"On Louisville, Breonna Taylor, and Muhammad Ali."

Photo credit: The Nation.

From one of the few sportswriters capable of mattering, talking straight.  

On Louisville, Breonna Taylor, and Muhammad Ali, by Dave Zirin (The Nation)

Louisville is hallowed ground, the birthplace of Muhammad Ali. It will now, thanks to Daniel Cameron, be also remembered as the home of an unspeakable injustice.

 ... If struggle is truly the secret of joy, then I’ll repeat: It felt like hallowed ground.

Daniel Cameron, the Kentucky Attorney General, has desecrated this hallowed ground. In his ambition to remain a Republican rising star, mentored by McConnell and beloved by Trump, he chose his career over justice and made the decision to use Breonna Taylor’s body as a stepping stone to reach even greater heights ... but to me this is less about the color of Cameron’s skin than a naked and grotesque expression of what it takes to rise in GOP circles: You protect the cops, you blame the dead, and you assert, no matter the cost, that Black lives—particularly the lives of Black women—simply do not matter. 

 For the people of Louisville, Breonna Taylor’s name will not be forgotten as surely as Muhammad Ali’s. Maybe someday people will walk Breonna Taylor Boulevard in downtown Louisville and speak her name not merely as a tragedy but as a turning point towards true justice. Daniel Cameron’s name, if remembered at all, will be thought of like the person who stole young Cassius Clay’s bicycle, which inspired the 12-year-old Clay to take up boxing. He will be the anonymous, ignofarm-near-me/">minious cudgel of immorality whose blows didn’t put the people of Louisville down for the count, but propelled them to rise off the mat.

Hanging On Too Long.

Today was a momentous occasion for the Confidentials.

Diana had a dental appointment in Louisville, and I drove her through the war-torn city and back. It was the first time in more than five months that either of us had gone to Kentucky.

Apart from typically dangerous drivers prompting evasive action, we managed to avoid the dreaded terrorists.

Dupont Circle is just a stone's throw from Lexington Road, and so we made a $60 stop at Lotsa Pasta on the way home: muffaletta sandwiches, Teli Hungarian-style salami, goat emmentaler cheese, herring in dill, German dark chocolate biscuits, ciabatta, and a major haul of Mackay's three fruit marmalade.

Gracious. It might well be the closest we get to Europe this year, although I suppose strictly speaking the sandwiches are a New Orleans kind of thing.

It's the little things.

Let's Do It (Let's Fall in Love).

With formerly restrictive alcoholic beverage laws being relaxed, and from a recognition that outdoor living with social distancing is a way of coping with COVID, it would take almost nothing in terms of resources and expenditures for just about any city in America to enable experimentation like this.

Look at those parking spaces, finally used for a useful purpose. Local authorities need only establish broad boundaries and get out of the way, as state government already has done v.v. those alcohol floor plan laws.

The other day I was asked if I "hate" New Albany.

I answered no.

What I "hate" is that so many New Albanians can't so much as imagine things that occur in the outside world, like this. Quite literally what you see in the photo above is happening all across the country and the planet, thanks to the pandemic and the ability of city fathers to think on their feet.

Why not here in New Albany?

After all, Los Angeles is doing it.

L.A.-area parking spots have become dining areas during the pandemic. Will it last? by Laura J. Nelson (LA Times)

 ... The pandemic has forced cities and businesses to be more nimble and experimental, and allows them to think about the logistics and trade-offs in real time: "What’s going to bring us more customers? Is it that we have a place to sit outside, or that we have nearby parking?"

Jeffersonville's been doing it for quite a while, and now so is Louisville. Considering Louisville's mayor has been routinely wrong of late, here's one he can hit out of the damn park -- and does.

Louisville Metro says restaurants can expand to on-street dining to help survive pandemic, by Dahlia Ghabour (Courier Journal)

“As we envision a day beyond the pandemic, we want our eclectic Louisville eateries to be part of that future, which is why Louisville Metro has been seeking new ways to help them stay open throughout the restrictions,” Mayor Greg Fischer said in a news release. “The new on-street dining option will give restaurants the chance to serve more customers in a safe manner while complying with the state restrictions that are necessary to stem the spread of COVID-19.”

Why must easy things be so hard?

Idiot Wind.

Look, everyone -- Mayor Greg Fischer is becoming famous for incompetence all over the world!

Bourbonism know longer means what you thought it did, but it raises an interesting point, because if Louisville becomes known for less savory conditions than an $8,000 bourbon flight at the new Churchill Downs steakhouse, and the mayor becomes a liability v.v. tourism, does he quit then?

Breonna Taylor killing: call for justice intensifies after months of frustration, by Josh Wood (The Guardian)

  ... Now, there are calls for Louisville’s mayor, Greg Fischer, to resign, amid anger over the city’s reaction to protesters, the failure to fire police officers and a feeling that it took Breonna Taylor becoming a household name to get the city to start taking things seriously.

In a speech on Thursday, Fischer said he was “incredibly frustrated with the slow pace of justice in Breonna’s case”. He also announced that in future officer-involved shootings in the city, the Kentucky state police would be tasked with investigating instead of the LMPD investigating itself.

“Why does it take influencers waging a social media campaign for the mayor to step up?” said Drake. “That’s ridiculous. That shouldn’t be the case. You’re the leader. The fish rots from the head. And as the leader you did not lead this city, you failed this city.”

For those protesting, things in Louisville have to change and justice has to be served.

“There is no back to normal because black people have never known normal in Louisville,” said (Hannah) Drake.

And down came that accursed statue -- Colston in Bristol UK ... and also Castleman in Fischerland KY.

Now we're getting somewhere: "Historic scenes were witnessed in Bristol over the weekend as Black Lives Matter protesters pulled down a controversial statue of 17th-century slave trader Edward Colston and rolled the memorial into the city's harbour."

More here:

BLM protesters topple statue of Bristol slave trader Edward Colston, by Haroon Siddique and Clea Skopeliti (The Guardian)

Statue that had long been a focal point of local anger rolled down to harbour and pushed into the water

The historian David Olusoga compared the action to the toppling of the statue of Saddam Hussein in Iraq. However, the home secretary, Bobby Caesar Priti Patel, urged the police to respond. She told Sky News: “I think that is utterly disgraceful and that speaks to the acts of public disorder that have actually now become a distraction from the cause in which people are protesting about.”

And yes, Greg Fischer at last mustered the cojones to remove an inanimate Confederate statue, even if he hasn't yet managed much for living human constituents. It might be wise to hold the applause until we're certain Fischer isn't selling the "replacement sculpture" rights to Brown-Forman to erect a bourbon bottle on the spot.

