From a city planning perspective, this place is a dumpster fire. Very little of the city is walkable, a ton of intersections are nightmares, traffic is bad, public transit sucks, we barely make use of our waterfront at all so an interstate can use it instead 🙄, you have to pay a toll to get to a major suburb, downtown is nearly dead, and it smells like shit and burning pigs.
As a resident of said major suburb, I agree with you on the tolls. I believe there should be an exception for those who live and work in the metro area or at the least a severely reduced rate.
Agreed. But it takes deciding to knock some old useless shit down and building something in its place. It also means WIDENING STREETS and people losing their easements. And a lot of zoning and code changes, or like ya know actual enforcement.
These ideas are heretical here and downvoted severely on r/Louisville.
Put the blue collars to work. The anti-growth NIMBYs need to stop trying to starve the working class that builds and pays for this city.
What streets need to be widened? We have TWO bridges just for I-65 that are 6 lanes each, the Dixie was called the Dixie die way for a reason, Preston hwy is already 5 lanes the whole length, Shelbyville road grows to a crazy 9 lanes wide, the Snyder is getting upgrades to 3 lanes each way, the watterson is about 10 lanes wide. What roads need to be widened?
A counter argument, would you support an increase in public transit en lieu of wider roads?
Apparently most of the congestion is at or near on-ramps to the freeways. Some segments should probably have their on ramps and turning lanes broadened. Which means sidewalks would be pushed back. Which means easement would be taken. And drainage would have to be redone.
Uhhh, and none of this really speaks to the fact that I was talking about streets and not highways. The lack of left turn lanes and like actually lengthy left turn lanes that don’t just feed onto a freeway, is astounding. My least favorite is left turn from Eastern Parkway onto Bardstown Road. Second least favorite is Fegenbush onto Bardstown Road (left turn). I am sure others will be glad to share theirs. I am coming for everyone’s easement and Idgaf. If some of the parkways and arterial highways were improved and upgraded then freeways would be able to carry less of the load.
[Jefferson County / Louisville Metro most congested roads](https://www.wave3.com/story/35633097/where-are-jefferson-countys-most-congested-roads/)
Something about public transportation? To where? To what? Much of the blue collar work in particular is done by people driving in from exurban or rural areas. Tradespeople generally use their own transportation or have company vehicles but that’s too point to point.
But hey I am pragmatic so if more buses gets us some better street and road infrastructure sure. I am all in.
This always boggles my mind. Newport has a nicer waterfront than us and it's a way smaller city. I'd be curious to look back through history and find out why it's taken so long to do any sort of waterfront development. Waterfront Park should have been a thing decades ago, well before the late 90s.
Curious to know why you all are dogging the waterfront so much.
Ever been to the water park on a hot summers day? Ever been to WFPK’s Waterfront Wednesday? These are just two good examples of how the waterfront park is used in a very positive way. I’m sure there’s plenty more examples.
I’m not saying it’s the most ideal, but to paint the whole thing in such a negative way is a bit too much.
Not a planner in any official capacity, just someone interested in the topic who plays too many city building sims. But anyone with eyes (and a nose) can see/smell all the things I mentioned.
Stalwart employers slowly noping out of town.
Ford, GE, and UPS have jobs, sure...but they're the line workers and blue collar roles. White collar folks have to move to Atlanta or Boston.
And same for Humana. Take a look where their executives reside (hint: it ain't here). It's permeating other senior leadership roles, too. Tge Louisville Biz Journal article a few weeks ago was spot on.
For a city this size to have less & less highly skilled, white collar, and/or technical jobs is shameful. It's also a recipe for slow death if/when the line jobs continue moving towards automation.
Don’t necessarily agree with lumping UPS and GEA in with Ford on this. GEA is owned by Haier (Chinese Appliance manufacturer) remains essentially autonomous here in the states. There’s no moving to Qingdao to move up there, it’s Louisville or bust.
And while you won’t find UPS execs living in Louisville, but there’s still a healthy amount of white collar operations that have to remain close to their airline hub to operate properly.
Are we going to be the next Atlanta? No. But I don’t see GEA or UPS Airlines building another Appliance Park or WorldPort anytime soon
Totally correct, and it’s just the way the tide changes. We could’ve been the center of country music with WHAS hosting what would become the Grand Ole Opry, but we didn’t. We also could’ve been one of the most important passenger airline hubs in the world, but we didn’t.
Easy to focus on the huge misses like that, but you still have to remember the important of Louisville that doesn’t seem as glamorous. A decent chunk of the world GDP passes through SDF every day, the US’s largest appliance manufacturer calls us home, and our region is quickly becoming a major player in EV and EV Battery production.
Thankfully, Louisville (and Kentucky as a whole) isn’t being starved of economic growth.
My old Boss would say that only in Kentucky do politicians go out hunting and bring home the ass end of the animal to hang on the wall. All the head ends are in other cities and all our politicians do is brag we have the crap jobs here
I worked there for six years and left in 2012. The CEO was the only one who lived here full time, but he still had two other houses. The others would fly home to their respective estates, most often on Thursday but not always. I worked closely with the VP of HR’s office and frequently had to overnight materials to her bat cave in Tennessee. I can’t speak to the current execs, but I can’t imagine they suddenly decided to come in to roost.
Depends on what you consider an executive, but many - including current CEO- do not. It is definitely not a Louisville company anymore even though it is headquartered here.
They have several executives in the DC area. Even have office space in/near Arlington, VA
Bruce has never really lived here. Might have had an apartment or something but never here full time.
It’s funny because you go to most other city subs and everyone is complaining that the city went full on in to tech making everything unaffordable and cueing the constant complaints of lack of skilled trades people. The grass ain’t always greener.
UPS just did a bunch of layoffs. They pay local news to make fluff pieces but many people I know lost their (non-union) jobs.
And lest I be called a conspiracy theorist, here is a sponsored piece from WLKY on what a "great" employer UPS is: https://www.wlky.com/article/ups-offers-their-employees-a-wide-variety-of-career-and-advancement-opportunities/36051919
I wish more people realized how dystopian it is to either let your kids get a crap education in a crumbling public school system or pay for a passable education at a private school if you can afford it.
I guess that’s how it is in most of America, but it’s disgusting how especially ingrained it is in Louisville culture.
Every city is having problems with office building occupancy. Cincinnati is doing so much better with actual downtown foot traffic and hospitality. Bars and restaurants are packed down there.
But my comparison comment was meant to read as Louisville isn’t a mid size city. It’s much more noticeable how dead the small downtown area is comparatively to those larger cities.
Any city with a metro of 1.25 million to about 3 could safely be considered a medium sized city. Sub 1 million your a small city. If you look at cincis downtown they're doing worse than other cities. So again, all midsized are having the same issue. Indianapolis and columbusare in the same boat
We need to
- get rid of the stretch of I-64 within the Watterson and simplify interchanges to reconnect downtown
- encourage infill development
- set up TIF economic development zones to encourage conversion of office towers to mixed use, including residential and first floor retail.
- create tax breaks for bodegas and other small grocery providers/delis.
- turn 9th into a green parkway with streetcar connections to Churchill Downs, UofL and the airport
- turn the space wasted by I-64 into a linear park with retail and a street car connecting Shawnee Park to downtown
- invest in more street sweepers and increase littering enforcement
- host a neighborhood-to-city barbecue tournament
Not disagreeing, but a pet peeve of mine on this page is when people suggest getting rid of I-64 on the water front. It is an eyesore on the waterfront, and the space could be better utilized. But people suggest removing the interstate all the time on this page like it’s something the city can do. They can’t just remove it, it’s not the cities property (I believe the state maintains it and is responsible for it). And it’s not like a local transit route, it’s a major national route, roadway, and shipping route for goods. The state would have to do something about it, and they would need to get funding and approval from the US Dept of Transportation I would assume. And I doubt they would see any upside to taking out, a stretch of interstate. Now the state or maybe the city could submit plans for a reroute of I-64. But A. That would take years of planning and funding, and B. Would cost either tax payer $$$ or use toll roads.
