Friday, March 21, 2014

Insider Louisville writer praises "quality of life" in New Albany. Somewhere, a dictionary dies an agonizing death.

In all seriousness, do we laugh or cry?

Some sweet day, there'll be journalists who actually journalist. Until then, I suppose quarter-truths will have to do. Insinuating "paradise" amid New Albany's stultified, poisonous, unredeemable political culture is tantamount to libel, slander and beating oneself with rusty chains, but who do we sue, Kaufman or ourselves?

All these nice things from Louisville courageously transplanting to squalid NA ... oh yeah, and then maybe one or two local businesses over in Kaempfertown had a minor impact, which pales in comparison to the heroism and vision and sheer animal attraction of people in government who just finished presiding over the farmers market fiasco. By the way, when do I get paid?

Right on, Steve. How amazingly observant. Did you ever actually set foot here?

One pull from this mess is sufficient. Did we pay this guy another $108K to say these things with a straight face, or did he do it as a lark?

I'm going for a walk, and then off to work.

Where it’s at: Downtown New Albany’s quality of life, by Steve Kaufman (Insider Louisville)

In other words, New Albany is serious about creating the kind of vibrant city center that began to disappear when cars, suburbs and shopping malls overtook the cultural landscape.

And do you know many other cities that have a six-figure budget set-aside for Quality of Life?

It’s hard to know just how or why this small town of less than 40,000 people has turned itself into a trendy, happening place from what it had been a decade ago: a town, like so many American towns, that had seen some of its important manufacturing industries (like shipbuilding, plate glass and the production of plywood and veneer) close up, move or diminish.

1 comment:

The New Albanian said...

I tried once to append a comment to the IL article linked here. I know the comment was posted, because I tested my link in it to make sure it worked. Later, I noticed it was gone. In the event that IL shares a webmaster with DNA, and my comment is deleted again, here's my comment.

"I'd like to be able to "like" this article, but the presence of so many outdated stock photos alone raises a flag for me. The article relegates local indie businesses to a second tier ghetto, and is misleading, to boot (a one-time transfer of $100,000 from one fund to another for "quality of life issues") hardly qualifies as a six-figure budget. My mailer came with the word "paradise: attached to it. That's either facetious, or an open provocation to people like me who've been fighting this battle against the uncomprehending for longer than Wick's established a branch here. Kaufman's typically breathless article is little more than a PR fluff piece; he should actually come here some time and let someone like me explain truthful things to him -- and hey, can my comment not get deleted this time?"