Louisville Removes Controversial Statue Of John Breckinridge Castleman (NPR)

We've been here before ...

Reconstruction: "Democracy was subverted, and the human toll, however inexact, was enormous." Bye bye, Castleman and Prentice.

Even as we foresee the Champs-Ély-Jéffrey, Berlin "contends with street names of a brutal, overlooked past."

Statue removal? Yes, the Civil War was about slavery -- and I'm just fine with tracing it all the way back to the Founders. Now, let's all go read a book.

Stick a fork in Fischer. He's done.

I tried to watch Greg Fischer's live comments this morning. No, really. I tried mightily to maintain composure as one mealy-mouthed evasion followed another on the heels of each previous abdication of responsibility.

A self-satisfied imperial mayor, grand poobah of "bourbonism" (the word's OTHER meaning is political conservatism), now reduced to listlessly (rubber) bullet-pointing all the reasons why he is pathetic and powerless.

Apparently the police and national guard sent themselves to assault the citizenry, and if so -- if the mayor isn't responsible and can't do anything about it -- then what's the reason for him being in this office in the first place?

Exactly what is the reason for having such an office, if it isn't to be used? After all, we can eat ham and drink bourbon and wear Derby hats on our own, without Fischer's involvement.

It's tempting to say that when the good times roll, it's easy to make a big show of pretending to lead, but the fact eluding Fischer and his supporters is the illusory nature of those "good times."

They weren't, at least not for everyone; Fischer and Louisville's vapid "leadership" caste couldn't be bothered to address a multitude of societal problems before the explosion, and now have no way to address any of it apart from empty platitudes testifying primarily to their fundamental absence of principle and character.

If Fischer had any such self-knowledge, he'd resign in sheer embarrassment. That's how badly he's botched this. It won't happen, but it damn well should.

(The photo depicts Fischer -- to the right -- at a Floyd County DemoDisneyDixiecratic function a few years back, gladhanding with CM Greg Phipps. In the context of my thoughts here, it's worth remembering that Fischer is Mayor Jeff Gahan's political idol.)

Joe Gerth touches all four: "Mayor Fischer is missing in action as Louisville struggles with racial issues."

I hope you can get through the pay wall because Gerth's eloquence needs to be read in its entirety. I've converted Gerth's commentary to baseball:



Deprived of sloganeering, the faux Democrat Greg Fischer is exposed as an inept fraud. Time for him to resign. Bourbonism's no longer an option, is it?

Gerth: Mayor Fischer is missing in action as Louisville struggles with racial issues, by Joseph Gerth, Louisville Courier Journal

Since the first people began carrying signs and exhorting us to say Breonna Taylor’s name last week, Louisville has wrestled with what has unfolded on our downtown streets.

We’ve seen protesting like we haven’t seen in more than 50 years. We’ve watched rioting and looting on our downtown streets. We’ve seen the death of yet another black man at the hands of police.

What we haven’t seen is leadership.

Where is Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer while all this is going on?

He showed up for a few minutes Monday morning to offer his condolences to Odessa Riley, the grieving mother of David McAtee, who died early Monday when police and National Guardsmen returned fire into a crowd at 26th and Broadway.

And then he left.

He’ll appear on a livestream soon from a secured bunker somewhere and then he’ll disappear.

He might even call a late-night press conference when those who most need to hear from him are not at a television or computer where they can watch.

They’ll be out dodging his police department's pepper balls and tear gas canisters — and God forbid, more bullets — then.

In the five days since this all began, Fischer has been in hiding. Emerging only to spout a few platitudes and finally — years after he should have — fire his police chief.

He’s been hunkered down and blaming the rioting and the protests on “outsiders” who have come to Louisville to raise hell and cause trouble.

To do that, however, misses the real issue.

We have a problem with race in this community.

Chief edible tourism bourbonist Greg Fischer is "praying" that restaurant meals will be taxed higher because that's "easiest" for him and his oligarch friends.

Is he daft?

Fischer Says Restaurant Tax ‘Easiest’ Option For Covering Pension Obligation, by Amina Elahi (WFPL)

Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer said budget talks are already underway and will pick up in earnest in the new year. City leaders will again need to contend with a large pension bill that is expected to grow another $10 million in the fiscal year starting in July. The question is whether they will turn to cuts for a second year in a row, or successfully raise taxes instead.

The easiest option would be a 3% restaurant tax, which could cover most of the city’s pension costs for the next few years, Fischer said in a year-end interview with WFPL. That move would require authorization by state legislators, which he said would be easy to do. It wouldn’t need a Constitutional amendment, and smaller cities already have the power to implement it.

“I pray for that,” Fischer said. “And we’ll, we’ll see if that happens.”

Short of that, he said the Metro Council may need to reconsider the insurance premium tax they voted down last spring. Fischer said it’s the only real option they have for increasing taxes without state approval. And he said public backlash to cuts that resulted from that vote may encourage Council members to reevaluate ...

Were trees or urban heat islands mentioned at any point during Emperor Gahan's re-enthronement campaign? I didn't think so.

If so, I don't remember it -- apart from a meme or two of bragging, sans substantiation, about tree plantings that we seldom see. The infernal hum of chain saws are another story.

Look, here's the thing ... as in the other questions we ask ... how about some proof?

You know, something that actually shows the number of trees gone, as opposed to the number planted. We have an arborist and a tree board, right?

Surely they have hard, real statistics.

Can we see the statistics?

Because of the stats aren't there, how can the self-congratulatory memes be anything other than fake news?

Re-greening: can Louisville plant its way out of a heat emergency? by Josh Wood (The Guardian)

The Kentucky city is the fastest-warming urban heat island in the US – and as its temperature has risen, its tree cover has plummeted

There are parts of Louisville, Kentucky, that are enveloped in green, where towering trees arc over broad avenues and walkers, joggers and bikers enjoy beautiful parks designed by Frederick Law Olmsted, the man who drew up plans for Manhattan’s Central Park.

Even on the hottest days of summer, these neighbourhoods feel comparatively refreshing next to the more sun-baked quarters of the city, where shade is often an unavailable commodity on the street.

Cities are their own climates, often hotter than their surroundings due to the way surfaces like asphalt trap heat even as cars and buildings exude it. When a city is markedly warmer than surrounding rural areas, it is called an urban heat island – and Louisville ranks among the worst heat islands in the US, according to a 2014 study, with an average temperature difference of 2.7C (4.8F). Worse still, a 2012 study by Georgia Tech’s Urban Climate Lab found that Louisville was the fastest-warming urban heat island in the nation.

