When Amazon listed the top 20 cities in the running to land its second headquarters and the 50,000 jobs that come with it this week, there were some familiar names.
Indianapolis, Nashville and Columbus, Ohio.
Not on the list: Louisville.
Those other cities are supposed to be Louisville’s peers, according to the Greater Louisville Project, an initiative that offers research and analytics to drive change in the city. But if the Amazon bid is an indicator, the River City still has a ways to go.
“I think we’re right on the cusp of being with those cities,” said Ben Reno-Weber, the initiative’s project director. “We’re not there, but we’re trending in the right direction,”
Louisville spent roughly $170,000 on the bid — $100,000 raised by Greater Louisville Inc., the city’s chamber of commerce, and $70,000 from the city’s budget. That money was used to tout Louisville’s livability and business climate, according to local officials.
Speaking to reporters on Friday, Mary Ellen Wiederwohl, chief of Louisville Forward, the city’s economic development agency, and Kent Oyler, president and CEO of GLI, outlined what they learned from Amazon’s rejection and areas where the city needs to improve.
Here are four reasons Louisville may not have made the cut:
There’s a talent problem
“The real differentiator for all of the 20 and the rest of us is of course, talent,” said Wiederwohl, who is one of Mayor Greg Fischer’s senior officials. “You’ve got to have the workforce, and that’s something we’ve known and are working on as a community.”
Data from the Greater Louisville Project show that 35.7 percent of the region’s population ages 25-64 have bachelor’s degrees.
Since 2010, improving that talent stock has been an aim of civic organizations and movements, such as 55,000 Degrees.
Wiederwohl said specifically that the city doesn’t have a lot of “tech talent” such as people with skilled backgrounds in computer software development that Amazon’s workforce needs.
“We also need to attract more talent to our city and so that initiative, which GLI is leading, is already gaining momentum, we’ve just got to keep growing,” she said.
Reno-Weber said that Louisville has begun making inroads in talent attraction. “The advantage we are starting to capitalize on is we’ve become super cool. Louisvillians are coming back, and people who aren’t from Louisville are coming here. We’re definitely a talent attractor. That wasn’t the case 10 years ago.”
A population on the low end
Speaking of growth, Wiederwohl said there were two types of cities among the 20 finalists. Those that were the largest U.S. cities, such as New York, Atlanta and Los Angeles, which could immediately take advantage of Amazon’s offer, or burgeoning midsized cities.
Census estimates in 2016 said Louisville has a metropolitan area with about 1.2 million people, which was above Amazon’s requirements. But those population numbers are well below so-called peer cities that made the cut.
Nashville’s region has 1.9 million people, for instance. Indianapolis and Columbus have just above 2 million metro area residents. And Census data indicate those cities have also outpaced Louisville in population growth since 2010.
Louisville’s population has gone up about 3.8 percent during that six-year span, compared to 11.6 percent for Nashville; 7.3 percent for Columbus; and 6 percent for Indianapolis.
Amazon did include cities such as Raleigh, North Carolina, which has a metropolitan area population of 1.3 million. But federal statistics show it has experienced 15 percent growth during that same span.
“With the exception of Raleigh, they’re all a little bit bigger than us,” Wiederwohl said.
Pro sports differences
One thing the three Louisville peers had in common, some residents may notice, is that they all have professional sports franchises.
Indianapolis has the NFL’s Colts and NBA’s Pacers. Columbus boasts the NHL’s Blue Jackets and the MLS Columbus Crew Soccer Club. Nashville has the NFL’s Titans and NHL’s Predators.
Oyler pointed out that Louisville is investing in professional soccer, which is an international sport and is popular among younger professionals. He also reminded the community that Louisville hosts the Kentucky Derby, “we just don’t have an NBA team — yet.”
“We are in a competition with other cities, and if we ever doubted it, we saw it with this,” Oyler said.
Flights to the West Coast are lacking
One of the early signs that Louisville had little chance of making the list was the lack of daily direct flights to the West Coast. The Brookings Institution, a nonprofit public policy organization based in Washington, D.C., noted Amazon was looking for cities with “immediate global connectivity” from large international air hubs.
Oyler said Amazon’s representatives never mentioned Louisville’s airport in its feedback with local officials. “But it’s pretty clear we need more direct flights,” he said.
GLI is working with local business leaders on expanding air service by raising a large cash pool that could be used as incentives.
Two years ago, Fischer unveiled a $1.4 billion transportation plan called Move Louisville that emphasized mass transit and biking as alternative ways to get around. But little has happened with that plan since the first round of public meetings.
In Nashville, however, Mayor Megan Barry is pushing city leaders to support a ballot initiative to raise revenue for a $5.2 billion mass transit proposal that is being touted as a monumental leap forward.
Wiederwohl said Amazon’s proposal made several mentions of public transportation and that the top 20 finalists were noted for having multiple ways to get around.
“We have to give folks options, it’s also a great talent attraction,” Wiederwohl said. “Folks want to be able to get to work in different ways and employers want to see that too.”
