Introduction

The level of the challenge, the need to act, the potential for success—all are clear in this, the Greater Louisville Project’s second biennial Competitive City Report.

The data-based public report card again measures Louisville’s actual performance and relative standing on key economic and social indicators, ranging from education attainment and life expectancy to income and housing costs.

It documents both encouraging progress and troubling trends. But it primarily underscores the need to accelerate the pace of change to redefine Louisville as a skilled and educated community that claims its place in the top tier of American cities.

What the report can’t document is the unprecedented focus, energy and collaboration now being dedicated to those challenges by the broad array of governmental, non-profit and civic institutions that have embraced the Competitive City Agenda first outlined in the Brookings Institution report, “Beyond Merger: A Competitive Vision for the Regional City of Louisville.”

Since releasing that report five years ago, the Greater Louisville Project has enlisted thousands of citizens and scores of community groups in discussion. It has organized a web-based Competitive City Action Network to track the many initiatives underway to attain it. And it has entered into emerging partnerships with a growing list of dynamic civic groups and leaders.

This report, and those to follow every two years, are designed to provide Louisville and its civic leaders with the information needed to track progress, adjust focus and celebrate success in the long-term effort to lift Louisville into the top tier of America's economically successful and socially vibrant cities.

Research commissioned by The Greater Louisville Project has identified Deep Drivers of Change — key steps with the greatest promise to strengthen the community’s competitive standing by 2010.

Big but attainable goals, the Deep Drivers are fundamental in their potential to move the Louisville region forward in education, jobs and balanced regional growth. See graphic.

The Deep Drivers were derived from comparisons of the rates of change from 1990 to 2000 on key socioeconomic measures in Louisville and its peer cities. Researchers at the University of Louisville calculated what it would take for Louisville to move into the top five on each measure if every other city sustained its earlier rate of progress through the end of this decade.

Louisville's drive for progress already has produced encouraging results. Over the last five years, the city moved from 11th to 8th among 15 regional competitors on two key measures:

• Though the actual numbers were lower than projections, steady increases in the proportion of young adults holding bachelor’s degrees lifted Louisville from the bottom tier to the middle of its peers on that important indicator.
• A $4,300 increase in median family income produced equal change on that economic indicator.