Part of the reason for Louisville’s temperature extremes is geography. But a lot of it comes down to trees ...

This hypothetical Louisville rail map is "so close to civilization it’s making people uncomfortable."

If you've ever visited places where this map is reality, as opposed to conjecture, and returned home without a change of perspective -- well, human beings possess a remarkable capability for self-delusion.

FEATURE, THE FUTURE OF TRANSPORTATION: Imagining a future transit system in Louisville, by Luis Huber-Calvo (LEO Weekly)

This is a part of a package of articles on the future of transportation in Louisville. For more, click here.

This vision for Louisville’s transit future is inspired in part by the streetcar lines that once defined our transportation system. This hypothetical and highly ambitious rail map does not try to reinvent our city. Instead, it strengthens what already works and fills in the transit gap for what could work better.

This vision reimagines our corridors as multimodal arteries that connect our neighborhoods with each other and with our downtown core. This is not a new idea: It’s how much of the city operated in its formative years. Louisville’s transit future could thus end up looking similar to its transit past. Much of our city was built with the streetcar in mind — many of the corridors and neighborhoods in the old urban boundary are suited for this type of transportation. A quick browsing of the map will show that Main Street, Market Street, Broadway, Bardstown Road and Frankfort Avenue are essential to the system’s connectivity. The vision is simple: Imagine a future in which traveling from Shawnee Park to the Mall St. Matthews is practical and convenient without an automobile. Imagine a future where you can go about your daily life without ever having to jump into a car ...

An idea so good that it's doomed: Metro Louisville "should turn its golf courses into walkable neighborhoods."

We have all been here before.

Experts say golf is dying, and if so, expect the redevelopment vultures to circle New Albany Springs.

I think it's a great idea to repurpose golf courses into something remotely useful. Retain some of the green space, build living spaces, and make it walkable.

Golf scramble? Nah, but scrambled eggs and chorizo sound good to me right about now.

Streets for People: Metro should turn its golf courses into walkable neighborhoods, by Chris Glasser (Insider Louisville)

As Insider Louisville’s Joe Sonka reported last week, Mayor Greg Fischer’s 2020 budget calls for the closing of up to four of the city’s 10 public golf courses. Reports indicate that only three of the courses are operating at a profit, with the courses showing an overall operating loss of $700,000.

With the golf courses on the chopping block, the question has become what to do with them?

The most straightforward approach, potentially, would be to find a private company to run them. Councilman Brandon Coan has floated another idea for the course in his district: donating Cherokee Golf Course to the Olmsted Parks Conservancy.

Scott Martin, the former director of The Parklands at Floyds Fork and current director of River Heritage Conservancy, mused on Facebook that the Cherokee Golf Course would have been a great site for the Botanical Gardens project.

I would like to propose a quite different option: the city should repurpose some of these courses as mixed-use, mixed-income, walkable neighborhoods.

As has been observed in Metro Council hearings on the matter, golf as a sport is losing popularity, and courses across the country are closing because of it.

“Long term . . . I think we’re going to keep seeing a greater and greater amount of general funds being drawn into golf,” Metro’s budget director David Frockt said.

Put another way, this isn’t so much a Louisville budget problem or even, as some would like to make it, a government mismanagement problem; it’s a golf problem.

This reality makes closing some of the Metro Parks courses a fundamentally different kind of decision than that of closing the Metro Parks swimming pools ...

"But we're building a new city hall for inhumanely housed government workers," says Team Gahan in response to bicycle sharing in Jeffersonville.

There is little doubt Jeffersonville is lapping New Albany when it comes to downtown innovation. The only question: how many laps it is at this point? Two? Three?

For more on LouVelo: LINKING LOCAL LOUISVILLE.

LouVelo takes bike sharing across the Ohio River, by Mark R. Long (Insider Louisville)

Metro Louisville’s bicycle-share service LouVelo will soon be available in Jeffersonville, with three docking stations opening across the Ohio River in early December.

The stations will be located at the Indiana base of the Big Four bridge, at the corner of Spring Street and Riverside Drive and farther west on Riverside near the Sheraton hotel on what Jeffersonville’s head of long-range planning, Chad Reischl, called restaurant row.

The total cost of the three stations was just under $100,000, and will be paid for with taxes collected under Jeffersonville’s Urban Enterprise Zone system, which allows businesses to earmark a certain portion of their tax outlay for nearby improvements, Reischl said.

“There’s over a million people crossing the (Big Four) bridge every year,” Reischl said. Before, people using the LouVelo bikes would have no place to dock across the river. Having the stations “allows them the opportunity to stay a little longer, to go to a restaurant, to see what Jeffersonville has to offer” ...

Jackie Green on the ghettoization of independent candidates for Louisville mayor: "A form of media censorship — not censorship OF, but censorship BY the media.”

Before stealing a glance at the exclusion of independent candidates from the final Louisville mayoral debate, I'm turning to Jeff Gillenwater to articulate the crux of it.

I’ve spent decades now watching more thoughtful, compassionate people attempt to run for office under the Democratic banner in local, state, and national races. Over and over and over quite consistently, party officials at all levels have intervened, using the full force of their financial and political clout to defeat those candidates, to weaken those voices, and to make sure that their discourse and concerns, no matter how well documented and supported by evidence, do not become the center of policy debate, do not become a legitimate choice that voters can make. The idea that the Democratic Party in this country is an eager and effective agent or vehicle of significant social change simply isn’t true. When you donate to the party, you’re supporting the silencing and defeat of more thoughtful, compassionate voices. There’s no way around that so, if you’re going to do it, you need to own it and call it what it is.

It needed to be said. Now, let's look at yet another way media reinforces the two-party duopoly.

Independent candidates won’t share stage with Fischer, Leet in final mayoral debate, by Joe Sonka (Insider Louisville)

Independent mayoral candidates Jackie Green and Chris Thieneman say they were surprised and disappointed to learn last week that they will not be allowed to participate in the final televised mayoral debate next week, as only Mayor Greg Fischer and Councilwoman Angela Leet have been invited to participate in the live broadcast.

Pat Murrell, the president of the League of Women Voters of Louisville, told Insider Louisville last week that while all nine candidates for mayor were invited to its candidate forum to be broadcast on WAVE3-TV on Oct. 16, organizers recently decided to split the forum into two: one aired live on television and WFPL at 7 p.m., with the second one at 8:15 p.m., which will only be livestreamed on wave3.com and archived online on wave3.com and wfpl.org.

Only Fischer and Leet will participate in the forum that is broadcast live, while the independent candidates will participate in the second forum.

Tomorrow at Chef Space, all sweet tooths are invited to a bake sale to benefit local charities.