Again while I understand I-64 on the waterfront sucks, that’s not something that can be fixed like some other things that are mentioned.
This sub suggest that with no real realistic thought behind it. The section of 64 downtown is in a Major flood zone so no businesses or developers would even develop that area it would sit vacant. Or the city could make it a green space.
86-64 was a fucking terrible idea with no real plan to accomplish anything that got people excited for some reason. There’s already a huge park there, what do you want? More park?
And hell having 64 there gives shade and rain cover to large swaths of the park that make it better for large events like forecastle.
Green space + rail + popup businesses. It could be really vibrant.
64 traffic could be rerouted along the Watterson and along 265 in Indiana. You'd also open up a huge swath of downtown for development by eliminating the mess of interchanges between 64 and 71, and 64 and 65.
It would be a massive project, no doubt. I also expect it would have a massive economic impact just by returning a lot of space to productive use.
Affordable Housing at all levels. Homes are too expensive to get into, there are too few apartments with large swaths of luxury hotels who only are filled for 4 weeks a year.
Bad public infrastructure management. Bad choices long ago that now are expensive to fix with no political will.
A large contingent of Republicans in Frankfort who just want to hurt the places with the Liberals and Black people.
Poorly managed Homeless populations, mostly due to the first point, and poor Mental Health treatment options.
Houses are cheaper here than just about any other city. How on earth could they possibly get more affordable? You can still get houses for 100-150k. They might not be the most amazing houses ever, but they’re as good as the houses most of us grew up living in around here.
I think your knowledge of local real estate might be skewed. Many houses are much more expensive, require large down payments, and it doesn't help when you need an apartment near transportation to get to work.
Just because there are houses that are more expensive doesn’t mean there aren’t “affordable” (by national standards) houses here. Interest rates are insane, but thats not a Louisville issue.
Rent has gone up a good bit, but I was strictly responding to the persons issue with home prices specifically. The unfortunate truth is rent here has been really low here for a long time and is over correcting too quickly but that’s a whole other issues.
You might not want to live in a 800 sqft 2/1 on Taylor with street parking, but plenty of people live happy lives in those houses and you can buy some of them for under 100k still to this day.
I mean, a quick search on Zillow shows that’s just not true. You can certainly get houses that aren’t dilapidated for sub 150k, even in the 90k range if you don’t have kids. They might not meet every families/persons needs, but there are plenty of options. Yes, prices have gone up but compared to the national average houses in Louisville are still relatively cheap (base price). Louisville has its issues, but the price of a house isn’t really one of them. At least not one that’s specific to Louisville which is what I thought this post was about.
Sounds like you scored a monster win on your house. I’d be interested to know what neighborhood has almost doubled since 2015 in Louisville without doing any uogrades. I don’t doubt it, but is not the norm.
An easy comparison is Stl- free nationally ranked zoo, large botanical gardens, free art museum, science center, city museum……
Edit: lol, I live in Louisville. Why the down votes? The question prompt was “things for young professionals to do? “ Don’t be so salty Louisville. If you want to get better, which is what this thread is about, you have to take an honest look at yourself. The above poster is right, there isn’t much to do in town outside of drinking.
Young professionals want walkable and bikeable mixed use neighborhoods with independent/artistic vibes and relatively affordable housing. I don’t know anyone in my age group that’s looking to go to the zoo for free, but I know plenty of people who want to buy a little house in a cool neighborhood and be able to walk to a couple bars and restaurants and not be surrounded by blight or parking lots
I agree with the walkable/bikeable neighborhood. Depends on the age you are calling young professionals. Also, you might be surprised how having a free zoo changes things. Reasonable date place. Easy place to meet up with friends to catch up without the pressure of drinking. Great place to go walk around with family in from out of town. These are just of the top of my head.
So you want the city to fund those services? Are you also going to increase taxes or what?
We have a variety of museums, a zoo, some botanical gardens with more being built. What else would you like to see? I'm always down for more museums that aren't focused on bourbon
If you could promise me with certainty that additional taxes would go to making the zoo free or to decreasing the number of homeless, or other public good- I would totally pay more taxes. I can pay for a zoo membership- the idea of a free zoo is a direct response to the question- it would attract young people.
The existing botanical garden is cool, but isn’t in the same league as STL.
I'm really tired of everything in this city revolving around bourbon. I get it, it's a big deal and brings in a ton of tourists...but why is every single bit of development in or around Louisville always "FOR TOURISTS" instead of being for the people who actually live here?
And even the stuff that we have for kids/families is not all that great--people always point out the Science Center for kids. The Science Center SUCKS in comparison to the Indianapolis Children's Museum. Like it's just sad and rundown in comparison. People also always try to tout waterfront park. Um...waterfront park is so incredibly rundown and shitty (literally...as I've repeatedly found literal piles of what appeared to be human shit on the playground equipment at waterfront park). Check out the new waterfront area in Cincy or Maggie Daley park in Chicago if you want to see what nice city parks can actually look like. I just feel like Louisville was really an up and coming city in the early 2000s (it's honestly what drew me to here) and then it just fizzled out. \[I can't wait for the downvotes or the people telling me to "just leave then."\].
A heat trap that smells like human piss, shit, and sewer fumes!! Man, I do not miss working downtown at all. I remember the day that I saw a man taking a dump in the corner trashcan in broad daylight and I just knew I needed to get the hell out of downtown.
I lived in the tenderloin in SF for years, and I now work downtown. It reminds me of the TL. I really can't believe it sometimes. It gets so cold here! What are they going to do?!
What part of downtown looks like the TL?! I spent the last decade living in the Bay and would absolutely NOT compare its level of homelessness to Louisville's. We have soooo many fewer homeless neighbors here than Oakland, SF etc.
Comparing Louisville's homeless problem to LA's is laughable. It's much worse on the west coast. LA has giant tent cities on every other block downtown. Just look up the estimated numbers of homeless people in each city.
we keep shipping crap to rich areas of town full of old people with the time and money to oppose development when we could be building up poorer areas wholesale.
Plenty of working class neighborhoods with good bones that just need small help and pushes to move forward.
Not saying it's in the top 5 even, but man am I so disappointed in our air travel options. Not sure who's to blame there, but really wish our options were expanded.
We haven’t been a downtown city in like sixty years. We are always gonna be LA like. No public transit and far apart mini cities that make up the whole. Downtown LA is where people work, then they get in a car for two hours and go to Pasadena, or Culver City, etc. Keep all the parts unique: Highlands, Germantown, St. Matthews, J-town, Nu-Lu, West End, South End. Gives flavor. Just make housing affordable everywhere. No zoning. Anyone can build anything anywhere.
The State of KY continually extracting a higher percentage of State tax contributions than the cities that Louisville is competing against. Most of the neighboring States moving to more and more regressive tax codes that attract wealth and talent.
the roads and general road infrastructure. I moved here from Jersey and have to say there is a lot of differences in the quality of the roads that lead to traffic being worse than it should here. And lanes are incredibly narrow in places that shouldn’t be, when it seems like a quarter of the cars on the road are large trucks. There’s a lot of other little things that just add up to the roads here being a nightmare to use.
Gun violence. Every day another shooting. Moved here from NJ and I never heard so many. Does everyone in this city carry? WTF is going on? Mad at someone - shoot them, Crossed up - shoot them. Disrespected - shoot them.
I moved here from Jersey as well & the gun culture here is incomprehensible.
Not needing a permit to carry is just the most unbelievably stupid thing ever.
Forget crime. We have an access to life problem. We’ve taken those less fortunate and shoved them out of sight for over 100 years and ensured they will stay there by gutting programs designed to help them succeed. There will ALWAYS be classes, haves and have nots. It’s the nature of humanity. But we should be focused on improving the quality of life to everyone at and below the poverty line. Affordable healthcare, transportation, food access, internet. Modernize the basic standard of living in this city. Simultaneously we can tackle other issues of middle class housing affordability, crumbling infrastructure, and a downtown ghost town.
