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The Following Message

Aug 7

Posted by Greg in Contributors, Greg, Local Color, Opinions | No Comments

A few weeks ago I started a Twitter account/feed/whatever I’m supposed to call it. Those who know me best will tell you that technology and I aren’t friends. I tend to break it. However, I thought it might be a fun way to stay in touch with friends and encourage more people to come to our impromptu gatherings at my apartment or in various spots downtown. I had no idea what I was about to get myself into.

Since jumping into the Twitterverse, I’ve become something that I didn’t quite expect…involved.

I won’t claim to be as involved as many of the great people in Lexington. However, I have now set foot inside the Government Center for the first time. I’ve tuned into GTV and found it perfectly captivating. I’ve had some Twitter dialogue with my councilperson and I’ve had the chance to meet some of Lexington’s most fascinating and motivated people. And if you’re reading this, you can see the technophobe has even started blogging.

Part of the admittedly self absorbed point of all of this is to say that I’ve found an outlet (or maybe an inlet) to actually get involved in the goings-on of a city that I’m more than a little passionate about. I’m no longer griping over a cup of coffee or shouting at the newspaper on Sunday morning. Instead, I’m actually chatting with and meeting up with people who also care about this city and are using what time we have to devote to making it better.

The other point of this is to say that if just starting a Twitter account has managed to get me more aware and informed about Lexington than I’ve ever been, imagine how many others there are out there! How many other people in Lexington have great ideas but have no idea how to act on them or get them out into the public discourse? How many more people get bogged down in their full time jobs and life in general and feel like they just don’t have time to keep up with what’s going on?

I can easily see how people could get turned off or feel overwhelmed. Lexington has always felt like it has a sort of elite that seems impenetrable. The quantity of information to take in can frequently feel overwhelming and the rancor that accompanies some of the debates is almost enough to make me quit paying attention. However, I’m keeping it up and hoping that anyone else who happens to read this and is passionate about Lex Vegas will also find their outlet/inlet and jump into the discourse, even if it’s limited to 140 characters.

P.S.

I feel like I should do a few quick thanks to those that have helped me get aware/involved: @aceweekly for always getting TONS of information out but never more than I can process.

@dvs, @robmorris2, @bluebelleinbg, @ricetopher, @ trickydoc, @craigcammack, @dianelawless, @profkakie, @neth

And lastly my co-blogger @verticalq for being the guy that gets these posts up on the site. Seriously, I have no clue.

Oh and for those that only know me as @jupiter2012….I’m Greg. Hi!!! Ask me sometime and I’ll explain why my name isn’t on the Twitter page.

One Long Staircase Just Going Up, and One Even Longer Coming Down

Jun 28

Posted by Daniel in Contributors, Daniel, Local Color, Opinions | No Comments

For as long as I can remember, I have gone on the annual Home Builders’ Association of Lexington’s Grand Tour of Homes.  It really is one of the highlights of my year.  I love wondering through houses that I could never in my wildest dreams afford and complaining about how the people that own them decorate like a Kirkland’s threw up all over the interior.  Which brings me to my point: Lexington needs to step it up in the architecture department.

It’s no secret that the CentrePointe project has become one of the most controversial subjects in Lexington.  Let’s leave the “will this thing ever even be built” aside for this post and concentrate on the larger issue: the proposed building is hideous.  It’s like a 1998 SimCity casino.

For some reason, the architecture of Lexington has been stuck in some bizarre, boring time warp.  Yes, I realize that we are not Los Angeles, London, or Hong Kong, but we owe it to our citizens to build modern, aesthetically pleasing buildings.  What we build today will endure, hopefully, for several hundred years; let’s make it a reflection of our city’s future, not its past.

One year ago, several universities (UK, Southern Illinois, and a few others) held a design competition to develop alternatives to the proposed building.  While some of these went too modern to fit into our current skyline, it really highlighted the fact that we could support a more modern design. (Note: I tried to find a link to photos of these alternative designs, but couldn’t locate one.  If anyone has a copy of these or knows where I could find them, please let me know.)

Setting CentrePointe aside for the time being, we also need more modern and affordable housing.  This was one of the things that struck me most about the HBAL Grand Tour of Homes: none of the houses brought anything new to the table. There was very little in any of these houses that couldn’t have been done fifty or sixty years ago. Yes, they may have no-slam kitchen drawers, granite counters, and flat panel TVs, but they are essentially 1950s suburban architecture.  With so much of modern architecture and construction concentrating on sustainable, environmentally neutral, and functional design, why are we not incorporating these principles into the way we live in everyday life?  One reason… price.

