Elements of Urbanism: Louisville

[reednavy]

Yeah, during the Light Parade I noticed how lonely the BOA Tower looked.

[mrmakersmark]

Being from Louisville, I can say that the downtown there seems 5 times bigger than Jax.  Downtown along Main St. used to be the place to be during the '70's then MADD started having the cops mark tires and arrest everyone, so it dried up.  4th St. Live used to be a closed mall (The Galleria) until they wised up and reopened the street.  For Louisvillians, the Highlands, Frankfort Ave. or Main St. are the happening places and 4th St. live is for the tourists.  If you visit there, I HIGHLY recommend Jack Fry's.  This is something else Jax is lacking, GOOD homegrown restaurants.  Biscotti's/bb's and Matthews are nice, but way too expensive to eat there on a consistent basis.  Thank God Burrito Gallery and Uptown Market have started a trend away from national chains that can be great AND affordable.
The traffic lane designations shown in the pics are from Bardstown Road and switch with rush hour.  At night the side lanes are for parking which creates a great buffer from the constant traffic going up and down this street.  Maybe someday Bay St. can be this busy!!  You can window shop for hours along this stretch because there is a bar/pub/restaurant/coffee shop for every 5 stores. 
Lastly, the massive 3-4 story posters honoring famous Louisvillians are also pretty cool downtown and the Aegon building changes colors for the seasons.

[krazeeboi]

Not sure if you know it or not, but the Census Bureau offers annual estimates of urbanized area populations via the American Community Survey. Simply go here, under "American Community Survey" click Get Data, select "2008 American Community Survey 1-Year Estimates" and click Data Profiles, in the drop box for "Select geographic type" go to the bottom and select urban area, choose the urbanized area and then click Show Result. Skip down to the Place of Birth heading and right under that is the total population subheading, and that gives you the estimated urbanized area population. Not sure if there's a way to get the UA density stats though. Anyway, the 2008 estimated UA population for Jacksonville is 930,384 and for Louisville it's 891,884.

For this "Learning from/Elements of Urbanism" series, I think Oklahoma City would make for a good comparison with Jacksonville. They've got some pretty good things in the pipeline.

Oh yeah, and I don't think I've ever seen a truly urban McDonald's before; that was a nice sight. And Waterfront Park seems to be a success story in turning abandoned industrial waterfront property into a showpiece for the city.

[thelakelander]

Thanks krazeeboi, I had no clue.  We'll use those urbanized area numbers until the 2010 census results are completed.

[finehoe]

Louisville Mayor Greg Fisher... set a goal of having Louisville achieve a perfect rating on the Human Rights Campaign's annual Municipal Equality Index.

In previous years, the city's rating on the index had hovered in the 60-70 range (out of 100), which wasn't bad. But Fisher felt the need to push for more. To achieve its goal of a perfect rating, his administration consulted with the Fairness Campaign, Kentucky's major LGBT rights group, and with representatives from HRC to map out a plan of action.

Some of the changes implemented included the appointment of a liaison to the LGBT community within the mayor's office, a concerted effort to foster relationships between the city's police force and the LGBT community, and requiring contractors and vendors who work with the city to have an LGBT-inclusive policy before the city does business with them.

As a result of those changes, Louisville was not only awarded a 100 percent rating from the Municipal Equality Index, but was actually profiled in the report as an example for other cities to follow. It also received designation as an "All-Star" city, which is reserved for those cities that have achieved much success in the realm of equality, despite being in a state that lacks LGBT-supportive laws.

"We worked very hard to get that 100 percent rating, because we wanted to send a message to the nation and to the world that Louisville is open, welcoming, inclusive, and that we value all people here," says Poynter. "Sometimes there are stereotypes associated with being from Kentucky. But Louisville's a very different city.... Louisville welcomes LGBTQ citizens and wants LGBTQ visitors, and one of the ways to do that was to get 100 on the HRC's scorecard."

http://www.metroweekly.com/2016/01/leading-the-way-in-equality/