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Anyway, what do you think great Lexington will look like in 2060? I'd imagine the green belt will continue to be enforced so most of the growth will occur in the surrounding towns (specifically on the side away from Lexington). Will traffic become like Manhattan rush hour inside New Circle? If towns like Georgetown, Nicholasville, and Richmond see their populations swell past 100,000 will they be able to maintain their small town charm?
Polluted, overcrowded, and expensive, if current trends continue unabated.
The horse farms will continue to decline, tobacco farms will be represented only by a small historic tobacco farm park, most of the beautiful 200+ year old burr oaks will be gone, never to return due to bad mowing practices which eliminated all seedlings, and urban sprawl will continue to absorb much of Fayette County not protected by green zoning, as well as many of the less-protective counties surrounding Fayette County (especially true of Jessamine County). The Bluegrass will look far more generic than it does at present.
Developers will continue to have more power to influence zoning and development than they warrant, and "Old Lexingtonians" and others concerned about historic preservation will continue to resent and fight this, and cite the popularity of the historic sites with the many wealthy Chinese tourists who visit Lexington each year.
Adequate water supply will be a continual problem, with increased water fees imposed on consumers every other year. Proposals to dam the Kentucky River for drinking water and recreation are strongly opposed by those who are the moral descendents of those who fought and defeated the proposed Red River Dam 75 years previously.
The increased cost of living in Lexington will continue to increase the growth of the bedroom communities surrounding it, which will see yet more cookie-cutter developments on their outskirts, along with shopping centers and deterioration of their classic late 19th century Main Streets, though a few - Paris, perhaps Versailles, certainly Frankfort - will manage to preserve both their urban architecture and the associated small businesses. Mass transit, perhaps light rail, between the bedroom communities and Lexington will be increasingly used, as gasoline prices rise annually, though most cars get 65 mph, helping offset high gas prices. Bicycles, particularly the newer models with radios and heated or cooled plastic zip-ons which enclose their riders, are very popular with commuters.
The nearby 25 year old Kentucky River Palisades State Park will be a popular resort park destination, with its rustic cabins, luxurious lodge and popular restaurant. As the closest resort park to Lexington, it will be popular for evening dining and for weekend daytrips to hike its many scenic trails and canoe the river. Wildflower walks, fall foliage weekends, and birdwatching events will be popular with visitors, who rarely have an opportunity to connect with the natural world in the "new Greater Lexington". The well-heeled Chinese tourists really enjoy Palisades Park, too, requiring the hiring of Chinese-speaking park rangers and lodge employees.
Newcomers will know little of Lexington's early history, although "Ashland" still survives and is a local attraction. Spanish will be more widely heard and spoken and will be a desirable second language for those whose first language is English. Hispanic owned and operated businesses of all kinds will be common, and second and third generation Hispanic Kentuckians will be quite assimilated.
Downtown Lexngton will continue to have boom and bust cycles and will continue to lose its few remaining historic structures to proposals for poorly-defined, overblown and fragilely funded but ambitious projects of one kind and another, but little retail will be offered downtown, and the current malls and shopping centers will also fall upon hard times, as online retail becomes the norm.
More consideration will be given to regional planning, but talk will continue to be more prominent than action. A commuter railroad connection with Louisville and towns along the way will be available but whether it's successful is unforeseeable. UK will continue to grow as a research university and the Wildcats will always be with us. Few new dorms will be built, though more new apartments catering to students will be constructed as those built in the early 21st century begin to crumble and deteriorate.
A few very old Lexingtonians will meet with old friends in their homes, and will sigh nostalgically for lost Lexington - a Lexington few remember, and which even the Old Lexingtonians remember only from the stories their parents told them in childhood. But there are pictures of legendary Bluegrass scenes on their walls and Replications of the Bluegrass on their Gizmos, those clever little Gizmos which put words, music, and pictures and even tastes and smells directly into your consciousness.
The Old Lexingtonians cherish their Kentucky antiques - the lovely green, fragile but risque Ale-8 bottles, finely crafted pieces of blue-dappled Bybee Pottery (kept well-protected inside unbreakable cabinets), Kentucky "books", those quaintly illustrated little packages of paper bound in cloth, a few scarce aluminum thoroughbred racing horseshoes, the rare and yet-more-fragile Derby glasses, made of real glass and decorated with colorful enamel, and even a unique, treasured and walnut "Dulcimore", said to be from the lost, lovely, mystical and mythical Berea, that legendary Otherworld of an Appalachian Brig-o-Doon, reputed to have been filled with fair-folk remembered for their ways with music and dance and all manner of unbelievably beautiful handcrafted items, but lost forever when the deadly nerve gas escape of '20 resulted in the entire area being proclaimed a Forbidden Land...
Some say the Berean Fair Folk yet survive, pent up in those hills which surround their legendary stronghold, yet none dare venture into the Forbidden Land.
There are both Replications and recipes in the Old Lexingtonians' Gizmos for something called a "Hot Brown", though no one has ever dared to create, much less actually sample this highly dangerous dish, as its listed ingredients include life-endangering cheese, eggs, bacon, and cream, all ingredients hard to come by in this enlightened age. Thankfully, the Gizmo's "Traditional Kentucky" Replication can produce what it claims is the authentic experience of both the Hot Brown and the legendary Ale-8-One, whose name is believed to have mysterious Masonic and weirdly symbolic roots and whose Winchester birthplace has become a temple of the occult as a result, though a few Old Lexingtonians scoff at this notion, and shock their strait-laced offspring by claiming that their highly respectable ancestors not only ate Hot Browns but also habitually quaffed Ale-8.
Ah, Lexington! Oh, Bluegrass! We remember thee, that lost near-Paradise, as we sat down and wept by the Palisades Park-enclosed waters of the Kentucky....
Last edited by CraigCreek; 08-26-2011 at 11:57 PM..
Location: New Albany, Indiana (Greater Louisville)
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That's what is COULD end up being, but it doesn't have to be that way. I know if I stay in the metro - which is 50/50 at this point - I will chose to live in a walkable, established area and do my small part to save the Bluegrass.
I think more people are waking up to what is really going on, waking up to the incredible destruction those rural subdivisions with cute names are rendering to our most precious resource: prime farmland.
There is a movement in American - among all classes, not just among educated White Liberals - to move towards creating sustainable communities where people are conscious of the effects of their actions on their neighbors and environment.
As all these cookie cutter plastic and particle board "homes" age we will have a chance to tear them down and rebuild Lexington into a sustainable community. That doesn't mean putting everyone in 20 story towers or forcing everyone onto transit. We can build communities that are equally friendly to both drivers and pedestrians.
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