Louisville Magazine is Louisville's city magazine, covering Louisville people, lifestyles, politics, sports, restaurants, entertainment and homes. Includes a monthly calendar of events.
Issue link: https://loumag.epubxp.com/i/53439
make fun of "Possibility City" folks — have been working through since Tanks- giving. Here you've got a place that, just a few years ago, picked up the award as the most "livable" large city in America from the U.S. Conference of Mayors, and now its reputation — discourtesy of the best-selling men's magazine on U.S. news- stands, whose six-sentence story and list- ing were picked up by 100 or so online sites — is dog doo among impressionable people everywhere. Go ahead, say it: "Hand me the pistol — we are finished." And I know why; everyone should know why. Te absence of Mayor Jerry. Our bigger-than-life cheerleader has left the scene. Ain't no sunshine when he's gone. No giant-smile (that smile!) ribbon- cuttings. No high-pitched podium power — just a Kevin Bacon drone. If Jerry were still here, we'd all be happy, employed, free from pharmaceutical crutches. But he's not — he's in Frankfort now, and we're all a bunch of sad sacks without him. Just ask Men's Health. When Jerry was here, we were riding along like a cigarette boat on the Ohio River — a city of cities by the assessments of various publications and associations. Te seventh-safest metropolitan area in America and one of the most underrated too. We were the best large city for relocat- ing families, the fifth-most-affordable for family health insurance, the ninth-fittest, a top-25 place to retire, the seventh-best town in America. Now look at us — a bunch of unemployed, suicidal, antide- pressant-popping Debbie Downers, get- ting sand kicked in our faces by paradises such as Fargo, N.D. (3); Omaha, Neb. (4); and Sioux Falls, S.D. (7). I understand there are a few Louisvil- lians out there who think the veracity of these month-by-month "researched" pro- nouncements is laughable (even amid our gloom) — about as weighty as a grain of salt. Men's Fitness, a competitor of Men's Health, may have found us the ninth-fittest city in 2006, they'll say, but three years lat- er it named us the 10th-fattest. And Jerry was still mayor then. Point well-taken, I guess, if it weren't coming from depressed people. — Jack Welch www.nanzkraft.com www.kyoms.com 2.12 LOUISVILLE MAGAZINE [15]