learning from louisville

Learning from Louisville

Promise and Betrayal, by John Gilderbloom and Ron Mullins Promise and

Betrayal, by John Gilderbloom and Ron Mullins.

Last year's National Trust for Historic Preservation conference was

held in Louisville, Kentucky. I went out a couple days before the

conference and was graciously taken around a number of interesting

housing projects by Professor John Gilderbloom of the University of

Louisville. Some were projects initiated by the Sustainable Urban

Neighborhoods program of the University of Louisville (a program which

Dr. Gilderbloom started) in some of the more economically challenged

parts of the city, and others were stops on the AIA house tour, which

happened to occur the day before the conference started.

I've mentioned in the past that one of my major gleanings from poking

around Louisville for a week was that the city-county merger that

occured there, merging the City of Louisville and the County of

Jefferson into one governmental entity, is great for balancing tax

revenues and perhaps services, but has nothing to do with putting the

brakes on sprawl. Other steps are needed. (Rebalancing tax revenues

between the suburbs and the center city is a big part of the argument

by Myron Orfield's work on regional planning.)

Louisville has plenty of currently empty land in the core, yet large

subdivisions (inlcuding the new urbanist development Norton Commons)

are being built 10-20 miles from the city center.

Dr. Gilderbloom has just published a book about his experience linking

the University of Louisville to housing production and neighborhood

stabilization activities in the Russell neighborhood. It's discussed

in this article, "Book tells of U of L ties with inner city:

Co-authors analyze Russell redevelopment." When the SUN program

started, they built and sold houses for less than $70,000. Ten years

later, these houses have doubled in price, and today houses are being

built at market rates.

According to the article: "Promise and Betrayal" mainly recaps the

10-year initiative to revitalize Russell. But it is dense with

academic facts and not light reading -- 215 pages, six of them

scholarly references, in addition to name and subject indexes.

But Gilderbloom and Mullins make the case that few institutions of

higher learning apply their knowledge and resources directly to the

problems of poverty and housing in their midst. Thus, the reference to

"Betrayal" in the title. They write, "Traditionally, universities

avoid substantive involvement in inner cities because success is

difficult. Yet if universities are so knowledgeable, then one wonders

why many surrounding neighborhoods of those institutions are filled

with hopelessness and despair. In ten years of community building in

Louisville and elsewhere, we found that most academics fail to

address, much less solve, inner-city problems."

It sounds like an important book that I need to add to my reading

list.

On Dr. Gilderbloom's tour (coincidentally held in conjunction with his

graduate level planning course on housing and community development)

while we were going around the Russell neighborhood, which is typical

of urban neighborhoods in weak real estate markets--many many empty

lots (but I will say, for a "bad" neighborhood it was a lot cleaner

than the streets in a lot of neighborhoods in DC), the result of

putative attempts at urban clearance and renewal that never really got

going (Alas, I did not then have a digital camera, so I don't have any

photos)--we ran into Argie Dale, a local radio entrepreneur who took

up development, in part spurred on by the SUN efforts. He talked to us

about his development efforts, which have also spurred others. (I will

say that his very large house has some suburban elements, including a

prominent driveway and a fence. Plus the area wasn't fully

"sidewalked.")

Developer Argie Dale, Louisville, Kentucky Developer Argie Dale built

a 5,200-square-foot home in the Russell neighborhood for his family,

prompting similar requests. (Photo by David. C. Burton, Special to the

Louisville Courier-Journal)

The historic Trolley Barn Complex in the heart of the Russell

neighborhood--named for Harvey Clarence Russell, a distinguished Black

educator who lived in Louisville in the 1920's--is being converted

into the Kentucky Center for African-American Heritage. The under

construction site was the location of the African-American Heritage

Preservation reception during the conference.

This article also from the Courier-Journal, "Urban living guides

city's housing plan. Report shows needs changing; home developers to

be courted," discusses new plans for housing development in the core

of the city.

From the article:

Mayor Jerry Abramson is launching a major initiative to rebuild older

neighborhoods and steer home developers toward more condominiums,

townhouses and row houses. The reason is simple, Abramson said:

Louisville, like the rest of the nation, is undergoing a major

demographic shift. Baby boomers are retiring and no longer need large

suburban homes. Younger people -- especially those marrying later and

forgoing children -- are choosing to live in urban areas. "It's a new

day and a new way," said Bruce Traughber, secretary of the metro

government's Cabinet for Community Development. Some of the changes,

such as the city working with homebuilders to encourage them to build

in urban neighborhoods, will begin immediately.

This is the first of a series of articles in the Courier-Journal about

the city-county government's new strategy for revitalizing core city

neighborhoods. I'll have to go back and dig up these articles.

There's a lot more going on in Louisville than you may imagine.

There's quite an arts and culture scene, and amazing buildings,

although the preservation community has suffered some defeats. It's

also close to Lexington, home of the University of Kentucky, which has

a great historic preservation program, and the state capital,

Frankfort. Kentucky's State Historic Preservation program and the Main

Streets program are best practices examples.

1.velocitycover_2004.09.29 Old Louisville is an amazing neighborhood,