Louisville 47th best market (out of 50) for food and drink

Check out my post at LouHI summarizing a study by American City Business Journals that shows Louisville as 30th best in fun, with apparently the "Food and drink" category weighing us down.

I was thinking "Whaaaaaaaat????"

What can be done about this? Or is ACBJ on crack?

Does anybody have a link to (or copy of) the original article in ACBJ that they can post? It would be interesting to see what comments they made and what other cities are rated for comparison. From what I've seen in my travels Louisville has less major chains than most cities and certainly a more (and better) local restaurant scene than many cities. Of course maybe Cities are ranked on the penetration of national chains into the restaurant scene in which case we'd expect Louisville to be ranked low. If we get a chance to read the original article maybe we can get more insight.

What??? We have a lot of chains in this city and just about all that are out there...in the midwest...So I dont think the amount of or lack of chains has anything to do with the low rating...

Does anybody have a link to (or copy of) the original article in ACBJ that they can post? It would be interesting to see what comments they made and what other cities are rated for comparison. From what I've seen in my travels Louisville has less major chains than most cities and certainly a more (and better) local restaurant scene than many cities. Of course maybe Cities are ranked on the penetration of national chains into the restaurant scene in which case we'd expect Louisville to be ranked low. If we get a chance to read the original article maybe we can get more insight.

I have links in the discussion board post I linked to, but here's a link to the ACBJ article.

Here is a link to the ranking graph that shows how Louisville did. From here you can also access the other parts of the story. I've cut and pasted the story on the Methodology, and I just can't figure out from this info HOW we ranked so badly on food and drink, unless it's that we didn't rank well on the ratio, or that many more places have opened since the 2005 Census report, or that we have a propensity of places that have less than 5 paid employees. Read on below:

http://www.bizjournals.com/specials/pages/139.html

America's Fun Cities: Methodology
bizjournals - December 3, 2007by G. Scott Thomas

Bizjournals set out to identify fun places across America. Here are the details:

Goal:

The study's objective was to find metropolitan areas that offer a wide range of opportunities for fun. Top scores were given to markets that are well-represented in 14 selected fields of entertainment and recreation.

Markets:

The study covered the nation's 50 largest metropolitan areas, based on 2005 population figures from the U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey. The markets ranged from New York City, with 18.35 million residents, to Rochester, N.Y., with 996,000.

Source:

All raw statistics were collected by the Census Bureau as part of its 2005 Metro Business Patterns report, which was released in June 2007. All rates and rankings were calculated by Bizjournals.

Factors:

Bizjournals used a seven-part formula to calculate the opportunities for fun in each market. The score for an individual category was based on federal data for one to three business groups. The number of groups encompassed by each category is indicated in parentheses below, followed by the Census Bureau's official names for those fields. Statistics for each group were analyzed in two ways: (a) the total number of businesses with at least five paid employees, and (b) the ratio of such businesses per 100,000 residents. These are the seven categories:

1. Shopping (1) -- Retail trade establishments

2. Food and drink (2) -- Full-service restaurants; drinking places

3. Culture (2) -- Performing arts companies; museums and historical sites

4. Popular entertainment (3) -- Motion picture and video exhibition establishments; spectator sports establishments; amusement parks and arcades

5. Gambling (1) -- Gambling industries

6. High-impact sports (2) -- Skiing facilities; fitness and recreational sports centers

7. Low-impact sports (3) -- Golf courses and country clubs; marinas; bowling centers

Availability:

Category ranks for all 50 markets are provided in chart form with this report. Space limitations prevented the publication of other statistics.

Scoring:

Each market was compared against the study group's average scores in all seven categories. Above-average performances received positive scores, while below-average results received negative scores. Category scores were combined to determine each market's overall rank. Final scores ranged from 12.26 points for New York City to minus-7.73 points for Memphis.

You know I am thinking...screw them....we have a wonderful diamond here in the 'Ville.....we don't need others to tell us if we're good or not.

Do we have any forum members who work for the census bureau? I'm not sure how big the Louisville " market" is but maybe it includes Oldham, Bullitt and some of the other surrounding counties? Those areas do have a much lower number of restaurants and maybe they draw down the numbers as we think they should be.

I'm going to do some searching and see if I can see was included in Louisville as far as the census bureau is concerned.

Even though we like Louisville as it is good numbers in a poll like this encourages businesses to move here!

Do we have any forum members who work for the census bureau? I'm not sure how big the Louisville " market" is but maybe it includes Oldham, Bullitt and some of the other surrounding counties? Those areas do have a much lower number of restaurants and maybe they draw down the numbers as we think they should be.

I'm going to do some searching and see if I can see was included in Louisville as far as the census bureau is concerned.

Even though we like Louisville as it is good numbers in a poll like this encourages businesses to move here!

I think you've hit it! Don't know what figure they use - ADI (area of dominant interest, the region served by Louisville television and radio stations) or SMSG (standard metro statistical group(?)) - but both have at least 5 counties on the south side of the river and three on the north. If they'd kept it as just Jefferson County, I think the results would have been very different.