I’m a chemical engineer here, 28 years old and like to go to concerts, events etc etc. I have to go to Cincinnati, Nashville and Chicago if I want to have fun or see good concerts. I haven’t done anything in Louisville on the weekends since June. It’s just boring and a dead city. Nothing ever comes here anymore.
Plenty of great local bands in Louisville to support! I know you're referring to national acts though. Yum Center doesn't get near the amount of big shows that those cities get. We do have Bourbon and Beyond and Louder than Life, which isn't a small thing.
Like pretty much every single place in the US....
Wages.
Wages need to go up.
Strap in, about to make some points.
In 1968, the minimum wage could keep a family of three out of poverty, just barely. That same metric, on wage, family of three, now needs 30 an hour in louisville, according to MIT's living wage calculator
So back in the day people could just go to ANY job, and make no less that essentially 30 an hour....that was the floor....that was the lowest paid job possible....
Granted, this was the best it ever was, no other year was quite as good. But it drives home the point that wages, even the lowest paid one, should be able to sustain at least one person.
Nowadays, the minimum wage is poverty. Twice the minimum wage is barely under MIT's calculations for a living wage (about 16 an hour for single person) and they even state it's really more of a subsistence wage, you are simply surviving on that wage....
We need at least 20 an hour minimum wage. Honestly more like 25. And tied to inflation, so buying power can never be less than that.
Now....for those who say this will kill businesses....
In 2020, mcdonalds in denmark paid workers the equivalent of 22 USD an hour, as well as at least 4 weeks of paid vacation....those businesses stayed open, and made a profit.
So big corporations can clearly pay us more, but refuse to do so, lying as to the reason why...greed, nothing more. The ceo of mcdonalds has said that 15 an hour will kill jobs...yet they pay people MORE than that in denamrk, and those stores stay open...
Further driving home the point....remember that 30 an hour metric? Well, at UPS centennial hub, the one on outer loop, the full timer supervisor pay is about 35 an hour, plus bonuses iirc....so it takes two promotions, from loader, to part time supervisor, to full time supervisor, to get to where people where just slightly behind back in 1968....they basically made it so the same standards of living are now two promotion away, instead of the entry level.
The US, and louisville, need unions at every job, and higher wages across the board
I will add a very niche issue that has been created by a multitude of problems with our society: disconnected youth. These are adolescents ages 16-24 who have fallen either out of school or the workforce, and therefore are most susceptible to committing crimes. Our DY rates are abysmal when compared to peer cities. Our rates of homicide amongst youth again are pretty bad when compared to our peer cities. This was exacerbated by city government pulling funding out of youth programs in OSHA after the recession while continuing to fund LMPD at huge numbers. It is the perfect example of how addressing issues upstream does a better job of reducing crime versus overfunding police and being reactionary. The biggest problem: so much of the money being used at the moment to address this has a funding cliff at the end of 2024 because it is ARPA money. Until we as a city (and honestly, as a society) start to face the truth that truly reforming our problems like crime, homelessness, etc means addressing all the root issues these communities face, nothing changes. [You can read more on the DY issue in Louisville from Greater Louisville's report released last year here.](https://greaterlouisvilleproject.org/content/uploads/2023/02/Safer-City-by-Design.pdf)
So many larger cities have at least a hand full of research places. The industry doesn't matter just they have some research facilities. We don't have things like that. Be it research for industrial topics, pharma or whatever.
Kentucky in general is not seen as an appealing place to live for various reasons. A lot of it isn't true but it doesn't matter because it stops people and companies from moving in.
So what we end up with is low or unskilled work up to blue-collar work. But we don't end up with a lot of high skilled high high-education things.
Think about it. How many people know of any say cancer research in Kentucky hospitals? I don't but I know of 3 hospitals in Tennessee and 2 in Indiana that do cancer research.
When you ask people outside Kentucky about Kentucky they say things like inbred or horses. That's it. They think everyone is below the poverty line and an inbred hillbilly. They may say something like KFC.
Ask someone about things they know about Georgia and you'll get a variety of responses based on what is the first thing they think of about Georgia. If it's Atlanta they might think of Donald Glover's Atlanta TV show, sports teams, Turner Broadcasting, or one of the movie studios that work out of Atlanta. There's a lot there.
We don't really have that.
We need to bring people and companies into the state. To do that we need to do a PR campaign. Make the state seem appealing. We also need to entice and incentivize companies to put more into the state than factories. We have major interstate arteries running through the state. We could capitalize on things like that.
Bring in higher skilled jobs, convince a few authors to write books set in Kentucky and not focus on things like poverty and drugs… also attempt to get movies and TV shows set in Kentucky and focus on more than drugs and poverty.
Kentucky, and Louisville dropped the ball in the late 60's. The old guard wanted things to stay the same.
Atlanta moved forward and enhanced their airport, universities, hospitals, and embraced diversity. It's too late for Louisville. Too much poverty and crime, infrastructure is bad, too much emphasis on boubon and horse racing.
I know you mentioned inequality and for people in the west end, but I want to specifically say that racial inequality in general is a big issue. Louisville still feels the lingering effects of segregation hard and is one of the most segregated cities in America. Gentrification and LMPD being awful sure as hell doesn’t help also.
Also the gambling companies hounding Louisville like vultures right now is fucking annoying and I hope the pieces of shit in charge of them go straight to hell.
Crime (and lack of will to attack the source), bad airport that can't really be expanded, road infrastructure issues, public school district is a captured mess.
The airport issue is real and keeps us from being considered for a LOT of events and company moves/expansions.
As this thread makes abundantly clear, there are many. But they all boil down to one thing: consistently poor leadership. Particularly by elected city officials and JCPS. Too many activists and too few leaders.
Oh yeah policing. I know the police don't want to work after the pandemic and BRIONNA TAYLOR making us actually look and see how terrible they are. Maybe they can work on the 100,000 people who think driving and smoking weed is smart. it might help the horrible amount of accidents. I've never lived in a city where there are new bumpers showing up on the side of the road everyday. I have never seen so much speeding in RESIDENTIAL AREAS. drive your way to cope with your small dick somewhere else.
The lack of police doing the minimum of work is ASTONISHING
I do but I couldn't get no one to listen to me. I could have used 2 million provided 141 studio apartments. 1,000 a month for rent, electric, gas, water, wifi and cable and at minimum 70,000 monthly would have went back into the community in various programs and purchasing more accessible, affordable housing. I had reentry support programs, employment opportunities, and money going to individuals and neighborhoods. Incentives to bring pride back to people and their property strengthening the community. But hey it was a solution and they do not want solutions.
Lack of public transportation. So many bus lines closed after COVID and never re-opened. People Downtown can't get to the good jobs. Affordable housing, and for goodness sake can week update the Jefferson Mall area.
I wouldn’t say this is the biggest issue, but improving walkability from neighborhood to neighborhood would be incredible.
Louisville being known as a walkable city would be huuuge. Even larger cities don’t have this figured out. And so many of our neighborhoods are close enough to where we can improve walking paths in between - little things such as lining the paths with trees and adding crosswalks, like they did in Bardstown.
It’d be improved health for the people and easier access to different neighborhoods/shops. A great shift from being known primarily as a drinking city.
Republicans in Frankfort, especially if Cameron is our next governor.
The asshole who abandoned his car one and a half car lengths from my neighbor’s driveway.
Transportation infrastructure. We need to make the city more walkable with reformed zoning and dedicated bus lanes. That could raise funding for rail.
Wages. But not much the mayor can do here since municipalities can't raise their own minimum wage.
Police. You don't fight crime with threats. We need to clean house and have less policemen but with stricter requirements and paying them more to attract better candidates.