Chef Space is Louisville's only non-profit kitchen incubator, and tomorrow (Friday, September 14) it is hosting a Bake Sale to benefit local charities.

The bake sale runs from 11:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m., and takes place at the Chef Space campus at 1812 W Muhammad Ali Blvd, Louisville, Kentucky 40203.

Here's the lowdown from the Facebook event page.

Calling All Sweet Tooths – You’re Invited!

Chef Space Hosting Bake Sale to Benefit Local Charities

A Celebration of National Baked Goods Day

Chef Space is hosting the very first West Louisville Bake Sale on Friday, September 14th in celebration of National Baked Goods Day. Six local bakers are joining forces to fill Chef Space with treats and raise money for six different local community organizations. Chef Space is a quick three-minute drive from downtown, there is plenty of parking, and the bakers will be accepting cash or credit cards.

Chef Space, 1812 W. Muhammad Ali Blvd

Participating Bakeries and Benefits Organizations

Scarlett’s Bakery - Benefitting Scarlett Hope

Believe Cakes and More - Benefitting Coleridge Taylor Elementary School

Norma Jean’s Baked Goods - Benefitting (TBA)

Sweet Dreams Baked Goods - Benefitting The Sweet Dreams Project

Sweet On You Bakery - Benefitting Office of Multicultural Ministries & National
Endometriosis Research Center

Sweet Peaches - Benefitting The Lily Pad

For more information, www.ChefSpace.org

Regular readers will recall my profile of Chef Space for Food & Dining Magazine's Spring 2018 issue (Vol. 59).

Later the full text appeared right here at NA Confidential.

LIVE TO EAT: "Chef Space: a kitchen incubator ... and a community venture."

"We’re Louisville’s only non-profit kitchen incubator, dedicated to helping early stage entrepreneurs launch their food-based businesses," explains Andrew Held, vice president of operations.

Christopher Lavenson is the president of Chef Space, and he proceeds to a bigger picture. "We’re part of a larger revitalization project, and this basically is an engine to create jobs through food entrepreneurship."

It's about the evictions, Jeffrey: “It’s an affordable housing issue. Incomes just are not keeping up with rent prices.”

Last week, New Albany's mayor emerged from the bunker and sniffed the air.

He had five council votes in the bag, and in the absence of something approximating integrity suddenly infusing one of these captive sycophants, his greatest passion would be fulfilled.

Jeff Gahan would stick it to his county government enemies, all the while pretending his power play had something remotely to do with historic preservation -- the sort of ruse sure to attract "useful idiots" (Uncle Joe Stalin's words, not mine) to the lickspittling deception at hand.

Reassured, Gahan committed an act of perverse rarity: he deigned to appear at a council meeting so that the Reisz Five could kiss his ring in full public view.

Of course, Gahan got his plush self-referential palace of government at a cost of only $10 million (so far), increasing the space of city employees in terms of elbow room, and blessedly relieving the purely nauseating concerns of David Barksdale, who openly referred to "inhumane" working conditions in functional and air-conditioned offices, where operatives like Mike Hall -- publicly referred to as Director of City Operations, but officially paid $48,382 and 40 cents per year as "aide" for the Board of Works -- don't seem to be languishing in cages of the sort used to house children on the Mexican border.

Meanwhile, there is no recorded instance of Gahan, Hall or star frat boy poseur David Duggins publicly discussing the issues raised in this piece from WFPL.

That's $10,000,000 for government, and an unprecedented public appearance at a pre-rigged meeting, but neither the political capital or actual money expended to tackle social issues that affect ordinary people.

Gahan and the Reisz Five: Buildings, not humans. Luxury, not affordable housing. Working conditions for clerks, not help for actual workers unable to find a place to live.

It's sickening, and it never changes.

If anything, the disconnect gets ever wider, as elected officials like Barksdale micro-manage IKEA furniture placements on downtown street corners, but when asked to state a viewpoint aloud about Gahan's public housing demolitions, abruptly find their get up and gab done got up and went.

Or "spent" -- as in someone else's money.

Imagine any of them debating this topic in a genuine open public forum -- but silly me. It's only 2018, and they needn't begin conniving to duck face-to-face meetings with their critics until February or March, 2019, at the very earliest.

The Reisz Five has unwittingly offered us a watershed moment. The stench of corruption is to thick to ignore. In the unlikely event that Denton Floyd actually completes Gahan's bright, shiny showcase campaign object in time for it to be used as a stump speech prop, we should have the counter-demonstration ready and waiting.

Because in New Albany, we have our own resistance to consider. Let's work together to topple the tinhorn.

Instability Grows As Louisville Eviction Rate Doubles National Average, by Jacob Ryan and Alexandra Kanik (WFPL)

The issue of eviction is more nuanced than rent payments and lease contracts, said Lavar Edmonds, a research specialist at Princeton University’s Eviction Lab.

“It’s an affordable housing issue,” he said. “Incomes just are not keeping up with rent prices.”

Residents burdened by high rent costs must often make choices between food, clothes, health care and housing, Edmonds said.

Families that spend more than 30 percent of their income on housing are considered by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to be rent burdened.

“There is a voided cost in preventing an eviction,” Hinko said. “Keeping people in place, in a decent place that they can afford with the wages they make, really has to be a number one priority.”

Agonized drivers scream bloody murder as Louisville contemplates a 9th Street shrink 'n' slow.

Photo credit: Undivided Nation.

Let the coddled drivers' bitching begin.

On second thought, it probably already has. Amid the spitting and snarling and all-purpose selfish venom, I'll just be resting here with a beer and cigar, thinking back to all the places I've been that have nice buses, trams and subways extending from city center into the outlying areas.

Soon I'll be walking to work again. It's going to be a quite a pleasure.

The Future of Ninth Street: City debuts potential redesign, by Caitlin Bowling (Insider Louisville)

Louisville Metro Government officials are hoping that by 2022, Ninth Street, from the riverfront to Broadway, will look less like a hazardous highway on the edge of downtown and more like a version of Queens Quay in Toronto.

The street has long been considered problematic, as it effectively divides downtown from the predominantly minority neighborhoods in west Louisville, as well as promotes high vehicles speeds and dangerous crossing conditions for pedestrians.

“It’s well past time for the physical and psychological divide at Ninth Street to end,” Mayor Greg Fischer said in a news release highlighting ways that the street could be transformed.

The draft plan, which was created by consultant Gehl Architects with input from residents, shows three alternatives for Ninth Street but identifies one — the Urban Parkway — as the optimal choice, asserting that it would provide adequate vehicle capacity while improving safety for pedestrians and cyclist and creating new public space.