The two most obvious examples of sustainable home design in Lexington are the Resonance House on Old Georgetown Street, and the Newpast townhouses on West Main Street.  Both of these projects used modern, sustainable design to create gorgeous houses that could be the norm in Lexington.  However, with a price tag at over $200,000 for an entry price, it’s not hard to see why there aren’t more of these houses popping up around the Bluegrass.

So, what can we do to fix this?

In 2008, the Sundance Channel premiered a six-part documentary series called Architecture School.  It focused on the Tulane University School of Architecture and their URBANbuild initiative.  URBANbuild focused on rebuilding the city of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina using modern, environmentally friendly, and affordable housing.  The goal was to give architecture students experience in design and construction, and provide low-income families with affordable housing.  Students were challenged to design a 1,200 square foot home with three bedrooms that could be purchased by a family earning less than $50,000 per year.  So far, the program has built four houses and is currently planning two more.  Lexington also happens to have a university with a strong architecture program, there is no reason the school, local architecture firms, and local builders couldn’t partner for a similar program.

Lexington is a great city that has done a wonderful job of preserving its past and is starting to drag itself into the twenty-first century.  Since I moved here nine years ago, I have seen many changes to our landscape.  Some of these changes have been much needed improvements and some have caused me to rant so much my friends became afraid of me.  I have great hope that the people of Lexington are starting to rise up and demand better lives by trying to create better jobs, better government, and better homes.  We want to be a world class city.  Let’s literally build a world class city.

A Request for Young Lexington

Jun 21

Posted by Greg in Contributors, Featured, Greg, Local Color, Opinions | No Comments

I should start by saying that I agree with the premise of Mary Beth Sekela’s article in the op-ed section of Sunday’s Herald-Leader about the need to attract young people to Lexington and the paradigm shift that must occur to make that happen. (Thanks to Jim Gray for the tweet that brought the article to my attention). A young and vibrant community of creative people and thinkers could propel Lexington towards the “world-class city” status that it hopes to become.

However, I think the question that begs asking is “Why aren’t we engaging the young people we already have to help take Lexington forward?” As I wondered through Friday night’s Gallery Hop, with no less than 7 friends (all young professionals, I might add), I couldn’t help but wonder where all these people were every other night of the year. The Downtown Arts Center was packed shoulder to shoulder with mostly 20somethings… lines formed to get up Gallerie Soleil’s narrow stairway, and my group discovered the beauty of Christ Church Cathedral. Downtown Lexington’s sidewalks were booming with young, artistically-minded people spending their Friday night not just visiting art galleries, but maybe more importantly in Downtown.

I’m sure most them also stayed Downtown to have dinner (Atomic Café was our pick) and maybe even stuck around after that for a drink or dancing (a table on the sidewalk at Mia’s is prime real estate for people watching and the music that flows from inside has even spurred me to attempt salsa dancing at the corner of Short and Limestone). But why isn’t the city engaging them/us when it comes to generating ideas and trying to develop our Downtown? We’re already here and we have disposable income! We just might not have enough cash to afford a condo Downtown, but more on that in a minute.

With UK, Transy, Georgetown, EKU and Centre all at Lexington’s doorstep, we already have young people. Lots of them. And most of us would love to see the potential of Downtown actualized. Our voices are just rarely heard when decisions are made on what path our city and our Downtown should take. And yes, it is certainly hard to scream over the UK basketball fans and to outspend the “horse money” that is in Lexington, but we’re here and we want the vibrant, diverse, and artistic Lexington that Sekala writes about.

I also agree with her that we need more investing in the arts and creating this “creative class” would be spectacular. However, we also have to keep in mind that “creative class” reaches across all kinds of economic classes. So far, a good chunk of the development of Downtown has priced our city’s young professionals out of the market. Wikipedia says that the average income of a household in Lexington is around $40,000/year and the median income for a family is just over $53,000. How would someone making that kind of money afford a condo in Downtown that can range from $200,000 up to well over half a million? Instead, we are left renting or buying well outside of Downtown, which keeps us out of the Downtown that the city wants to lure us towards.

On a recent trip to Philadelphia, I was delighted by a local chain of restaurants that specialized in really great food with an obvious slant to young people with a modern décor. It was priced no differently than an Applebee’s: Marathon Grill. Their restaurants were placed strategically throughout the city in the young “artsy” areas of town and appeared to be frequented by that crowd. When I look at Lexington’s downtown eateries, there are plenty of places I like. However, they are mostly “special occasion only” establishments that are hard to leave without dropping at least $100. I would venture to guess that something local but more affordable could, certainly, draw more people into spending their entire evenings and weekends Downtown… instead of a couple hours on a Saturday night or a few bucks for a drink in a bar.

Lexington certainly does need to change the way it thinks and do more things to lure young people into the city. However, we also shouldn’t overlook the people that we already have right here that are already making Lexington their hometown. And while most of us may not be looking to leave, we’d love to have a reason to stay.

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