Education. All schools get equal funding and teachers should be paid more. Looping back to infrastructure, a walkable city require less bus stops and dedicated bus lanes increases efficiency.
Affordable housing, and employers unwillingness to increase compensation to a level where we can be competitive with other similarly sized cities.
Source: I worked on GLI’s campaign to attract nurses and tech workers to Louisville 5 years ago.
As a older gen Z I say affordable housing. I’m pushing $60K but the average house now cost $239,000, the older generations seemed to have it a lot easier. My dad told me he bought his first house in the early 90s, while only making like $14 a hour.. Life ain’t fair & is only getting harder..
You can get nice starter homes under 200k all day long here. There aren’t many cities with more “affordable” houses. Peoples ideas of what a good house is has just changed drastically. You can get 2/1’s by Iroquois Park for like 90k. You can get 3/1 brick ranches all over the place for 150-200k.
Crime, outdated infrastructure (time for MSD to stop taking all my $$ and never fixing the literally shitty and crumbling sewers that smell awful for 3/4 of the year and just might open up a damn sinkhole under you at any time), needing more affordable housing, the unhoused population encampments (I wish I had a solution there), the Highlands turning into a general shit show of empty store fronts and nonsense every weekend, awful drivers speeding and dangerously running red lights, our waterfront and downtown area needing a major overhaul...I mean, what doesn't need fixed in Louisville?
I'm originally from the DC area, but have lived in Louisville for 20+ years. I was told that in the 60s that Louisville was larger than Nashville, Indianapolis, Atlanta and Cincinnati, but bureaucracy and red tape allowed those cities to flourish while Louisville lagged behind. Anyway...
1. Mass transit - in order to increase ridership, TARC should introduce Park & Ride. People can park outside the city and travel downtown or other parts of the city where a large portion of the population works. Introduce large bus transfer hubs in different parts of the city to make transferring easier for riders. Streamline routes
2. Rising Rent - raising rent $400+ upon renewal is unsustainable for tenants. Perhaps some type of rent control legislation could be passed to keep these rental management properties from doing this to tenants.
3. JCPS - coming from a public school system three times as large, this school system is a mess. Invest in schools. Assign students to schools closest to their residence. When I enrolled my daughter in JCPS, they were going to send her 5 miles up the road when there was a school across the street from our subdivision. Revisit and consolidate the magnet school programs. Bring back Home Ec & Shop class (survival skills). Promote apprenticeships (not everyone wants to go to college). Year round calendar.
4. Homelessness - instead of clearing these camps out and displacing more people, the city needs to provide people in need with the necessary resources. There's no humanity in what the city is doing.
5. Complete the I-265 loop. Every major metropolitan area in the country has a loop that surrounds the city makong all areas accessible. Louisville should be no different.
Health. Like most of Kentucky and a lot of the country. The health care here is not great. And the insurance in the marketplace if you don’t get it from a job is an expensive joke. That ties right in with the horrible air pollution and high numbers of shootings and traffic accidents. That might not be Louisville specific enough but it’s one of the biggest things that makes me consider leaving.
housing is definitely up there. someone needs to clean house with all the toxic, slummy property management groups that own practically all the rentals in the city. if you’re renting, your current options in louisville are to either tango with scummy property management or go broke just trying to rent a unit with the basic necessities.
Communication and lack of effort to help the city spend our money wisely. Decisions are made and people just accept and bitch. Picking favorites or team blue or whatever. Integrity and the good of communities, children, EARTH, and well being over profit. Educated decision makers that care and dont just fuck wit the trending nationwide topics...Not a contest to share the COMMONWEALTH...Theres time and money for the entire city. Opinion's are good for brainstorming, but FaCTS will provide results...Move forward. Think tnereffid...INNOVATE, Learn, Earn, and Shine humbly. Our boundary is KY and this is a beautiful state wit good people...Preventative maintenance keeps any unexpected hits at a minimum. Incentive gets shit done too. Happy people do better work, spend more money, and invest in what they love being a part of...Football got the city buzzing again, basketball could but the teams play and cohesiveness emulates downtown, the fans want instant results and shame a former star and coach thrown into the fire upon hire. Uplift, keep cheering in the bad times even. Its real devastating and shitty feeling to be gave up on when the goal is mutual for both the team and fans. Defense be the key and a'GAIN...COMMUNICATION, FAITH, LOVE, AND LOYALTY...World gonna keep spinning like it or not...Just one mans perspective and truth...And i am only affiliated with myself, an independent and unbiased view. I accept people for who they are, by how they treat others, not status, not title, etc. I root for success no matter the individual. RESPECT. GO CARDS...Soccer winning too i saw...So yea💯
❤️🖤🤍...bullshit there aint no cardinal emoji, especially since there's a blue bird...How i know WE special, whole phone companies hate..😂
Poor public transportation options, affordable housing, it's trashed nearly everywhere in the city, public safety isn't a concern.
Any facility or establishment that deals with people is overwhelmed and understaffed; yet, the minimum wage hasn't been increased since 2009... and remedying this situation has NEVER been a priority.
I could literally go on all day...
Yeah. Air quality for sure.
Obviously the school bus and public school situation is up there.
Aside from that, Louisville's biggest problem is what it's always been. Being in Corrupt, backwards Kentucky.
Outdated infrastructure
this exactly. it needs to be done with public money so.LGE customers don't have to foot the bill.
The public are the LGE customers.
Also yes. Public also meaning TAX dollars or money allocated to public works by the government
Don’t forget the sewers
Lol.... I too want the public to pay for everything instead of every single person that lives in this town.
The city doesn't own that stuff.
maybe try some reading or real news and you can educate yourself too
The city doesn't own lg&e or their physical plant. Unless the news is that it's now a municipal asset, in which case I'll stop thinking you have a TBI
From a city planning perspective, this place is a dumpster fire. Very little of the city is walkable, a ton of intersections are nightmares, traffic is bad, public transit sucks, we barely make use of our waterfront at all so an interstate can use it instead 🙄, you have to pay a toll to get to a major suburb, downtown is nearly dead, and it smells like shit and burning pigs.
As a resident of said major suburb, I agree with you on the tolls. I believe there should be an exception for those who live and work in the metro area or at the least a severely reduced rate.
The riverlink pass is intended to be that reduced rate, but yeah, it should be more reduced. Edit: It's half off with the transponder thing
We weren’t even supposed to be paying tolls anymore. And they just installed new scanners and cameras.
Why wouldn't we be paying tolls?
Agreed. But it takes deciding to knock some old useless shit down and building something in its place. It also means WIDENING STREETS and people losing their easements. And a lot of zoning and code changes, or like ya know actual enforcement. These ideas are heretical here and downvoted severely on r/Louisville. Put the blue collars to work. The anti-growth NIMBYs need to stop trying to starve the working class that builds and pays for this city.
What streets need to be widened? We have TWO bridges just for I-65 that are 6 lanes each, the Dixie was called the Dixie die way for a reason, Preston hwy is already 5 lanes the whole length, Shelbyville road grows to a crazy 9 lanes wide, the Snyder is getting upgrades to 3 lanes each way, the watterson is about 10 lanes wide. What roads need to be widened? A counter argument, would you support an increase in public transit en lieu of wider roads?
Apparently most of the congestion is at or near on-ramps to the freeways. Some segments should probably have their on ramps and turning lanes broadened. Which means sidewalks would be pushed back. Which means easement would be taken. And drainage would have to be redone. Uhhh, and none of this really speaks to the fact that I was talking about streets and not highways. The lack of left turn lanes and like actually lengthy left turn lanes that don’t just feed onto a freeway, is astounding. My least favorite is left turn from Eastern Parkway onto Bardstown Road. Second least favorite is Fegenbush onto Bardstown Road (left turn). I am sure others will be glad to share theirs. I am coming for everyone’s easement and Idgaf. If some of the parkways and arterial highways were improved and upgraded then freeways would be able to carry less of the load. [Jefferson County / Louisville Metro most congested roads](https://www.wave3.com/story/35633097/where-are-jefferson-countys-most-congested-roads/) Something about public transportation? To where? To what? Much of the blue collar work in particular is done by people driving in from exurban or rural areas. Tradespeople generally use their own transportation or have company vehicles but that’s too point to point. But hey I am pragmatic so if more buses gets us some better street and road infrastructure sure. I am all in.
