What Percentage of Louisville, Ky Population Is Baby Boomers

• Growth in Louisville's 25-to-34-yr-old population has remained relatively flat
• Thousands more millennials choose Louisville'southward peers over the city each yr
• Some 14 percent of Louisville'south population is between 25 and 34, compared with 17 percent in Austin

Subsequently college, Louisville native Volition Eckman knew he wanted to launch his marketing career in a city — and not just whatsoever urban center.

Eckman was looking for a dense urban core, mass transit, professional person sports teams and a diversity of people and large companies.

His hometown didn't brand the cutting.

"Information technology feels like a great urban center in the dark," Eckman said.

Different San Francisco (Eckman's choice afterward college) and Denver (the "up-and-coming" city he recently moved to) Louisville hasn't even so made the "bold moves" — a stand up on the surroundings or a local company'due south steep hike in minimum wage — needed to turn millennial heads similar Eckman'south, the 28-year-old told the Courier Journal.

He pointed to a story that dominated Denver's concern headlines final month: VF Corporation's option of Denver for its new headquarters. The apparel company behind The Northward Face and JanSport is moving from Greensboro, Northward Carolina, and bringing with it hundreds of jobs.

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Meanwhile, in Louisville, where Eckman still follows the news, neighbors are grouse about whether to allow Topgolf, the combination bar-and-driving-range, to have up residence where an abandoned wing of the Oxmoor Center mall now stands.

To Eckman, it seems silly.

"Practise I run into that equally a huge way to help develop the economy in Louisville?" Eckman said. "I mean, it could be 1 of many things that helps information technology grow, but I don't see Topgolf as an economic indicator of success."

In the race to concenter immature talent, Louisville is falling behind its peers, according to a Courier Journal analysis of the U.Due south. Census Bureau's annual American Community Survey.

The metropolitan areas of Austin, Nashville and Raleigh — all places Louisville dwarfed in population as recently as 1980 — are adding thousands more 25-to-34-year-olds from out of land than Louisville each year. So are Cincinnati, Columbus, Indianapolis and other regional peers. Louisville's 25-to-34-year-old population flatlined in the 1980s and has never defenseless up.

Nashville added immature people at twice the rate Louisville did final year. The metropolis'southward sleeping accommodation of commerce points to the Music City'due south ability to keep students after graduation. More than half of the region's 26,000 graduates each year choose to stay in Middle Tennessee, said bedroom spokeswoman Emily Boylan.

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At the University of Louisville, the Career Development Center doesn't know how many graduates stay in the city. The center does not track what percentage of students find work in Louisville compared with other markets, Director Bill Fletcher said in an electronic mail.

However, more U of L freshmen are from out of country than ever before, said Fletcher. That complicates city memory.

"Although many of these students will fall in dear with all that Louisville has to offer, some may want to return home," said Fletcher, adding that the shift has led his function to straight more students to job openings in Illinois, Indiana, Ohio and Tennessee.

Compared with a city similar Austin, Louisville's population is erstwhile — and information technology's not getting whatsoever younger. Today, some 14 percent of Louisville'south population is between age 25 and 34. In Austin, it's 17 per centum. On the other end of the age scale, 6.2 percentage of Louisville'southward population is 75 and older, compared with simply 3.vii percent of Austin's.

Despite this, the mayor'due south role says Louisville is doing the right things to attract millennials. That includes promoting affordable neighborhoods, attracting more reckoner coding kick camps and adding light-green infinite and bike lanes, spokeswoman Jean Porter said in an email statement.

"There's work yet to be washed, but these efforts are starting to pay off," Porter said.

Louisville has also cast its aging population equally a virtue. Mayor Greg Fischer's administration talks of riding a "silver seismic sea wave" to brand Louisville a center of geriatric care.

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The business concern of caring for aging baby boomers is an asset when it comes to alluring millennials, Porter said.

"Good jobs are top drivers for people to move to a new city," she said in an electronic mail. "That'south our focus."

The local chamber of commerce, Greater Louisville Inc., says an aging population is also a run a risk.

Louisville is at risk of losing jobs, businesses, investment and the tax acquirement and amusement options that come with, said GLI spokeswoman Alison Brotzge-Elderberry.

GLI is seeking a fountain of youth.

This summer, GLI launched a $1.two-million social media campaign aimed at immature nurses and engineers living in a 500-mile radius. The ads direct viewers to GLI'southward liveinlou.com job lath, which hosts listings for more than 3,100 jobs.

But promoting Louisville's open jobs may not exist enough, said Uric Dufrene, executive vice chancellor for academic diplomacy at Indiana University Southeast and a business professor who tracks the local economy.

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According to Dufrene's assay of job postings in the region, Louisville offers a fraction of the jobs requiring math and information science skills that peers similar Omaha practise. Accept liveinlou.com, where listings for jobs such as tanning consultants, truck drivers and warehouse assistants far outnumber calls for nurses and electrical engineers.

And while the national economic system rebounds from the Great Recession, Louisville's historic strength in manufacturing may be an boundness. Increased automation has fabricated many manufacturing jobs obsolete. Jobs in other sectors are non enough to offset those declines in manufacturing, Dufrene said.

Louisville'southward Midwest-Southern sensibility may besides be stunting the city'south growth, said Brotzge-Elderberry.

"We don't like to brag about ourselves," she said.

The advertising campaign and Louisville's appearance on the popular cooking prove "Top Chef," expected to air in December, may start to alter that, Brotzge-Elder said.

And some say Louisville has already hit an inflection point. The trend may already be reversing.

Read more:Louisville's jobless rate fell in August, but city trails peers

Photographer Aron Norman says he moved dorsum to his native Louisville from New York last yr.

In 1993, Norman came out every bit gay and immediately had his sights set on the big city.

"I wanted to be where all the action was and that definitely wasn't hither," said Norman, who marveled at the willingness of New Yorkers to have risks on young talent. "In New York, by God, if you lot are skilful and are willing to work, it can happen really fast."

In the interim, even so, Louisville has transformed, Norman said. It's go "kind of cool." With its growing acceptance of LGBT culture — as evidenced by a thriving drag scene that Norman says rivals that of Nashville and Indianapolis — and its lower cost of living, Norman was drawn home.

There's just one thing Norman misses.

"Having some sort of streetcar or light runway would actually make it a lot more similar a metropolis," Norman said.

Reach reporter Alfred Miller at amiller@gannett.com or (502) 582-7142. Follow him on Twitter @AlfredFMiller. Support stiff local journalism by subscribing today: courier-journal.com.

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Source: https://www.courier-journal.com/story/money/louisville-city-living/2018/10/12/louisville-not-attracting-millennials-austin-nashville-raliegh/1503251002/

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