Inaccurate statistics are useless
Part 2 - Specifics must be specific
Please read Part 1 here.
When a business makes a decision to expand, the executives will study numerous statistical reports and trends that affect the statistics. If the numbers are inaccurate, thousands to millions of dollars may be invested to no advantage. Various metrics, including population statistics and trends, are key to understanding a city’s business environment.
In Part 1 of this two-part blog post, we saw that the population of Louisville may be reported for the city proper, the entire county, or the Metropolitan statistical area.
Louisville/Jefferson County metro government is Kentucky’s most populous city with an estimated 622,981 people for 2025.
The 2024 estimate for Jefferson County was 771,193, a decline from 2023 when it was 772,114. For 2025, it is estimated at 770,242, a -0.12% loss over ’24.
Do you see a misnomer in the below screenshot?
“The population estimate for the Louisville-Jefferson County, KY-IN Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) in 2025 is approximately 1,136,000. This estimate reflects a 0.89% increase from the population in 2024, which was 1,126,000. The population growth rate has been relatively consistent, with a 0.9% increase from 2023 to 2024 and a 0.81% increase from 2022 to 2023.”
Louisville Metro is not part of its MSA’s upward trend.
Is Louisville a great city to move to?
Forbes magazine ranked Louisville No. 7 as a ‘Best City to Move to in 2024.’ It noted that net migration to the city for 2016-2020 was -3,541; more moved away from Louisville than emigrated here. Why was this true, and why would a declining population be a good reason to move to a city?
Forbes did not rank Louisville as a ‘most Desirable City to Move to in 2024’. However, ‘Desirability’ only made up 15% of the overall score. OK, but why? Omaha was ranked number 1.
How can we determine whether any of the Forbes’ cities, with crime rates noted, were analyzed for their actual Metro area or for their MSA in the crime metric? BIG difference.
Would you move to a Sanctuary City?
A friend who was driving on Poplar Level Road very recently was hit head on by a car with three men who did not speak English. Watch Fastzone.com for a feature article on this incident in February. (Thankfully, the airbag saved her from injury.)
The men wanted to communicate with her through a translation app on their smart phones but she declined. She asked the police if the men were ‘legal.’ The officer said, “We cannot ask if they are legally in this country because we are a Sanctuary City.”
So, how can we find out the actual population of Louisville? And if we cannot, how can any rankings be informative?
Would you move to a city that is investing MILLION$$$ in ‘affordable housing’ and homeless centers based on a declining population? Would that not indicate that the city is not making economic progress?
Would you move to a city that has agreed to a Consent Decree?
For more information on this, please see the Consent Decree series on this Substack blog.
A January 6 story and video in Alpha News, a conservative news site in George Floyd’s Consent Decree city, Minneapolis, features a property manager who has tried very hard to help the city and its businesses, but without success. Perhaps some Louisville property managers can hear their own stories in his.
Maybe you are starting to think you need to move away from Louisville to a ‘Red City’? If instead you dig in your heels, please share this post! Help to raise awareness of challenges, and propose solutions. As the Minneapolis property manager said, “There comes a point of no return.”