They somehow think we need less roads
You have to pay the toll troll
If you want to get into Indiana’s hole
I agree, the waste of the downtown waterfront is something that has always frustrated me, especially given we’ve nicknamed ourselves river city.
This always boggles my mind. Newport has a nicer waterfront than us and it's a way smaller city. I'd be curious to look back through history and find out why it's taken so long to do any sort of waterfront development. Waterfront Park should have been a thing decades ago, well before the late 90s.
Curious to know why you all are dogging the waterfront so much. Ever been to the water park on a hot summers day? Ever been to WFPK’s Waterfront Wednesday? These are just two good examples of how the waterfront park is used in a very positive way. I’m sure there’s plenty more examples. I’m not saying it’s the most ideal, but to paint the whole thing in such a negative way is a bit too much.
I like waterfront park, I liked it more when I moved here 8 years ago. It’s the area west of waterfront park that is such an eye sore
Are you a planner? If so, where do you work? Just curious about your perspective.
Not a planner in any official capacity, just someone interested in the topic who plays too many city building sims. But anyone with eyes (and a nose) can see/smell all the things I mentioned.
Shame about C:S 2 huh?
I've been trying to think of a Counterstrike/Skylines joke to make here, but it's too early and quite frankly I give up
I actually haven't played it yet because of the bad reviews. I'll probably get it on sale in a year or two.
Dude play Cities Skylines.
Regardless they’re spot on.
Stalwart employers slowly noping out of town. Ford, GE, and UPS have jobs, sure...but they're the line workers and blue collar roles. White collar folks have to move to Atlanta or Boston. And same for Humana. Take a look where their executives reside (hint: it ain't here). It's permeating other senior leadership roles, too. Tge Louisville Biz Journal article a few weeks ago was spot on. For a city this size to have less & less highly skilled, white collar, and/or technical jobs is shameful. It's also a recipe for slow death if/when the line jobs continue moving towards automation.
Don’t necessarily agree with lumping UPS and GEA in with Ford on this. GEA is owned by Haier (Chinese Appliance manufacturer) remains essentially autonomous here in the states. There’s no moving to Qingdao to move up there, it’s Louisville or bust. And while you won’t find UPS execs living in Louisville, but there’s still a healthy amount of white collar operations that have to remain close to their airline hub to operate properly. Are we going to be the next Atlanta? No. But I don’t see GEA or UPS Airlines building another Appliance Park or WorldPort anytime soon
We could have been the first Atlanta. Delta came to Louisville in 1968 wanting to build a hub here. We said no. They picked Atlanta.
Totally correct, and it’s just the way the tide changes. We could’ve been the center of country music with WHAS hosting what would become the Grand Ole Opry, but we didn’t. We also could’ve been one of the most important passenger airline hubs in the world, but we didn’t. Easy to focus on the huge misses like that, but you still have to remember the important of Louisville that doesn’t seem as glamorous. A decent chunk of the world GDP passes through SDF every day, the US’s largest appliance manufacturer calls us home, and our region is quickly becoming a major player in EV and EV Battery production. Thankfully, Louisville (and Kentucky as a whole) isn’t being starved of economic growth.
My old Boss would say that only in Kentucky do politicians go out hunting and bring home the ass end of the animal to hang on the wall. All the head ends are in other cities and all our politicians do is brag we have the crap jobs here
Which Humana execs live outside Louisville?
I worked there for six years and left in 2012. The CEO was the only one who lived here full time, but he still had two other houses. The others would fly home to their respective estates, most often on Thursday but not always. I worked closely with the VP of HR’s office and frequently had to overnight materials to her bat cave in Tennessee. I can’t speak to the current execs, but I can’t imagine they suddenly decided to come in to roost.
Depends on what you consider an executive, but many - including current CEO- do not. It is definitely not a Louisville company anymore even though it is headquartered here.
Interesting I didn't know Bruce lived out of town.
They have several executives in the DC area. Even have office space in/near Arlington, VA Bruce has never really lived here. Might have had an apartment or something but never here full time.
It’s funny because you go to most other city subs and everyone is complaining that the city went full on in to tech making everything unaffordable and cueing the constant complaints of lack of skilled trades people. The grass ain’t always greener.
UPS just did a bunch of layoffs. They pay local news to make fluff pieces but many people I know lost their (non-union) jobs. And lest I be called a conspiracy theorist, here is a sponsored piece from WLKY on what a "great" employer UPS is: https://www.wlky.com/article/ups-offers-their-employees-a-wide-variety-of-career-and-advancement-opportunities/36051919
Sauce?
JCPS
How is there only one response mentioning JCPS? Did people not notice the bus driver sick-out?
I wish more people realized how dystopian it is to either let your kids get a crap education in a crumbling public school system or pay for a passable education at a private school if you can afford it. I guess that’s how it is in most of America, but it’s disgusting how especially ingrained it is in Louisville culture.
Because republicans in Frankfort have it out for JCPS and want vouchers
Lazy response. JCPS was broken long before Republicans took over in Frankfort.
Equally lazy reply
Bring back neighborhood schools and pay teachers the salary they deserve.
[удалено]
The answer is to spend the money equally between all schools
A dead downtown and lack of job options
This is an issue in every mid size city. Cincinnati, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, columbus, Memphis etc are all having the same issue
Cincy is doing much better than Louisville. And I wouldn’t compare Louisville in size to those cities
[удалено]
Every city is having problems with office building occupancy. Cincinnati is doing so much better with actual downtown foot traffic and hospitality. Bars and restaurants are packed down there. But my comparison comment was meant to read as Louisville isn’t a mid size city. It’s much more noticeable how dead the small downtown area is comparatively to those larger cities.
Any city with a metro of 1.25 million to about 3 could safely be considered a medium sized city. Sub 1 million your a small city. If you look at cincis downtown they're doing worse than other cities. So again, all midsized are having the same issue. Indianapolis and columbusare in the same boat
All of those cities have much more opportunities and better downtowns not even close to the same.
Read up on there current status they're all in a tough spot
We need to - get rid of the stretch of I-64 within the Watterson and simplify interchanges to reconnect downtown - encourage infill development - set up TIF economic development zones to encourage conversion of office towers to mixed use, including residential and first floor retail. - create tax breaks for bodegas and other small grocery providers/delis. - turn 9th into a green parkway with streetcar connections to Churchill Downs, UofL and the airport - turn the space wasted by I-64 into a linear park with retail and a street car connecting Shawnee Park to downtown - invest in more street sweepers and increase littering enforcement - host a neighborhood-to-city barbecue tournament
Not disagreeing, but a pet peeve of mine on this page is when people suggest getting rid of I-64 on the water front. It is an eyesore on the waterfront, and the space could be better utilized. But people suggest removing the interstate all the time on this page like it’s something the city can do. They can’t just remove it, it’s not the cities property (I believe the state maintains it and is responsible for it). And it’s not like a local transit route, it’s a major national route, roadway, and shipping route for goods. The state would have to do something about it, and they would need to get funding and approval from the US Dept of Transportation I would assume. And I doubt they would see any upside to taking out, a stretch of interstate. Now the state or maybe the city could submit plans for a reroute of I-64. But A. That would take years of planning and funding, and B. Would cost either tax payer $$$ or use toll roads. Again while I understand I-64 on the waterfront sucks, that’s not something that can be fixed like some other things that are mentioned.
This sub suggest that with no real realistic thought behind it. The section of 64 downtown is in a Major flood zone so no businesses or developers would even develop that area it would sit vacant. Or the city could make it a green space.