The Urban Parkway plan would make Ninth Street a four-lane road, down from six lanes, and reduce the lane width to between 10 feet and 11 feet, down from its current 11 to 14 feet. The plan also calls for a bike lane divided from the vehicle lanes, a shorter median, a walking path from Broadway to the Ohio River and 20- to 25-foot landscaped sidewalks with places to sit, play and shop ...

LIVE TO EAT: "Chef Space: a kitchen incubator ... and a community venture."

My original article about Chef Space appeared in Food & Dining Magazine's Spring 2018 issue (Vol. 59). In January, I made a connection.

A kitchen incubator is the sort of idea that might work in that big building at 336 Pearl Street.

The full text of the Chef Space article appears here. After reading it, feel free to click through and reread the above.

CHEF SPACE
1812 W. Muhammad Ali Blvd.
Louisville, KY 40203

---

Chef Space: a kitchen incubator ... and a community venture.

When the legendary Jay’s Cafeteria closed for good in 2008, it marked the sad end of a restaurant and catering colossus in the Russell neighborhood of West Louisville. Now, it houses a new wave of entrepreneurs looking to make their mark.

Frank and Barbara Jean Foster opened Jay’s in 1974 at 504 S. 18th, then expanded in 1994 with a new and palatial 400-seat building just yards away at 1812 Muhammad Ali Boulevard. It was more than another place to eat. Jay’s was a hive for networking, a neighborhood focal point and a community center.

During their 30 years in operation, the Fosters served signature dishes like pot roast, ribs and sweet potato pie to a cross-section of the entire city. President Bill Clinton, global ambassador Muhammad Ali and boxing impresario Don King were among the guests, along with families from Russell and workers from nearby industries like Phillip Morris and Brown-Forman. They all came together over food.

Jay’s Cafeteria persevered even when Russell fell on hard times, suffering a litany of familiar late 20th-century ills: depopulation, dilapidation, redlining, counterproductive "renewal" schemes, poverty and crime.

When local industries began declining -- some closing and others downsizing -- the Fosters were compelled to sell. Two West Louisville churches combined to keep Jay’s open for a while, but by 2009, the building had become derelict, and demolition seemed the likeliest outcome.

Then new life came to the site when Community Ventures Corporation, a Kentucky-based nonprofit, purchased the structure and invested more than $4 million remodeling it for an innovative new use.

In late 2015, Chef Space was launched where Jay’s had served for so long, and for Louisville’s first kitchen incubator, the rest isn’t history.

Rather, it is future – exactly the prescription for West Louisville, as writer Michael Jones surveys in this issue's feature story Dine West.

What exactly is Chef Space?

"We’re Louisville’s only non-profit kitchen incubator, dedicated to helping early stage entrepreneurs launch their food-based businesses," explains Andrew Held, vice president of operations.

Christopher Lavenson is the president of Chef Space, and he proceeds to a bigger picture. "We’re part of a larger revitalization project, and this basically is an engine to create jobs through food entrepreneurship."

Lavenson and Held bring extensive and complementary skill sets to their jobs. Held holds master’s degrees in business and marketing, taught marketing at Sullivan and also found time to manage restaurants at various points between.

So extensive and hyperkinetic is Lavenson’s résumé that it defies a brief summary. He’s been in manufacturing, wholesale distribution, retail coffee, software, solid waste and resorts (among others), but if there is a common theme, it was revealed in a "40 Under 40" interview with Louisville Business First in 2013, when Lavenson was asked to look ahead.

Q: "What would be your ideal position in 2025?"
A: "Serial entrepreneur emeritus."

That’s it; serial entrepreneurs of the world, unite. At Chef Space, Lavenson takes his amassed experience and applies it to the needs of community development. He’s teaching tricks of the larger corporate trade to those innovating at the smaller grassroots level, linking them to what comes next.

Chef Space is just one moving part of a great many strategic plans and tactical partnerships undertaken by Community Ventures, the ultimate goal of which is the renewal of the Russell neighborhood. Moreover, with the city of Louisville directing unprecedented levels of funding and resources toward projects in West Louisville (an area under-valued by any economic metric), it is ripe for the sort of coordinated investment required for revitalization.

Louisville Metro Councilwoman Barbara Sexton Smith, whose 4th District includes Russell, says Chef Space fits perfectly into these efforts.

"Louisville is open for business, and Chef Space has developed the perfect recipe for success," Sexton Smith wrote in an e-mail. "Our growth and prosperity depends on small business development in hospitality and tourism. Chef Space is a proven model for maximizing economic vitality by using a real life laboratory to test your concept before making large investments."

Food will be a common denominator for the people coming to West Louisville to work and play amid revitalization projects to come -- just as it is today for existing residents in these neighborhoods -- or, as it sometimes is not, because West Louisville is a food desert, defined as an urban area lacking affordable, fresh food choices.

When it comes to dining options apart from fast food, one estimate finds ten times more restaurants to the immediate east of Louisville’s downtown than directly to the west. Viewed in this manner, Chef Space’s mission is brilliantly illuminated.

"The reason why we chose food is it doesn’t discriminate," Lavenson says.

"Everybody is comfortable with food. Everybody has a recipe, everybody’s an expert in cuisine. Not everybody’s an expert preparing it, but they know what they like. For all entrepreneurs, specifically with food, it doesn’t matter if you’ve gone to school, if you’ve filed bankruptcy, if you have a criminal record, whatever your race, religion or gender because there is no ceiling when it comes to food."

And so it is that with the assistance of a small support team, Lavenson and Held seek to bring these food dreams to fruition.

"Our whole mission is to help support dreamers who want to grow and create exciting opportunities in food."

Boosting food entrepreneurs to taste success

It begins when prospective food entrepreneurs come to Chef Space with their ideas. They’ll be tailored to individual needs beneath an umbrella of various basic membership plans. Overall, the incubator’s intent is to cover all fixed costs for a monthly fee, allowing members to focus on their food.

Thus far at Chef Space, tacos have been filled and cupcakes baked, hot sauces bottled, jams jarred, and pre-packaged meals assembled. Food truck operators utilize the incubator as their commissary kitchen. Caterers bulk up and branch out.

With an area of 13,000 square feet and facility access around the clock, Chef Space offers a packing kitchen; two complete hooded lines; dry storage; and enough cold storage to permanently bend the building’s electrical meter.

Members have an exhaustive assortment of appliances and kitchen equipment, including charbroilers, convection ovens, food processors, fryers, gas stock pot ranges, gas tilting skillets, ice makers, mixers, meat grinders, and maybe even the stray old-school spatula.

