LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- It's been 15 years since the city of Louisville merged with county government, and a newly released report shows the city is falling short of its goals.
On Tuesday, the Greater Louisville Project released its 2018 competitive city report, which compares Louisville to 16 similar cities on factors like education, jobs and health.
The data shows Louisville stagnant or dropping in most categories, with the exception of education, where the city saw a rise in college degrees but still fell short of the Louisville goal of 40 percent of its working adults holding bachelor's degrees.
"We are not where we could be, and we should celebrate the gains we have made, but we are not yet where we want to be," Greater Louisville Project Director Ben Reno-Weber said.
Louisville made gains in the percentage of households in poverty, the number of residents with health insurance and the percentage of students graduating high school in college.
The GLP study works like a report card for Louisville, and peer communities like Charlotte, St. Louis, Columbus, Nashville, Omaha, Knoxville, Grand Rapids, Greensboro, Greenville, Oklahoma City, Memphis, Kansas Cit, Cincinnati, Birmingham, Tulsa and Indianapolis are all weighed as classmates.
Louisville's average ranking stayed in the middle of the pack. The city landed sixth in jobs, down one spot since 2005, remained seventh in quality of place, a category dealing with housing and commutes, improved from 13th to 11th in education and dropped from 13th to 16th in health.
"We look at this and say, 'Eh, could have been worse,' but that's certainly not what you want to hear when your kid comes home from school and you say, 'How did you do today?'" Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer said.
The GLP study helps steer money, resources and strategic planning for the city and its major philanthropic partners. It is funded by a consortium of foundations. The takeaway for many leaders in the room is Louisville's status quo is not doing enough to create tangible improvements where its needed most.
"All of this is connected — health, education, workforce poverty — it all relates," said Mason Rummel, president and CEO of the James Graham Brown Foundation. "And so when we make grants, now we have to think about the individual project we're funding and how it relates to the other work we're doing so we can really get some outcomes."
The report shows widening racial gaps across the board in wealth, life expectancy and educational attainment. For example, while median earnings grew for whites in Louisville from $36,000 to $36,900 between 2006 and 2016, the report says the median income among black workers dropped from $25,600 to $24,600 in the same time period. The metro topped its peer cities, ranking first in the percentage of population with health insurance but second to last in overall health-based outcomes.
Fischer contends the data from this part of the report was taken from 2016 when the city broke a record for homicides and overdose deaths. Still, life expectancy varies by as much as 12 years among those living in south and west Louisville and residents in the city's east end.
"If your programs and grants are not targeting the numbers in this report, we have to do better," Louisville Urban League President and CEO Sadiqa Reynolds said to leaders of nonprofits, foundations and charities who attended the GLP presentation Tuesday at the C2 Event Venue. "You've got to have some real investment right now, otherwise, it is what I said: band-aids. We have this band-aid approach, and we just stay average, or in some cases, below average, and none of us think that's good enough."
To view the full report, CLICK HERE.
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