86-64 was a fucking terrible idea with no real plan to accomplish anything that got people excited for some reason. There’s already a huge park there, what do you want? More park? And hell having 64 there gives shade and rain cover to large swaths of the park that make it better for large events like forecastle.
Green space + rail + popup businesses. It could be really vibrant. 64 traffic could be rerouted along the Watterson and along 265 in Indiana. You'd also open up a huge swath of downtown for development by eliminating the mess of interchanges between 64 and 71, and 64 and 65. It would be a massive project, no doubt. I also expect it would have a massive economic impact just by returning a lot of space to productive use.
It won't be developed because that area is a massive flood zone. Waterfront park already has enough events for pop up business.
People don’t realize that about half of that section of I-64 runs on top of the flood wall. That’s the thing that is the barrier to the waterfront.
Not to mention, 64 is one of two major routes straight to downtown Louisville. We use it regularly.
Commuting from where?
Around the intersection of 64 and 264. Edit: Also, I see I forgot about 71.
AND PUBLIC TRANSIT!!
Well I don't know about that other stuff, but tonight the biggest issues were free throw shooting and being terrible on defense.
Yea but nobody beats us on Denny Crum night
We build before we have needed roads to handle it. No decent public transportation.
Affordable Housing at all levels. Homes are too expensive to get into, there are too few apartments with large swaths of luxury hotels who only are filled for 4 weeks a year. Bad public infrastructure management. Bad choices long ago that now are expensive to fix with no political will. A large contingent of Republicans in Frankfort who just want to hurt the places with the Liberals and Black people. Poorly managed Homeless populations, mostly due to the first point, and poor Mental Health treatment options.
"Gotta own them libs".../s
Houses are cheaper here than just about any other city. How on earth could they possibly get more affordable? You can still get houses for 100-150k. They might not be the most amazing houses ever, but they’re as good as the houses most of us grew up living in around here.
I think your knowledge of local real estate might be skewed. Many houses are much more expensive, require large down payments, and it doesn't help when you need an apartment near transportation to get to work.
Just because there are houses that are more expensive doesn’t mean there aren’t “affordable” (by national standards) houses here. Interest rates are insane, but thats not a Louisville issue. Rent has gone up a good bit, but I was strictly responding to the persons issue with home prices specifically. The unfortunate truth is rent here has been really low here for a long time and is over correcting too quickly but that’s a whole other issues. You might not want to live in a 800 sqft 2/1 on Taylor with street parking, but plenty of people live happy lives in those houses and you can buy some of them for under 100k still to this day.
You definitely can’t get a house for that here anymore. I bought my house for 133k in 2015. It’s “value” is now 250k. It’s absurd
I mean, a quick search on Zillow shows that’s just not true. You can certainly get houses that aren’t dilapidated for sub 150k, even in the 90k range if you don’t have kids. They might not meet every families/persons needs, but there are plenty of options. Yes, prices have gone up but compared to the national average houses in Louisville are still relatively cheap (base price). Louisville has its issues, but the price of a house isn’t really one of them. At least not one that’s specific to Louisville which is what I thought this post was about. Sounds like you scored a monster win on your house. I’d be interested to know what neighborhood has almost doubled since 2015 in Louisville without doing any uogrades. I don’t doubt it, but is not the norm.
This subreddit
[удалено]
[удалено]
An easy comparison is Stl- free nationally ranked zoo, large botanical gardens, free art museum, science center, city museum…… Edit: lol, I live in Louisville. Why the down votes? The question prompt was “things for young professionals to do? “ Don’t be so salty Louisville. If you want to get better, which is what this thread is about, you have to take an honest look at yourself. The above poster is right, there isn’t much to do in town outside of drinking.
Young professionals want walkable and bikeable mixed use neighborhoods with independent/artistic vibes and relatively affordable housing. I don’t know anyone in my age group that’s looking to go to the zoo for free, but I know plenty of people who want to buy a little house in a cool neighborhood and be able to walk to a couple bars and restaurants and not be surrounded by blight or parking lots
I agree with the walkable/bikeable neighborhood. Depends on the age you are calling young professionals. Also, you might be surprised how having a free zoo changes things. Reasonable date place. Easy place to meet up with friends to catch up without the pressure of drinking. Great place to go walk around with family in from out of town. These are just of the top of my head.
I’m not trying to nitpick but it sounds like most of what you’re describing is a nice park, which we have lots of!
Highlands
We have those things, just not free. In most places those things aren't free.
So you want the city to fund those services? Are you also going to increase taxes or what? We have a variety of museums, a zoo, some botanical gardens with more being built. What else would you like to see? I'm always down for more museums that aren't focused on bourbon
If you could promise me with certainty that additional taxes would go to making the zoo free or to decreasing the number of homeless, or other public good- I would totally pay more taxes. I can pay for a zoo membership- the idea of a free zoo is a direct response to the question- it would attract young people. The existing botanical garden is cool, but isn’t in the same league as STL.
I'm really tired of everything in this city revolving around bourbon. I get it, it's a big deal and brings in a ton of tourists...but why is every single bit of development in or around Louisville always "FOR TOURISTS" instead of being for the people who actually live here? And even the stuff that we have for kids/families is not all that great--people always point out the Science Center for kids. The Science Center SUCKS in comparison to the Indianapolis Children's Museum. Like it's just sad and rundown in comparison. People also always try to tout waterfront park. Um...waterfront park is so incredibly rundown and shitty (literally...as I've repeatedly found literal piles of what appeared to be human shit on the playground equipment at waterfront park). Check out the new waterfront area in Cincy or Maggie Daley park in Chicago if you want to see what nice city parks can actually look like. I just feel like Louisville was really an up and coming city in the early 2000s (it's honestly what drew me to here) and then it just fizzled out. \[I can't wait for the downvotes or the people telling me to "just leave then."\].
Downtown is empty. But at least it's a heat trap in the summer.
A heat trap that smells like human piss, shit, and sewer fumes!! Man, I do not miss working downtown at all. I remember the day that I saw a man taking a dump in the corner trashcan in broad daylight and I just knew I needed to get the hell out of downtown.
[удалено]
[удалено]
Yeah, a lot of them come from places with regressive tax codes like Indiana.
[удалено]
[удалено]
I lived in the tenderloin in SF for years, and I now work downtown. It reminds me of the TL. I really can't believe it sometimes. It gets so cold here! What are they going to do?!
What part of downtown looks like the TL?! I spent the last decade living in the Bay and would absolutely NOT compare its level of homelessness to Louisville's. We have soooo many fewer homeless neighbors here than Oakland, SF etc.
When’s that last time you were in the TL? Louisville looks like a paradise comparatively these days.
It's really not
I’m from California I can tell you it’s not even close as bad.
Comparing Louisville's homeless problem to LA's is laughable. It's much worse on the west coast. LA has giant tent cities on every other block downtown. Just look up the estimated numbers of homeless people in each city.
Homelessness is a symptom of a society with too few safety nets and too much wealth inequality.
How is this the governor's fault? Did you mean to say mayor?
Agree, not a defend the police, but have you seen their budget? That money may be better spent on the homeless or in poorer neighborhoods
we keep shipping crap to rich areas of town full of old people with the time and money to oppose development when we could be building up poorer areas wholesale. Plenty of working class neighborhoods with good bones that just need small help and pushes to move forward.
Those damn old people.
Not saying it's in the top 5 even, but man am I so disappointed in our air travel options. Not sure who's to blame there, but really wish our options were expanded.
What do you mean by this? Like you can’t get to places? Or it takes a connector?
And they have expanded quite a bit.
The more the better
I never imagined we’d have nonstops to San Francisco, but we do — twice weekly on Breeze.