Chef Space also seeks to help food entrepreneurs with access to capital, branding and marketing, logo design and troubleshooting needs that might somehow elude the exhaustive forethought.

Taken as a whole, Chef Space’s myriad services to its members comprise an array of possibilities for food entrepreneurship. These services are tools, meant to be engaged purposefully toward a defined end, and naturally, tools tend to be inert if they’re not held in the hands of people who know how to use them.

Most of the food entrepreneurs at Chef Space already can boil, brine, dice and ferment. The kitchen incubator teaches them to scale, pack, streamline, finance, improve and grow, because jobs are created when these businesses begin hiring employees.

And the more skills these future employees possess, the better it is for everyone. This is why the next stage of Chef Space’s outreach is workforce development.

But first, meet some of the food entrepreneurs at Chef Space who are working to get their food together.

Lucretia’s Kitchen and comfort food like your mother made

It was Martin Luther King Jr. Day weekend in January 2018, and also the second anniversary of Lucretia Thompson’s landmark "Soul Food Sunday." Lucretia’s Kitchen regularly cooks, barbecues and caters out of Chef Space, where Thompson also offers a lunch service Wednesday through Friday.

Thompson’s pedigree is barbecue. Her grandfather’s eatery was locally renowned Thompson’s BBQ, and her family’s special Liquid Gold BBQ sauce is a genuine heirloom.

Lucretia’s bounty for Soul Food Sunday includes eggs, bacon, cheese grits, country ham, biscuits and gravy and waffles. Then comes fried chicken, rib tips, meatloaf, smothered pork chops and catfish; greens, mac & cheese, baked beans, slaw and sweet potatoes; for dessert, there’s caramel cake, banana pudding and peach cobbler.

Adrian Miller is America’s "Soul Food Scholar," and he explores the art form in his book "Soul Food: The Surprising Story of an American Cuisine, One Plate at a Time."

"Soul food is really the interior cooking of the Deep South that migrates across the country. I think of soul food as an immigrant cuisine and ultimately a national cuisine, because black folks just landed in all parts of the country. But in terms of the difference between the two, soul food has more intense flavors. It's going to have more spice. It's going to be sweeter. It's a matter of intensity."

Chef Space’s Lavenson recalls the very first Soul Food Sunday in 2016. He’d heartily endorsed Thompson’s idea, and further recommended she sell advance tickets, all the better to gauge demand.

"On Friday she had 30 tickets sold, and I was ecstatic. We hadn’t had 30 people in the building – ever at one time, not even when the mayor came down for the grand opening."

In Atlanta for a food show, Lavenson received a call from Thompson.

"Guess how many people showed up for Soul Food Sunday? 350 people! This place was busting at the seams. It shows you how hungry the community is for healthy food -- and the power of social media and personal connections."

But was Lucretia’s Kitchen able to feed them?

"They pulled it off. I don’t know how she did it. It was like stone soup or something."

Thompson is busy … and bullish about her business’s prospects.

"Chef Space has been a great stepping stone and learning experience for us, and it has provided motivation for the immediate surrounding neighborhood that dreams come true. A brick and mortar of my own is the main goal for Lucretia’s Kitchen, and we are well on our way!"

V-Grits makes a vegan lifestyle easy and accessible.

Back when Shawn Steele and his wife Becky were "fairly new" to vegan cuisine, they fortuitously attended an event catered by Kristina Addington, who was the first plant-powered chef ever to win the Food Network’s Cutthroat Kitchen competition.

Impressed, the Steeles quickly volunteered to help Addington and her business partner Jeff Hennis with funding for their V-Grits food truck, which subsequently appeared at many of the same animal sanctuary benefits and festivals the Steeles frequented.

"We fell in love with their awesome food, as there are so few people doing it right," Steele says. "As entrepreneurs, we found they were savvy people who we could trust to follow through and do the right thing."

Steele learned to brew under Rick Stidham at Louisville’s Akasha Brewing Company, and later in 2018, his own craft beer startup, False Idol Independent Brewers, will partner with V-Grits to open Louisville’s inaugural vegan brewery (one of only a few in the country).

When their project gets off the ground at the former home of the Monkey Wrench bar at 1025 Barret Avenue, Addington’s tenure at Chef Space will come to an end. She says it has been a stepping stone.

"We were one of the first companies to sign up with Chef Space two years ago," Addington notes. "The timing was perfect. Chef Space provided secure parking for our food truck with hook ups, plenty of storage space, and more kitchen equipment than any food start-up could initially afford."

The incubator-fueled growth curve of V-Grits has included a line of cashew-based vegan cheeses (cheddar, mozzarella and pimento) and a well-subscribed series of Vegan Supper Club evenings held in the Chef Space public events area.

"Chef Space has given us the ability to test concepts and grow our brand, and also the confidence to take this next step into a brick and mortar."

Look for the V-Grits/False Idol vegan brewery to open in two stages, with the kitchen debuting in early summer, and the brewery shortly thereafter.

Handcrafted Elixir Kombucha makes it small, local and weird

Intriguingly, a different type of brewery already inhabits the collective kitchen at Chef Space, where I recently felt the sudden onset of déjà vu after spotting a young man diligently cleaning sixth-barrel stainless steel beer kegs with the assistance of a low-slung hunk of metal mounted by drums and hoses.

Speaking as a former co-owner of New Albanian Brewing Company in New Albany, the gadget looked very familiar to me, and Ryan Cheong had a cheerful explanation.

"It’s the NABC’s old keg washer," explained Cheong, a co-owner of Elixir Kombucha. "You sold it to Monnik Beer Company, and we bought it from them."

Elixir Kombucha’s keg cleaner stays plenty busy, because draft is ideal for serving kombucha (it also comes bottled), and the fledgling company’s sales have exploded since coming to Chef Space (106% growth in 2017 alone). Elixir Kombucha now is ready to leave the nest and get a place of its own.

Kombucha is a naturally fermented, effervescent and tangy probiotic tea, brewed with SCOBY, an acronym referring to "symbiotic colony of bacteria and yeast." This beverage -- which is thought to have originated in Manchuria -- can be flavored with spices, vegetables, herbs and fruit.

The cachet of kombucha lies in its presumed health benefits, particularly for one’s gut bacteria, from the presence of amino acids, enzymes and antioxidants. Medical science predictably demurs, but health and well-being are what drew together Cheong and his two longtime friends, Danielle and Corey Wood. They began homebrewing small batches of “bootch” for their families and acquaintances, who found the drink tasty and healthful.

