Community Conversation Set for Wednesday, July 12

‘Deep Drivers’ Research Maps Change To Make Louisville Competitive

New research released today by The Greater Louisville Project (GLP) identifies key goals for Louisville to achieve by 2010 in order to move into the top tier among its competitor cities.

“We call these key goals “Deep Drivers” because of their potential to fuel progress and move the Louisville Region forward,” said Carolyn Gatz, Director of The Greater Louisville Project. “If we move ahead aggressively in a few key areas, we will improve our overall standing among our peer cities and prepare our young people to compete for economic opportunities that will secure a brighter future for our community.”

The research will be the focus of a “Community Conversation” at 10 a.m. on Wednesday, July 12 at the Kentucky International Convention Center Conference Theater. A panel that includes Amy Liu of the Brookings Institution Metropolitan Policy Program, Joe Reagan of Greater Louisville, Inc., and Mary Griffith of National City Bank, who chairs KentuckianaWorks, the regional workforce development board, will respond to the findings.

The Deep Drivers identified by The Greater Louisville Project are:

Double the anticipated increase in young adults age 25-34 with a bachelor’s degree from 5,000 to 10,000 by raising education at all levels, preparing and sending more people to post-secondary schools.
Add 15,000 more high skill/high wage jobs in the professional and technical categories, with the goal of raising the median family income.
Reverse the trends to retain the current percentage of jobs and population based in Jefferson County in order to protect its strength as the hub of the Region.

“We have momentum to build on,” Gatz said, citing the historic merger of Louisville and Jefferson County government and the sustained focus on a regional economic development strategy over the last decade.

“We can build on the unprecedented commitments to education represented by Every1Reads and the GE Foundation College-Bound District Program in Math and Science – both among the most ambitious community partnerships for public education in the country—and a new level of partnership among post-secondary institutions in the Region. We need to take those efforts to even higher levels, building consensus and commitment to accelerate change and move us into the top tier among our peer cities.”

The Greater Louisville Project also announced that it is launching a new Web site featuring the “Competitive City Action Network,” a compilation of initiatives focused on progress to achieve the goals spelled out in the Competitive City Agenda, which includes improving education at all levels, building on community assets for economic strength, investing in working families, creating quality neighborhoods and balancing growth across the region. The Web site is www.greaterlouisvilleproject.org.

“The Competitive City Action Network is a map designed to let everyone know what’s going on that will help accelerate the pace of positive change in our community,” Gatz said. “We want to identify real engines of change that will fuel progress on these important goals.”

The Greater Louisville Project will follow up today’s release with presentations to civic and community organizations seeking to build consensus around the Deep Drivers as civic goals for Louisville and its Region.

In January it will update the public report card first published last year designed to measure progress on the Competitive City Agenda outlined in the Brookings Institution Report, “Beyond Merger: A Competitive Vision for the Regional City of Louisville.”

The 2005 report, which is also available on the website, showed that Louisville is making strides in improving education, job growth and the revitalization of downtown, the strength of its cultural assets and vitality of its neighborhoods. On the other hand, the report said, accelerated growth in the outer reaches of the metropolitan area has produced rapidly worsening traffic congestion.

Gatz said the Deep Drivers emerged from research commissioned by The Greater Louisville Project from Kentucky Population Research of the State Data Center at the University of Louisville. It was designed to identify a few big but attainable goals that could inform Louisville’s civic agenda.

In each key area, researchers identified where Louisville Metro will rank based on current projections in 2010 and then calculated the level of change required to move into the top ranks – or top five – among cities identified as benchmarks for measuring Louisville’s progress. Researchers assumed that other cities will sustain the same rate of improvement they achieved from 1990-2000.

The research bases comparisons using cities that economist Paul Coomes at the University of Louisville has identified as “peer cities” for Louisville.

The Greater Louisville Project is sponsored by a collaboration of philanthropic foundations brought together by the Community Foundation of Louisville. In addition to the Community Foundation, it includes The James Graham Brown Foundation, W.L. Lyons Brown Foundation, The C. E. & S. Foundation, The Annie E. Casey Foundation, Gheens Foundation, and The Humana Foundation.