Louisville Magazine

MAR 2013

Louisville Magazine is Louisville's city magazine, covering Louisville people, lifestyles, politics, sports, restaurants, entertainment and homes. Includes a monthly calendar of events.

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But if there is one statistic that stands out more than any other, it is the nearly eight-fold advantage the east area has over the west in college-educated adults. Tat disparity gives perspective and even greater urgency to the 55,000 Degrees campaign launched by the city���s business, education and civic leaders, especially its goal of ensuring that 15,000 of those additional bachelor���s or associate���s degrees are obtained by African-Americans. Some of the more striking diferences between the two areas of town show up in looking at the amenities that are available in our neighborhoods ��� the banks, pharmacies, restaurants, shops, movie theaters and professional services that most of us use regularly. For example, consider the social and economic ramifcations of growing up and living in an area that has 255 nearby restaurants as opposed to one that has 30 ��� and then take into account that, of those 30 restaurants in west Louisville, 20 are fastfood or chain restaurants, and that not one of the 30 is a sit-down-and-be-waited-on restaurant. In the East End, 76 are chains or fast-food, while 179 are local, independent establishments. Tink of the number of jobs, many of them entry-level jobs such as waiters, busboys and bartenders, provided by those restaurants, and the economic benefts that fow from those jobs. And then consider the social benefts: the simple recreational pleasure of being able to go out and have a good meal served up by attentive waiters; the acculturation that naturally and unconsciously occurs in sit-down restaurant experiences ��� all of the interactive food rituals that teach us politeness, table manners, conversational skills, even things as simple as knowing when and how much to tip a server. Tese kind of ordinary societal interactions, or the lack of them, may seem trivial when measured against larger social issues like unemployment, poverty, subpar housing and educational defcits, but their efects reverberate when it comes to knowing how to behave in social situations (like school) or in applying for jobs. Te scarcity of some amenities probably has a more direct efect: When there are one-sixth the number of pediatricians and one-third the number of dentists in one area compared to another, what might one infer about the health of children in each area, or their teeth? In all, ReferenceUSA lists about 6,300 businesses in the east area and only 1,800 or so in the West End. (Note: the ReferenceUSA data is based on listings the company is able to verify by phone and may not be completely accurate or up to date, but it should provide an accurate reading of the number of business types in one area relative to another.) One inescapable conclusion is that the West End is badly lacking in many of the basic amenities that those of us who live in other parts of town take for granted. Another inescapable conclusion is that the economic data and the amenities are closely linked ��� a lack of disposable income in an area makes it harder to start and sustain independent retail or professional businesses, and the paucity of local businesses keeps the local economy depressed, and so it goes, around and around. Te most pertinent question is, how do you break out of the vicious economic cycle that much of west Louisville faces? What can a city do ��� assuming it wants to do anything ��� to lift up and improve an area as economically deprived as Louisville���s West End? We will grapple with those questions in the pages that follow. ��� DC West Louisville Population and Minority/White Ratios, 1940-2010 160,000 Minority Population White Population 27.3% 140,000 40.0% 23.3% 120,000 65.8% 100,000 76.1% 80,000 77.3% 60,000 81.0% 81.6% 40,000 20,000 0 1940 28 LOUISVILLE MAGAZINE 3.13 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010

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