While kombucha isn’t beer (there exists only trace alcohol, less than half a percentage point by volume), it is no exaggeration to suggest that kombucha is at the liftoff stage experienced by craft beer a decade ago.

There are creative echos as well; Elixir Kombucha’s year-round mainstays are Lavender Lemonade, Watermelon Jalapeno, Blueberry Pomegranate, & Pineapple Ginger. They might be summer wheat variants at a brewpub – and it’s no surprise that mixologists regard kombucha as an ideal base for cocktails.

Far more prosaically, commercial kombucha makers need equipment similar to that used by brewers, requiring significant outlays of capital.

"We got to the point of needing a commercial kitchen," Cheong says. "We googled and found Chef Space. They have everything we need to meet commercial compliance, and it lowered our risk. That’s been huge."

"It’s been a wild rise, and now they’re helping us with an exit strategy."

The next wave

Elixir Kombucha, V-Grits and Lucretia’s Kitchen all are in the process of exiting the Chef Space kitchen incubator. Daddy Rich’s already has. In late January, Rodrick Martin’s and Brian Allen’s soul food startup, specializing in chicken wings, cornbread and waffles, opened at 617 W. Oak Street in Old Louisville, specializing in chicken wings, cornbread and waffles.

A new wave of Chef Space members is settling into place. On MLK Day weekend -- as the line for Soul Food Sunday at Lucretia’s stretched outside the front door -- Jose Vergara was in back diligently preparing his work area for increased production of Don Tamal All Natural Gourmet Tamales, seasoned with Grandma’s Secret Blend of Seven Spices.

A few feet away at a prep table, Regina Swint tackled logistics for her line of Kentucky Hot Flashes (they’re spicy pickles). It was the very first day of her Chef Space membership. Another new arrival was Viviana Dias Ferreira; her Revolution Confections specializes in gourmet marshmallows flavored with bourbon, cold brew coffee and vanilla beans, among others.

Then I saw Vy Howard moving like a sculptor to delicately place finishing touches to one of her Syndesi Designer Desserts. This one happened to be a cake, but she also creates pies, French Macarons and other sweets.

Meanwhile, Lavenson and Held plot their next logical step, because -- if a central aim of Chef Space is to provide food entrepreneurs with the means to scale and modulate their concepts for success in a hyper-competitive world, -- it makes perfect sense that similar notions of modular scalability apply to those men and women who’ll be future members of their food service teams.

Hence the aforementioned workforce training plan.

"Technically, it’s going to be called a Certified Food/Restaurant Professional," Held says. "It’s for those committed to being full-time, professional restaurant employees."

Councilwoman Sexton Smith has personal experience with why this matters.

"I spent years managing a multi-unit restaurant operation covering several states," she writes. "The biggest threat to success is high turnover. I completely support the vertically integrated training program proposed by Chef Space as the key solution to drastically reducing turnover, saving millions of dollars every year."

"We’re going to put together a program of course work in a modular fashion,” Held continues. “When completed, it will allow people to enter restaurant work at a higher degree of qualification than they would otherwise."

Everyone involved understands such a program cannot magically appear overnight, and so a broad coalition is being built, bringing as many industry professionals and community service organizations into the tent as possible. They’ll provide the necessary feedback about the program’s structure, and they’ll have the vocal support of Sexton Smith.

"The real beauty of this certification program lies in its simplicity. Graduates are trained in areas of quality, service and cleanliness before they fill out a job application. And more importantly, they will know what to expect on their new job resulting in greater job satisfaction from the start."

Held also sees a parallel in the sharing economy.

"My pie in the sky is that this becomes an Uber for restaurants, with groups of certified individuals -- on dish, as hosts, servers, or on line prep -- becoming a resource to be dialed up as needed."

These newly certified food service professionals might rove, as capable of helping more than one restaurant get through periods of short-staffing, or their enhanced training and experience might lead directly to full-time positions -- and better pay.

"The reason they’re not going to school now for certifications and training is because they’re not going to school," concludes Held. "We have a facility that functions as an operating kitchen, and it seems like an opportunity to use the resources we’ve already built and put in place for some things outside our original mission."

Chef Space’s mission is evolving. For the kitchen incubator’s members, there are fringe benefits in camaraderie, mutual assistance and shared experience. In the Russell neighborhood, there is renewed hope for a community’s future.

As Lavenson said: "Food doesn’t discriminate."

C-FAIR'S Fischer endorsement: "But LGBTQ politics must be about all the things that affect all marginalized people."

I have to explain to far away friends and relatives that in southern Indiana, it’s the Democrats who are the crooks.
-- NAC reader

Meanwhile in Nawbany, no one can say Mayor Jeff Gahan hasn't been mostly absent when it comes to our city's LGBTQ community.

Minor gestures have sufficed as evidence of commitment in the absence of any single measure requiring Gahan to expend political capital, as when he enabled a reconstituted Human Rights Commission only after hard-wiring it to be toothless.

As of 2018, Gahan refuses to make his appointments to the HRC, without which there can be no meetings; he's probably refraining because with an election year approaching, it cannot be entirely guaranteed that the commission wouldn't be infiltrated by citizens of principle, and direct too much sunlight on the mayor's signature public housing demolitions.

Then again, maybe the well is dry of shameless bootlickers.

In similar fashion, an Ethics Commission that also was erected as Potemkin press release sans legs or arms might currently be examining Gahan's campaign finance windfalls.

New Albany does not possess an organization like the Fairness Campaign to make endorsements, and consequently, NA Confidential cannot speak definitively about our LGBTQ community's perspective on Gahan's reign. However, it can be said that as Gahan's record pertains to intersectional issues ...

Some in the LGBTQ community — including me — question whether Fischer deserved the endorsement, given his stands on intersectional issues — his support of the so-called anti-gang bills, his failure to declare Louisville as a sanctuary city and his focus on economic development while the city’s homeless population grows. They say Fenwick was a better choice because of his progressive platform.

 ... a list of concerns stretching across a spectrum of topics applies as accurately to Gahan as Fischer, the New Albany mayor's pin-up idol.

#FireGahan2019

Why an LGBTQ endorsement should weigh all issues of social justice, by Deena Lilygren (LEO Weekly)

No one can say Mayor Greg Fischer hasn’t been good for Louisville’s LGBTQ community. Compared to LGBTQ life in Kentucky outside the city, we have an embarrassment of riches: Under his leadership, Louisville is one of the only Southern cities to extend domestic partner benefits to city employees and ahead of the Supreme Court ruling on marriage equality. It has earned a perfect score from the Human Rights Commission for the past three years — outperforming peer cities. Then, there are the emotional benefits we reap from living in a city with an openly pro-fairness mayor.

