Kentucky city doubles in size – overnight

There's no population boom. No sudden influx of immigrants. On Jan. 6, when Louisville leapfrogs over several dozen communities to become the nation's 16th largest city, it will do so the old-fashioned way:

By merger.

Locally, residents hope that combining Jefferson County with Louisville will spur economic growth, bring better services, and streamline local government. Nationally, Louisville's experiment could ignite a wave of city-county consolidations not seen since the early 1970s.

Already, Rochester, N.Y., and Milwaukee, are taking a close look at the idea. And officials from Fresno, Calif.; Grand Rapids, Mich.; Sarasota, Fla.; and others have come to Louisville to see for themselves. Some, like Buffalo, N.Y., are trying step-by-step consolidation of city and county departments.

"The move toward metropolitan governance is alive and well," says Bruce Katz, director of the Center on Urban and Metropolitan Policy at the Brookings Institution in Washington.

For the moment, all eyes rest on Louisville.

To outsiders, the city on the banks of the Ohio River may be synonymous with baseball (Louisville Slugger bats) or horse racing (the Kentucky Derby), boxing (birthplace of Muhammad Ali) or Kentucky Fried Chicken (the franchise's base). But Louisville itself is trying to figure out what kind of city it wants to be.

"We have a laboratory here," says Jerry Abramson, former Louisville mayor and a candidate for the new mayor's post. "We take a blank sheet of paper and design what local government in 2003 is going to look like."

Some things are already clear. Greater Louisville, as it will be called officially, will be bigger: from 256,000 residents (smaller than state rival Lexington, Ky.) to nearly 700,000 (on par with Austin, Texas). Within its own seven-county region, the consolidated city will sport two-thirds of the population and four-fifths of its jobs.

Its economic base will likely develop around its two main strengths: healthcare and logistics (as a main hub for UPS, it operates the world's 10th-largest cargo airport).

Education will also remain a priority. Already, the University of Louisville has bolstered its reputation by tripling the number of endowed chairs and professorships and pushing its faculty to compete for federal research dollars.

In terms of elementary and high school students, a privately-funded Brookings study of the region has refocused debate on school achievement.

What's left unsettled is what the new city will look like in 20 years.

East of downtown, along Hurstbourne Freeway, long, low shopping areas and office complexes run on either side of the four-lane highway. The suburban-looking area is home to a classic problem: traffic jams.

"Come rush hour, no one wants to go down Hurstbourne," says Bill Howard, a lieutenant with the Jeffersontown Fire District. From 4 to 6:15 p.m., the traffic can quadruple driving times.

According to the Brookings study, this kind of growth is thinning out the population and making it less unique – and desirable – for the kind of creative workers the new city will need. From 1982 to 1997, for example, the county's population rose less than 5 percent while the amount of land developed grew almost 60 percent. "If they just become another Atlanta or Nashville, where growth is basically blown out, I think over time they'll be unable to achieve their competitive potential," says Mr. Katz of Brookings.

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