Iroquois Area Business Association

Census 2000

News of the area

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Census 2000


News of the area



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South Louisville Area News


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Local Funding
Venture Grants
To help our community meet critical needs, Metro United Way also distributes funds to agencies with programs that address important community issues. These grants will help fund innovative programs and services in Jefferson County.

Total investment in these programs: $157,000

Americana Community Center
To orient and train refugees and immigrants residing in or near the Americana Apartment Complex in civic involvement and leadership.

Just Solutions
To provide training in conflict management and effective meeting facilitation in four neighborhoods.

New Directions Housing Corporation
To support and enhance the capacity of ten neighborhood groups to improve their neighborhoods.

Russell Community Empowerment Program
To revitalize community gardening and beautification efforts and create block watch programs.

South End Coalition
To help organize and conduct meetings in four neighborhoods that will promote block watch programs and lead to the creation of a multi-neighborhood council.




How South End Compare In County Census Reports
East county grabs corner on growth
Louisville lost 12,800; rest of county gained
By Scott Wade, The Courier-Journal On the Internet



A handful of neighborhoods stand out as vivid symbols of how Jefferson County was remolded in the 1990s.
Near the huge Forest Springs subdivision in the northeastern part of the county, people in BMWs and Mercedes-Benz sport-utility vehicles wait in traffic, stopping on their way home to pick up wine at the upscale Euro-Market.
In the 1990s, northeastern Jefferson County grew by 22,000 people, including a phenomenal burst from 2,700 people to 7,500 in the census tract that encompasses Forest Springs.
In western Louisville, the Park DuValle neighborhood lost nearly 3,000 people, or 69 percent of its population. But it also lost the blighted and druginfested Cotter and Lang public-housing complexes and gained national recognition as a revitalized neighborhood.
In fact, 24 of the 32 census tracts in western Louisville and downtown lost population during the decade.
Meanwhile, an area including and surrounding Shively, and stretching southeast across the Watterson Expressway to Southern Parkway, changed personality and hue. Its white population declined by nearly 10,000 people while its black, Hispanic and Asian population rose about 8,000.
The overall result, according to census data released last week, was this:
In the 1990s, the part of Jefferson County outside Louisville grew by more than 41,500 people while the city's population shrank by about 12,800. About half of the city's loss occurred in its western and central neighborhoods.
Where did the people from Louisville go? And where did all the people moving to eastern Jefferson County come from?



