Hello Fellow Pioneers!

Here comes part 2 of our demographic and economic report!

Watch out Indianapolis here we come!
ETA 2100! 76 years to destination and +825K people

Don’t worry about SF or ATL

Our part 1 of our demographic report showed that while Louisville (purple) has grown; both the Bay Area (pink) and ATL (red) have grown substantially relatively to Louisville (see below).

The reality is that our peer cities today are made up of three cohorts:

Immediate Peers: Memphis, Birmingham (growth similar to Louisville)
Climbers: Cincinnati, Columbus, Indianapolis (growing moderately faster than Louisville)
Boomers: Nashville, Austin, Charlotte (explosive growth cities)

IND, BNA (nashville) are also tough to reach

The scary truth is that Louisville (and America in general) is hitting anemic levels of growth. The last 10 years Louisville MSA grew by just 50K people (and only 6K were of “prime working age” 25-54). In the below chart, we take a more optimistic growth rate of of .5% per year.

Even then, you see that it would take Louisville well past 2100 for us to catch up with Nashville or Indianapolis!

Now assume something even more optimistic, let’s say we’re able to grow 50% faster, at .75% per year. This is the upper bound of the chart. That means we’ll surpass where Nashville and Indianapolis in 2075 and 2078 respectively.

Conclusion

Its good for us to at least be cognizant of where we are and what we need. I’ve had a few conversations where we as Louisvillian hear growth and concern ourselves with SF housing prices or ATL traffic.

However, if we look at the data and what is realistic, we should opine that growth means Indianapolis / Nashville economic opportunity (and their traffic and housing prices). I think both those cities are more palatable and realistic.

coming soon part 3…

Best of Luck Fellow Pioneers! ←(yes we’re pioneers now!)