoolTownStudios (http://www.cooltownstudios.com/) every day and get excited about Louisville’s turning that corner, which seems to be just up ahead, towards the kind of placemaking, crowdsourcing, creative energy discussed there. I think a highly visible Louisville Sense of Place Summit would help get us there. Anyone?
Okay, to what degree is the Sustainable City Series already what I’m calling for?
Thanks for staying with us through the transition Ken and for your kind words about Broken Sidewalk and its readers. I agree that keeping the topics you mentioned in the dialogue is really valuable in helping us determine where we want Louisville to be and how to get there.
The Sustainable City Series is one really important aspect of that conversation. Another is discussing topics on Broken Sidewalk with a group that adamantly cares about the future of Louisville. A third important dialogue level happens at the office water cooler, at the coffee shop, or at the kitchen table. They all contribute in their own ways.
That said, and what I think you are looking for, I think there is still a sort of void in the discussion. The issues you mention include some of the most important and challenging ones that have faced Louisville in years. It’s frustrating that there’s no real outlet where these discussions can have real meaningful impact.
What form would you like to see them take? How have discussions such as the Sustainable City Series and others helped advance these goals? What scale is best to get the discussion out there? Certainly many of the issues like transportation or the growth of Downtown have ties to the entire community, but can neighborhoods take on a major role in this? What are your thoughts?
One of my favorite references is a collection of essays put together by the Dallas Institute called Stirrings of Culture (http://www.amazon.com/Stirrings-Culture-Robert-J-Sardello/dp/0911005072).It was an outgrowth of the formation of the institute and a formative document for what became the What Makes a City? Conference (http://dallasinstitute.org/programs_centerforthecity.html). It is this kind of thought and talk I see missing here: the bigger, deeper issues of aesthetics, philosophy, phenomenology of the city. UL fails to provide that kind of intellectual leadership. We have support for the arts, we have discussion of economics and logistics, but we seldom discuss Why? And we seldom have the kind of cross-disciplinary discussion that breaks open the Why question: do our strong indie musicians (I’m a big fan) discuss the architecture and environments they perform in? Do they discuss the education, the teachers that got them to music? Do food critics and chefs discuss issues of race and economics in a public way? Do local writers talk with local artists… about the city?
This is the way my thoughts are going…
oops… screwed up the link to the book: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0911005072/ref=s9_simz_gw_s0_p14_i1?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=center-2&pf_rd_r=01G0DHT2RTV639YE214X&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=470938631&pf_rd_i=507846
(of course, if anyone wants it, get it from Charmichaels!)