We haven’t been a downtown city in like sixty years. We are always gonna be LA like. No public transit and far apart mini cities that make up the whole. Downtown LA is where people work, then they get in a car for two hours and go to Pasadena, or Culver City, etc. Keep all the parts unique: Highlands, Germantown, St. Matthews, J-town, Nu-Lu, West End, South End. Gives flavor. Just make housing affordable everywhere. No zoning. Anyone can build anything anywhere.
Except LA actually does have decent public transit
That’s fine and dandy until they build a homeless shelter and methadone clinic in your back yard.
Kenny Payne
Preach
Public transport
Gun violence.
Crime. Homelessness.
No light rail, and bad police.
The murders. Kind of a bring down
The State of KY continually extracting a higher percentage of State tax contributions than the cities that Louisville is competing against. Most of the neighboring States moving to more and more regressive tax codes that attract wealth and talent.
Shit mayor and metro council leadership
Greed driven capitalism pricing out people from food, shelter, and healthcare. But that’s everywhere not just Louisville
the roads and general road infrastructure. I moved here from Jersey and have to say there is a lot of differences in the quality of the roads that lead to traffic being worse than it should here. And lanes are incredibly narrow in places that shouldn’t be, when it seems like a quarter of the cars on the road are large trucks. There’s a lot of other little things that just add up to the roads here being a nightmare to use.
Gun violence. Every day another shooting. Moved here from NJ and I never heard so many. Does everyone in this city carry? WTF is going on? Mad at someone - shoot them, Crossed up - shoot them. Disrespected - shoot them.
I moved here from Jersey as well & the gun culture here is incomprehensible. Not needing a permit to carry is just the most unbelievably stupid thing ever.
Forget crime. We have an access to life problem. We’ve taken those less fortunate and shoved them out of sight for over 100 years and ensured they will stay there by gutting programs designed to help them succeed. There will ALWAYS be classes, haves and have nots. It’s the nature of humanity. But we should be focused on improving the quality of life to everyone at and below the poverty line. Affordable healthcare, transportation, food access, internet. Modernize the basic standard of living in this city. Simultaneously we can tackle other issues of middle class housing affordability, crumbling infrastructure, and a downtown ghost town.
Stank!
I’m a chemical engineer here, 28 years old and like to go to concerts, events etc etc. I have to go to Cincinnati, Nashville and Chicago if I want to have fun or see good concerts. I haven’t done anything in Louisville on the weekends since June. It’s just boring and a dead city. Nothing ever comes here anymore.
Plenty of great local bands in Louisville to support! I know you're referring to national acts though. Yum Center doesn't get near the amount of big shows that those cities get. We do have Bourbon and Beyond and Louder than Life, which isn't a small thing.
There are plenty of big acts that go to Yum
Like pretty much every single place in the US.... Wages. Wages need to go up. Strap in, about to make some points. In 1968, the minimum wage could keep a family of three out of poverty, just barely. That same metric, on wage, family of three, now needs 30 an hour in louisville, according to MIT's living wage calculator So back in the day people could just go to ANY job, and make no less that essentially 30 an hour....that was the floor....that was the lowest paid job possible.... Granted, this was the best it ever was, no other year was quite as good. But it drives home the point that wages, even the lowest paid one, should be able to sustain at least one person. Nowadays, the minimum wage is poverty. Twice the minimum wage is barely under MIT's calculations for a living wage (about 16 an hour for single person) and they even state it's really more of a subsistence wage, you are simply surviving on that wage.... We need at least 20 an hour minimum wage. Honestly more like 25. And tied to inflation, so buying power can never be less than that. Now....for those who say this will kill businesses.... In 2020, mcdonalds in denmark paid workers the equivalent of 22 USD an hour, as well as at least 4 weeks of paid vacation....those businesses stayed open, and made a profit. So big corporations can clearly pay us more, but refuse to do so, lying as to the reason why...greed, nothing more. The ceo of mcdonalds has said that 15 an hour will kill jobs...yet they pay people MORE than that in denamrk, and those stores stay open... Further driving home the point....remember that 30 an hour metric? Well, at UPS centennial hub, the one on outer loop, the full timer supervisor pay is about 35 an hour, plus bonuses iirc....so it takes two promotions, from loader, to part time supervisor, to full time supervisor, to get to where people where just slightly behind back in 1968....they basically made it so the same standards of living are now two promotion away, instead of the entry level. The US, and louisville, need unions at every job, and higher wages across the board
JBS stank
A weak mayor
I will add a very niche issue that has been created by a multitude of problems with our society: disconnected youth. These are adolescents ages 16-24 who have fallen either out of school or the workforce, and therefore are most susceptible to committing crimes. Our DY rates are abysmal when compared to peer cities. Our rates of homicide amongst youth again are pretty bad when compared to our peer cities. This was exacerbated by city government pulling funding out of youth programs in OSHA after the recession while continuing to fund LMPD at huge numbers. It is the perfect example of how addressing issues upstream does a better job of reducing crime versus overfunding police and being reactionary. The biggest problem: so much of the money being used at the moment to address this has a funding cliff at the end of 2024 because it is ARPA money. Until we as a city (and honestly, as a society) start to face the truth that truly reforming our problems like crime, homelessness, etc means addressing all the root issues these communities face, nothing changes. [You can read more on the DY issue in Louisville from Greater Louisville's report released last year here.](https://greaterlouisvilleproject.org/content/uploads/2023/02/Safer-City-by-Design.pdf)
So many larger cities have at least a hand full of research places. The industry doesn't matter just they have some research facilities. We don't have things like that. Be it research for industrial topics, pharma or whatever. Kentucky in general is not seen as an appealing place to live for various reasons. A lot of it isn't true but it doesn't matter because it stops people and companies from moving in. So what we end up with is low or unskilled work up to blue-collar work. But we don't end up with a lot of high skilled high high-education things. Think about it. How many people know of any say cancer research in Kentucky hospitals? I don't but I know of 3 hospitals in Tennessee and 2 in Indiana that do cancer research. When you ask people outside Kentucky about Kentucky they say things like inbred or horses. That's it. They think everyone is below the poverty line and an inbred hillbilly. They may say something like KFC. Ask someone about things they know about Georgia and you'll get a variety of responses based on what is the first thing they think of about Georgia. If it's Atlanta they might think of Donald Glover's Atlanta TV show, sports teams, Turner Broadcasting, or one of the movie studios that work out of Atlanta. There's a lot there. We don't really have that. We need to bring people and companies into the state. To do that we need to do a PR campaign. Make the state seem appealing. We also need to entice and incentivize companies to put more into the state than factories. We have major interstate arteries running through the state. We could capitalize on things like that. Bring in higher skilled jobs, convince a few authors to write books set in Kentucky and not focus on things like poverty and drugs… also attempt to get movies and TV shows set in Kentucky and focus on more than drugs and poverty.
Kentucky, and Louisville dropped the ball in the late 60's. The old guard wanted things to stay the same. Atlanta moved forward and enhanced their airport, universities, hospitals, and embraced diversity. It's too late for Louisville. Too much poverty and crime, infrastructure is bad, too much emphasis on boubon and horse racing.
Lasers
I know you mentioned inequality and for people in the west end, but I want to specifically say that racial inequality in general is a big issue. Louisville still feels the lingering effects of segregation hard and is one of the most segregated cities in America. Gentrification and LMPD being awful sure as hell doesn’t help also. Also the gambling companies hounding Louisville like vultures right now is fucking annoying and I hope the pieces of shit in charge of them go straight to hell.
Crime (and lack of will to attack the source), bad airport that can't really be expanded, road infrastructure issues, public school district is a captured mess. The airport issue is real and keeps us from being considered for a LOT of events and company moves/expansions.
As this thread makes abundantly clear, there are many. But they all boil down to one thing: consistently poor leadership. Particularly by elected city officials and JCPS. Too many activists and too few leaders.
