It's been nine years since this article about New Albany was published. Where the hell are we now?

Mike Ladd and Mike Kopp.
LEO photo by Spencer Jenkins (2009).

There'll be no introductory commentary from me, apart from the basics: the article appeared on June 17, 2009, and in many ways, it depicts a place that no longer exists.

Or does it linger still?

Rinse and repeat: New Albany Wants and Urban Renaissance. Have You Heard This Story Before? by Cary Stemle (LEO Weekly)

 ... The New Albany narrative is not unique. From the moment someone coined the term “suburbs,” these stories have moved inexorably in predictable directions. Suburban malls raided key merchants from downtowns everywhere, setting off a vicious cycle of degeneration, of both infrastructure and public perception. Some cities adapted and thrived, and some died. And a great many — New Albany arguably fits on this list — seem to float on some continuum where things never hit bottom but never go quite right, either.

Those cities become interesting when there’s an ebb large enough to suggest, objectively speaking, that chronic impediments can actually be overcome. Amazingly, some people are starting to believe New Albany can knock back 40 years of defeatism. It is an intriguing proposition.

Congratulations to Cary Stemle.

There doesn't appear to be an official announcement, at least yet, but the social media grapevine reports that former longtime LEO editor Cary Stemle is to be the new managing editor at Louisville's Business First, where Insider Louisville recently was compelled to resort to a reading of tea leaves to make sense of a personnel "exodus."

I'm not a BF devotee, but sincere congratulations to Cary. He's good people.

From the horse's mouth, so to speak.

It bears mentioning that just a wee bit belatedly, Cary Stemle added a comment to last week's wild downtown-themed scrum:

Well, it's not as bad as the last time we heard from a downtown antique dealer.

It's number 101 in the comment hit parade, and worth reading.

NA exposure -- coming tomorrow in LEO.

I've received confirmation that Cary Stemle's feature article on New Albany will be appearing in tomorrow's LEO Weekly. Cary spent quite a lot of time working on this piece, and I believe he'll nail it.

If we're lucky, it will prompt a closer look at New Albany on the part of regional readers.

If we're very lucky, we'll know what to do with it when it comes.

First, get the conjoined councilmen out of town. With greeters like them, who needs enemies?

LEO sold and editor Stemle released ... freelancer annoyed.

It's old news, but as a LEO "freelancer", i.e., I write the "Mug Shots" beer column every other week, I received an e-mail Thursday letting us know that the newspaper had been acquired by SouthComm Communications.

So what? More corporate shenanigans, to be sure, and what really hurts is that Cary Stemle, LEO's editor, was cut loose as part of the deal. My notification note phrased it like this:

To be frank, we're all a little shocked by the news, and obviously, we're all close to Cary and are upset that he's not here right now. We expect and understand the emotional reactions to this sort of news. However, we plan to keep our focus where it's always been: putting out quality work and making sure our freelancers are as well taken care of as possible.

In effect, Cary hired me (a fellow Hoosier -- that means something) to write the beer column, and it's annoying to watch something like this happen without the ability to tweak a bigwig or make a difference in the outcome. I suppose I'll just have to pound Anheuser-Busch by default in an upcoming column ... er, already had it planned prior to this week. Same difference.

Here's the "boilerplate" about the transaction:

LEO acquired by SouthComm Communications