Louisville, a city of a total population as of 2017 being 780,000 persons with non incorporated portions included in LouisVILE such as Anchorage, Shively and others reduces the actual size of the areas that Louisville proper controls to about 620,000 persons.
Louisville has been a declining city for some time now in essence because of despite the boast of previous city officials, mayors, government leaders, business leaders and others. The facts are that Louisville should be termed Impossibility City due to the massive incompetence of its government officials, the business community, and the nepotistic culture that exists there. The good old boy system is alive and well in Louisville and probably in more senses than you would deal with in a smaller community which you can always escape by moving to a neighboring jurisdiction.
Louisville breeds political and social incompetence including all of the governmental aspects of Louisville that help make it a truly lousy place to live with little in real cultural events, no professional sports despite being the 29th biggest city in the whole country, a declining infrastructure, crumbing roadways and streets and massive taxes to support a large percentage of bottom feeders.
Louisville may not be as corrupt as the political machine that one finds in Chicago, New York and other locations throughout the country but Louisville is very corrupt and corrupt to the core no matter what the local government officials try to pass off as being genteel do good behavior.
Louisville its a city in decline because of the corruption and nepotism that exists in the workplaces, government, police, various businesses and so much more. One might expect more of that in smaller towns and cities in the United States, but Louisville takes the cake in covering the asses of the incompetent in public office, private businesses and various civic endeavors.
The recent scandals at the University of Louisville exposed the dark underbelly of the Louisville culture and its so called win at all costs mentality. Despite the fact that ultimately these decisions brought hard and disrepute onto the university and its officials and others. Meanwhile, instead of Louisville students and Louisville residents bucking up and taking responsibility for the cultural issues of the day including their own corruption and university malfeasance with taxpayers dollars, Louisville again is a circle the wagons town of 780,000 people where people act as if they live in Pikeville or Mayberry or Corbin rather than have some level of a larger city mentality with more amenities, events, cultural happenings, etc.
The dark underbelly of Louisville is that Louisville tolerates and promotes more corruption than just about anywhere around outside of the political machines of the larger US metro areas especially when it comes to government corruption practices. All the while hiding behind the motto of Possibility City. As a Louisville resident of 5 years and also a Kentucky resident of 5 years with some limited interests left in the state, I can assure you that Louisville is more of an Impossibility City rather than one where people reach their full potential.
That can be evidenced in the fact that Louisville has one of the largest homeless populations in the United States and definitely in this region. Which means that Louisville cannot create enough decent wage employment to keep people off the streets and people properly fully employed in various endeavors. Louisville also prides itself on its link to the transportation and shipping industries via Worldport and other endeavors near the Louisville International Airport aka Standiford Field which thinks its a large metro airport but it isn't barely international in any sense of the word. Just more name play than anything which Louisville is also good at and has been trying for years.
Reminds me of the motto "Keep Louisville Weird" which was stolen from Austin, Texas about 10 years after Austin, Texas started using it. Louisville can't even create its own properly themed motto for the city and metro area without stealing it from a sister city in Texas that has far more appeal to people than dumpy Louisville. Louisville and its homeless problem is often traced to ministries that attract these people but the facts are that Louisville and its employers spit out their employees like a Kentucky good old boy spits out chewing tobacco. That's partially why there are hordes of homeless in the Louisville region along with the other issues of mental depression, drug abuse, and countless other issues the homeless face. This problem isn't exclusive to Louisville obviously but Louisville talks about taking care of their own and fails miserably at taking care of their own. Much less putting these people in some sort of recovery program where they can become full productive tax paying citizens.
Louisville talks big but it delivers very little and has been doing so for at least a couple of generations if not back to the 1930s. Looking back at the history of Louisville back in the Industrial Age, Louisville at that time was an up and coming city with a lot of potential but it was quashed first by the special interests that wanted to keep Louisville on the small side that way they would have more political power. So over the years, Louisville declined economically from what it could have been and should have been. Meanwhile, other neighboring cities in the South and Midwest in a radius of a few hundred miles exploded economically and job creation wise. Louisville, thought it would remain a manufacturing center for generations to come until the economic restructuring of the late 1980s to now. In essence, what happened in Louisville is that it felt that it would remain economically viable for generations to come on basis of just manufacturing products.