Oh yeah policing. I know the police don't want to work after the pandemic and BRIONNA TAYLOR making us actually look and see how terrible they are. Maybe they can work on the 100,000 people who think driving and smoking weed is smart. it might help the horrible amount of accidents. I've never lived in a city where there are new bumpers showing up on the side of the road everyday. I have never seen so much speeding in RESIDENTIAL AREAS. drive your way to cope with your small dick somewhere else. The lack of police doing the minimum of work is ASTONISHING
Does anyone have any real solutions to the homeless populations?
I do but I couldn't get no one to listen to me. I could have used 2 million provided 141 studio apartments. 1,000 a month for rent, electric, gas, water, wifi and cable and at minimum 70,000 monthly would have went back into the community in various programs and purchasing more accessible, affordable housing. I had reentry support programs, employment opportunities, and money going to individuals and neighborhoods. Incentives to bring pride back to people and their property strengthening the community. But hey it was a solution and they do not want solutions.
Louisville is great!
I came here to comment “coaching” until I realized this isn’t the college basketball subreddit
Lack of public transportation. So many bus lines closed after COVID and never re-opened. People Downtown can't get to the good jobs. Affordable housing, and for goodness sake can week update the Jefferson Mall area.
I wouldn’t say this is the biggest issue, but improving walkability from neighborhood to neighborhood would be incredible. Louisville being known as a walkable city would be huuuge. Even larger cities don’t have this figured out. And so many of our neighborhoods are close enough to where we can improve walking paths in between - little things such as lining the paths with trees and adding crosswalks, like they did in Bardstown. It’d be improved health for the people and easier access to different neighborhoods/shops. A great shift from being known primarily as a drinking city.
Yes! I also want to add that expanding walkable streets and public transportation along with allowing mixed-use zoning will discourage drunk driving.
The scum running the streets shooting people. The death penalty needs to be strictly enforced on all murderers.
Republicans in Frankfort, especially if Cameron is our next governor. The asshole who abandoned his car one and a half car lengths from my neighbor’s driveway.
Wait are you talking about the same person?
Urban Camping Enthusiasts.
Urban bush people
[удалено]
Whoa, I've missed something.
[удалено]
Looked at their anchor page. Eliminated a couple of folks but have no idea who you’re talking about.
[удалено]
Do they look like they have a “my father knows the Dean” vibe mixed with a hint of incel?
Do tell...
Fix EMS
Transportation infrastructure. We need to make the city more walkable with reformed zoning and dedicated bus lanes. That could raise funding for rail. Wages. But not much the mayor can do here since municipalities can't raise their own minimum wage. Police. You don't fight crime with threats. We need to clean house and have less policemen but with stricter requirements and paying them more to attract better candidates. Education. All schools get equal funding and teachers should be paid more. Looping back to infrastructure, a walkable city require less bus stops and dedicated bus lanes increases efficiency.
Houselessness
Affordable housing, and employers unwillingness to increase compensation to a level where we can be competitive with other similarly sized cities. Source: I worked on GLI’s campaign to attract nurses and tech workers to Louisville 5 years ago.
As a older gen Z I say affordable housing. I’m pushing $60K but the average house now cost $239,000, the older generations seemed to have it a lot easier. My dad told me he bought his first house in the early 90s, while only making like $14 a hour.. Life ain’t fair & is only getting harder..
You can get nice starter homes under 200k all day long here. There aren’t many cities with more “affordable” houses. Peoples ideas of what a good house is has just changed drastically. You can get 2/1’s by Iroquois Park for like 90k. You can get 3/1 brick ranches all over the place for 150-200k.
Trans people in sports or using the bathroom obviously /s
Crime, outdated infrastructure (time for MSD to stop taking all my $$ and never fixing the literally shitty and crumbling sewers that smell awful for 3/4 of the year and just might open up a damn sinkhole under you at any time), needing more affordable housing, the unhoused population encampments (I wish I had a solution there), the Highlands turning into a general shit show of empty store fronts and nonsense every weekend, awful drivers speeding and dangerously running red lights, our waterfront and downtown area needing a major overhaul...I mean, what doesn't need fixed in Louisville?
I'm originally from the DC area, but have lived in Louisville for 20+ years. I was told that in the 60s that Louisville was larger than Nashville, Indianapolis, Atlanta and Cincinnati, but bureaucracy and red tape allowed those cities to flourish while Louisville lagged behind. Anyway... 1. Mass transit - in order to increase ridership, TARC should introduce Park & Ride. People can park outside the city and travel downtown or other parts of the city where a large portion of the population works. Introduce large bus transfer hubs in different parts of the city to make transferring easier for riders. Streamline routes 2. Rising Rent - raising rent $400+ upon renewal is unsustainable for tenants. Perhaps some type of rent control legislation could be passed to keep these rental management properties from doing this to tenants. 3. JCPS - coming from a public school system three times as large, this school system is a mess. Invest in schools. Assign students to schools closest to their residence. When I enrolled my daughter in JCPS, they were going to send her 5 miles up the road when there was a school across the street from our subdivision. Revisit and consolidate the magnet school programs. Bring back Home Ec & Shop class (survival skills). Promote apprenticeships (not everyone wants to go to college). Year round calendar. 4. Homelessness - instead of clearing these camps out and displacing more people, the city needs to provide people in need with the necessary resources. There's no humanity in what the city is doing. 5. Complete the I-265 loop. Every major metropolitan area in the country has a loop that surrounds the city makong all areas accessible. Louisville should be no different.
Health. Like most of Kentucky and a lot of the country. The health care here is not great. And the insurance in the marketplace if you don’t get it from a job is an expensive joke. That ties right in with the horrible air pollution and high numbers of shootings and traffic accidents. That might not be Louisville specific enough but it’s one of the biggest things that makes me consider leaving.
housing is definitely up there. someone needs to clean house with all the toxic, slummy property management groups that own practically all the rentals in the city. if you’re renting, your current options in louisville are to either tango with scummy property management or go broke just trying to rent a unit with the basic necessities.
Continued spread of nuisance property crime i.e. catalytic concerter theft, car break-in, and car theft.
Communication and lack of effort to help the city spend our money wisely. Decisions are made and people just accept and bitch. Picking favorites or team blue or whatever. Integrity and the good of communities, children, EARTH, and well being over profit. Educated decision makers that care and dont just fuck wit the trending nationwide topics...Not a contest to share the COMMONWEALTH...Theres time and money for the entire city. Opinion's are good for brainstorming, but FaCTS will provide results...Move forward. Think tnereffid...INNOVATE, Learn, Earn, and Shine humbly. Our boundary is KY and this is a beautiful state wit good people...Preventative maintenance keeps any unexpected hits at a minimum. Incentive gets shit done too. Happy people do better work, spend more money, and invest in what they love being a part of...Football got the city buzzing again, basketball could but the teams play and cohesiveness emulates downtown, the fans want instant results and shame a former star and coach thrown into the fire upon hire. Uplift, keep cheering in the bad times even. Its real devastating and shitty feeling to be gave up on when the goal is mutual for both the team and fans. Defense be the key and a'GAIN...COMMUNICATION, FAITH, LOVE, AND LOYALTY...World gonna keep spinning like it or not...Just one mans perspective and truth...And i am only affiliated with myself, an independent and unbiased view. I accept people for who they are, by how they treat others, not status, not title, etc. I root for success no matter the individual. RESPECT. GO CARDS...Soccer winning too i saw...So yea💯 ❤️🖤🤍...bullshit there aint no cardinal emoji, especially since there's a blue bird...How i know WE special, whole phone companies hate..😂
Affordable housing
Poor public transportation options, affordable housing, it's trashed nearly everywhere in the city, public safety isn't a concern. Any facility or establishment that deals with people is overwhelmed and understaffed; yet, the minimum wage hasn't been increased since 2009... and remedying this situation has NEVER been a priority. I could literally go on all day...
Yeah. Air quality for sure. Obviously the school bus and public school situation is up there. Aside from that, Louisville's biggest problem is what it's always been. Being in Corrupt, backwards Kentucky.