Wednesday, December 31, 2008

The End of 2008

The last post of the year as New Years Eve will be spent in Kentucky.

299 posts. 24.8 posts per month. There's a lot there, but I'm not going to do a greatest hits because they are all great (IMHO of course).

There were some odd moments, like my attempt to do a series on Sacramento as an experiment with "remote blogging" (conclusion: you have to be there to really do urbanist blogging on a place).

This was a year when people were obessed with politics. About as close as I came to serious political blogging was when I did that stuff on Mike Turner as a favor for Esrati (since he was one of the few here doing urban affairs blogging). True to form that stuff was got me the most links elsewhere on the net and the most comments. Hmph.

It's laughable to see how popular Turner is with the creative class types. The other interesting thing to happen here was the Creative Class initiative, which I didn't really blog on too much as its sort of an insider thing and they have their own internet presence.

Compare and contrast:

Louisville: Re-elects John Yarmuth, ex libertarian/GOPer, and former pot-smoking editor/publisher of the local indy weekly paper.

Dayton: Re-elects Mike Turner: lawyer, homophobe, developer tool and military industrial complex suck-up.

So what city do you guess might be ever-so-slightly more hip, tolerant and creative-classy than the other? That's why I'm skeptical of this concept re Dayton. But I wish them well.

Which brings up this Daytonologys recurring I Luv Louavull theme, where I posit Louisville as an example for Daytonians to follow, the evil opposite of Dayton, the Anti-Dayton. (though I am starting to see Portland, Oregon as the Anti-Dayton).

My last post on this thread at Urban Ohio is that I blog on Dayton pretending it's Louisville. I guess that is sort of psycho, but it means I look at Dayton through the eyes of a Louisvillian (well, OK, I am a native of Chicago).

So perhaps this blog is just a grand, intentional misreading as well as a sort of "lookee here!" thing.

Anyway, off to Louisville for New Years and the next post will be about 2009.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Happy New Year. Thanks for all the great posts.

Unknown said...

man
i need to visit Louisville
Just met someone from there too who is teaching capoeira

a good excuse for a trip

Happy New Year
thanks for linking up

Jefferey said...

^
You should visit. Louisville is pretty cool.

& a Happy New Year, too.

Greg Hunter said...

Thanks for the blogging. Nice compare & contrast on Mikey! Creative class my a$$!

Jefferey said...

I think Florida is on to something re that creative class stuff but I think it's tough to quantify mileau and its not as clearcut as some might think.

Louisville seems more creative classy than Dayton but Florida's stats show otherwise. Go figure.

Anonymous said...

As a former Portland resident currently in Dayton, the occasional Louisville-excursion is necessary in keeping my sanity. Louisville has my vote for best Midwestern city, even above Chicago.

Jefferey said...

Im getting more interested in Portland as the more I hear about the place the better it sounds.

So it's really flattering to hear an ex-Portlander say Louisville is actually worth a road trip.