These accomplishments came about through a close partnership with the Fairness Campaign, an LGBTQ advocacy group that works with cities to enact fairness, or non-discrimination, ordinances. Fairness makes political endorsements through C-FAIR, a political action committee.

This year, the endorsement went to Fischer, not his Democratic opponent, lawyer Ryan Fenwick, the first openly gay mayoral candidate.

Some in the LGBTQ community — including me — question whether Fischer deserved the endorsement, given his stands on intersectional issues — his support of the so-called anti-gang bills, his failure to declare Louisville as a sanctuary city and his focus on economic development while the city’s homeless population grows. They say Fenwick was a better choice because of his progressive platform.

More broadly, however, Fischer’s endorsement underscores how LGBTQ organizations — and all social justice organizations — can become entrenched in the establishment that they help, even inadvertently, to maintain the status quo.

But LGBTQ politics must be about all the things that affect all marginalized people.

“C-FAIR routinely declines to endorse exciting, inspiring and truly progressive candidates because it prefers to scratch backs, return political favors, and remain in the good graces of Louisville’s alleged political elite,” said Jaison Gardner, who is 89.3 WFPL “Strange Fruit” podcast co-host, and has served on the Fairness board. “Fairness has endorsed Mayor Fischer despite his anti-black, anti-sanctuary and anti-working class political positions, despite the opportunity to endorse a truly-progressive, openly gay man with justice-minded ideas.”

Nick Conder, who is vice chair of the local Democratic Socialists chapter and gay, pointed to the contradictions of social justice goals with city policies under Fischer’s administration.

“When 40 percent of homeless youth identify as LGBTQ, should Fairness really endorse a mayor who bulldozes homeless camps? When queer people are more likely to live in poverty than straight people, should Fairness really endorse a mayor who opposed even a $10 minimum wage? When LGBTQ people face unique health challenges and have a poor history with the police, should Fairness really endorse a mayor who is increasing funding for LMPD while social services continue to be underfunded? We need a mayor who will support all queer people, not just a privileged few,” he told LEO.

snip

Any social justice organization worth knowing about is devoted to intersectionality. The Fairness Campaign includes in its mission statement that “dismantling racism is central to our work,” and “all issues of oppression are linked and can only be addressed by working in coalition.” Also, it wants to work toward a “non-violent, grassroots organizing that empowers individuals and build a social justice movement that creates lasting change.”

Overlay that on several issues that position Fischer to the right of fairness:

— his support of the methane plant in West Louisville, which community residents defeated on the grounds that it was unfair to site an industrial plant in a low-income neighborhood.

— his failure to declare Louisville a sanctuary city, in the face of threats from the Trump administration.

— his support of police Chief Steve Conrad, whose department has failed to effectively cap the epidemics of homicides and heroin use, was helping federal immigration agents and has had officer-involved shootings that call into question its use-of-force policies, in addition to the overtime and Explorer Scout scandals.

— his support of House Bill 169, the so-called anti-gang bill, which other community civil rights activists and groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union, feel will lead to the perpetuation of racial disparity in the criminal justice system.

snip

C-FAIR’s job is to report which candidate most embodies “fairness” values and with that endorsement, provide voters with a tool to vet candidates.

If that tool is broken, then it may be time to do what we’d do with any broken tool: have it mended, repurposed or set out by the curb.

The secrecy, maybe? "Something doesn’t feel right about David Jones’ group of Louisville powerbrokers."

Tell me if you've heard this one before.

Encroaching nausea as Insider Louisville tracks down Louisville's secretive power brokers, an "elite group of influencers."

Oh, look. How charming. The usual suspects, same old pillars and engorged oligarchs together again, in secret, to huff and puff and -- dear, could you fetch my pitchfork? Just in case One Southern Indiana's already played the copycat.

Gerth nails it.

Something doesn’t feel right about David Jones’ group of Louisville powerbrokers, by Joe Gerth (Louisville Courier Journal)

The group that David A. Jones Sr. brought together is impressive.

There are nearly 70 community leaders — from entrepreneurs to ecclesiastics (and a rabbi thrown in for good measure) — who have joined to address the problems that have held Louisville back for decades.

Good idea. Talented cast.

But something doesn't feel right about this.

It's instructive that Insider Louisville broke this story, and the Courier Journal gives credit where due. Let's hope the News and Tribune is reading.

The group operated in complete secrecy until Insider Louisville wrote about it earlier this week and said that Jones wouldn't turn over a list of members. He relented and gave Courier Journal a list of names the following day.

Neighborhood litter: "A dirty and dangerous environment can heighten stress levels and shrink individual aspirations."

The Courier-Journal is a chronic litterer.

New Albany isn't particularly clean in the best of times, and a litter-strewn city always seems worse in the dead of winter, without any overgrown vegetation to hide the mess. As the following article suggests, a number of interrelated factors probably explain it -- none of them particularly encouraging.

The Next Louisville: What Trash Cans Tell Us About Poverty In Louisville, by, Jacob Ryan (WFPL)

... City data show residents in Taylor Berry report instances of litter at one of the highest rates in the city. Though city officials have closed nearly all of the complaint cases, the trash remains.

A review of city trash bin locations shows that, in 91 percent of the 340 complaints in Taylor Berry, there’s no public trash can on the block.

This isn’t unique to Taylor Berry. Across the city, data show trash piles up in parts of town with the fewest public trash cans. In fact, 73 percent of all trash complaints reported to the city’s MetroCall 311 service are not within one block of a trash can, the data show. And 41 percent of those locations had no trash bin within two blocks.

(Neighborhood resident) Cissell said the absence of trash bins sends a message: her street just isn’t a priority like those in the growing downtown Central Business District, with 110 trash bins per mile — 101 more than her neighborhood.

The crappier things are, the crappier they'll become. That's encouraging. Has the SOTU started yet?

 ... (U of L professor) DeCaro also points out a 1990 study by psychologist Robert Cialdini in which paper handbills were placed on the windshield of vehicles in a parking garage. In one instance, the garage was cleaned of debris and trash. In another, the garage was heavily littered.

The results were just as Cialdini and his team anticipated. People were more likely to toss the handbills to the ground in the littered garage, as opposed to the clean garage.

DeCaro said people pay subtle attention to their social environment — “and then we infer assumptions about the people living there and our relationship with it.”

Haven Harrington, who lives in Russell, also points to the “broken window” theory when discussing the scourge of trash in the neighborhood.

“People tend to want to disrespect your neighborhood more when they see trash everywhere,” said Harrington, a past president of the Russell Neighborhood Association. “They think, well, if the people here don’t care, why should I?”