All the while the educational system in Jefferson County and other counties nearby in Kentucky was allowed to rot to the point that Bullitt County and Shelby and Spencer County Kentucky have been some of the worst counties for educational achievement because of the fact that people could be largely uneducated and illiterate and still get jobs in manufacturing. Job creation in other areas requires specialized skills, job training, apprenticeships, college, etc. Louisville has did such a poor job educating its residents over the decades is why the metro region is largely falling apart. Not race or demographics as there are intelligent Kentucky residents of all strata. The problem is that Kentucky has spent years being at the bottom of the barrel since at least 1939.
At one time the Kentucky standard of living and economic output was higher to the point that it wasn't the 44th or worst ranked state for the last 78 years. However, the lack of education, lack of common sense, and no real goals kept Kentucky in the darkness that it still resides in to this day. Louisville embraced that tradition of not holding up educational standards and standards for conduct therefore it continued to slide downhill like its country cousins did in rural Kentucky. Meanwhile, society changed for the increase of technology and less dependence on manufacturing hard goods which in essence was shipped overseas to China, Mexico, South America, India, Vietnam, Korea, etc. Kentucky just simply dropped the ball and couldn't keep up with the pace of technological and educational change which is why it increasingly fell to the bottom of the states.
Louisville, itself remains in many ways a post industrial nightmare city. Where blocks and rows of abandoned or underutilized commercial buildings are all along its streets in the main urban core of the city. When ones visits these haunts as I have did in the past, you won't find much commercial activity outside of having a security guard watching over the facility or the doors and the entrance padlocked or ringed with fencing or other security measures including cameras.
Vast stretches of West Louisville from 9th to 46th street have all kinds of abandoned businesses that should be not allowed to rot and fail and instead revitalized by job creation therefore removing the poverty stricken areas from being troubled areas. However, the powers that be in Louisville like they long did with everything else, decided that instead of sharing political power with other areas of the city they would ignore the problems. This is including the majority African American West End of Louisville that has been largely black for the past 50 to 60 years. The politics and policies of redlining is the reason why the West End fell into massive decline as well as the 1950s and 1960s destruction of the black middle class in Louisville that owned businesses in areas such as Chestnut Street and had a thriving black business community.
The city fathers of Louisville couldn't come to grips with the fact that black people threatened their hold on political power so just like other cities like Tulsa in the 1920s, they had to find ways to redline black residents and citizens into a racial ghetto to better control them. As well as increasing rents and destroying the small black owned businesses in the West End. Which ultimately led to the impoverishment of the black community in the West End. All the while, technological and manufacturing changes cut down on the number of people needed to work in the factories in Louisville and therefore factory employment which was 36 percent of the jobs in Jefferson County, Kentucky in 1980 is now about 10 percent in 2017. Continuing its decline in the prominence of the community as well with more factories leaving or boarding up their doors.
All the while, Louisville bragged about the service economy that it supposedly was becoming though the fact is that these jobs are not high paying service and business related jobs but jobs flipping boxes at some sweatshop bringing in goods produced overseas and then shipped elsewhere. That's the Louisville economic model of the 2000 to present era. Gut the industrial base of the area and the manufacturing and technical knowledge and turn everyone into fast food workers, retail clerks, box flippers, and government employees. Including those who on Jefferson County time sit and watch and listen to basketball games while they should be doing their jobs. Or the fine people that worked at the vocational rehab office on Dixie Highway who were spending time reading magazines the entire afternoon with an office of several people and no one around to help.
That's the Louisville way, enjoy mediocrity because that is what Possibility City is all about and that's the type of idiotic and lazy culture that exists in Louisville and most of Kentucky as well. That is why Louisville along with the rest of Kentucky has a lower standard of living because of the fact that mediocrity and stupidity is well tolerated and proudly accepted in Kentucky and Louisville in general. Despite all the boasts of Louisville and its community, the truth is that outside of the medical and legal industries and a few core businesses, Louisville is quite impoverished and will remain so for quite some time. Even to the point that Louisville residents often sleep in their cars prior to their shifts at the worldwide box flipping company in Louisville.
It reminds me of a personal anecdote I recall from 2008 when I worked in Louisville watching a city cop from the city of Louisville guarding a facility I worked at after some random idiot called in threats. Instead of the police officer being aware of the gravity of the situation and watching around the facility for suspicious behavior and criminal intent, he was too busy reading the newspaper in the police car as I an other defense industry employees at that time left the plant. Despite the fact that various threats and criminal behavior had been made towards the facility and the people who worked there. That's the Louisville way to not do your job while pulling down a generous taxpayer funded check and benefits all the while not doing your job.
There are countless other instances of Louisville incompetence that one could talk about in the next segment that will be upcoming. Just more reasons of why Louisville is Impossibility City.
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