''That's a good question,'' said Michael Price, Kentucky's state demographer. ''With the data we have now, there's really no way to tell where the people in west Louisville went or where all the new people in eastern Jefferson County came from.''
Information to help answer that question may be available eventually.
Notable now, however, is ''international immigration,'' or Asians and Hispanics moving in for jobs, he said.
The 2000 census reveals this: The county's white population declined slightly while its minority population soared.
The number of whites declined by 1.4 percent to 536,700, while the black tally increased by 15 percent to 130,900, the Asian population rose 78 percent to 9,990, and the Hispanic population jumped 183 percent to 12,400.
''It says lots of good things about Louisville and Jefferson County that we're changing,'' said Carol Young, director of Kentucky Refugee Ministries.
She called Louisville ''a very attractive place'' but added that immigrants and refugees may not think of it that way before they arrive.
''Once they get here, they truly realize they've come to a great area for starting a new life. Then they tell people that the families here have good lives. The word gets out, and more people come.''
Here's a closer look at how Jefferson County changed, analyzed by areas that the Census Bureau calls ''county divisions'':
NORTHEAST AND SOUTHEAST
To glimpse one of the last remaining open areas in northeastern Jefferson County, get off the Snyder Freeway at the new exit at Old Henry Road, then head toward Oldham County.
That big field on the left won't be open long, if Jefferson Fiscal Court decides this week to allow hundreds of homes, plus restaurants, hotels and a business park, to be built there.
The 1990s were a time of constant battles between developers and neighbors, who were frequently backed by environmentalists fighting congestion, pollution, deforestation and damage to stream ecosystems. But change came nonetheless, and people followed.
Jefferson County school officials broke ground for a new elementary school on Murphy Lane just this month. It will be the first school the county system has built in 25 years that was not a replacement for an old one.
Also, the Worthington and Middletown fire departments continue to add resources to deal with the growth.
In total, northeastern Jefferson County grew by 22,000 people, or 30 percent, to nearly 98,000.
Southeastern Jefferson County, close behind in growth and separated from the northeast by Shelbyville Road, grew by 15,532 people, or 16.3 percent. It has about 110,500 residents.
The only apparent obstacle to faster growth in that rural part of the county is formidable terrain, and, until now, the lack of piped-in water. That's changing as Louisville Water Co. installs lines.
Altogether, eastern Jefferson County has about 208,500 people and is 81 percent as large as Louisville's population of 256,230.
In 1970, according to figures derived from U.S. Census Bureau data, Louisville had 52 percent of Jefferson County's population.
That proportion declined to 44 percent in 1980, 40 percent in 1990 and 37 percent last year.
Another change in northeastern Jefferson County is the increase in Hispanics and Asians, mostly along the Snyder Freeway between Brownsboro and Westport roads and toward the Oldham County line.
Census figures show these increases in eastern Jefferson County:
* Whites -- 16 percent, to 184,100.
* Blacks -- 63 percent, to 15,700.
* Asians -- 115 percent, to 4,000.
* Hispanics -- 177 percent, to 3,900.
WEST, CENTRAL LOUISVILLE
The addition of the Park DuValle mixed-income development north of Algonquin Parkway near Cane Run Road subtracted about 3,000 people from western Louisville. That's because the new houses and apartments are much less dense than the public-housing complexes they replaced. At the same time, revitalization of the Russell neighborhood added 1,169 people.
Overall, however, west and central Louisville lost about 5,800 people, lowering the population of those segments 5.7 percent to 96,423, from 102,217.
During the decade, the white population of that area shrank by 7,200, a 21 percent decline, and the black population receded by about 650, or 1 percent.
The number of Asians, meanwhile, increased 45 percent, to 660, and the Hispanic population rose 66 percent, to 1,150.
Those changes have political implications for African-American representation on the 26member council that will run local government after the merger of Louisville and unincorporated Jefferson County in 2003.
Merger supporters had predicted the council would have six predominantly minority districts. Since the release of the 2000 census data last week, that estimate has been decreased to three.
On Wilson Avenue, between 21st and 22nd streets, boardedup or decaying houses are clear evidence of the blight in a fading neighborhood. The census tract encompassing that street takes in both the Algonquin and California neighborhoods.
In the last decade, the area's population declined by 753, or more than 18 percent, to 3,354 people.
Just south and east of there is the Park Hill neighborhood, where Judy Johnson has lived for 21 years. She said her neighborhood in the Parkway Place public-housing complex just south of Hill Street isn't nearly as dangerous as it used to be.
She said people who used to sell drugs and fire guns near her home have either been chased off by police or fed-up neighbors or have been put in prison.
''I used to be afraid to walk outside even in the daytime,'' she said.
But more than troublemakers have left her neighborhood, where the population declined by about 300 people, or more than 13 percent, in the last decade.
SOUTHWESTERN JEFFERSON
The population of southwestern Jefferson County held steady, but the area's racial makeup shifted.
In the 1990s, the area lost 14,000 white people but gained a total of 11,300 blacks, Hispanics and Asians. The Hispanic population increased by the greatest proportion -- 200 percent, from 1,150 to 3,500.
Most of that change took place in the area between Shively and the Americana Apartments.
In Americana, which is the county's most diverse census tract, Vietnamese began to move out into their own homes, to be replaced by Bosnians and, most recently, Cubans.
Overall, the population of the southwestern part of the county dipped by 0.5 percent, from 192,000 in 1990 to 191,000 last year.
SOUTH-CENTRAL JEFFERSON
South-central Jefferson County grew just over 1 percent, from 103,600 to 105,000.
During that time, the white population shrank by 5,600; the black, Asian and Hispanic total grew by 6,500. As a percentage, Hispanics grew the most, 400 percent; the 540 of 1990 became 2,700 by last year.
Overall, the number of African Americans increased by more than 50 percent in nine of the 23 tracts in central Jefferson County; most of those tracts were near the Bullitt County line, between Smyrna Parkway and Shepherdsville Road.
Just west and north of Okolona, the Hispanic population expanded dramatically: Seventeen of central Jefferson County's census tracts had Hispanic increases of 170 percent to 1,300 percent.
EAST LOUISVILLE
Price, the state demographer, said the fact that eastern Louisville's population shrank should not be a cause for alarm.
The population dropped 2.7 percent, from 95,600 to 93,000, but Price said that's expected in a ''stable, mature neighborhood'' with few places left to build.
Dwellings that were once home to families with children may now be occupied by older couples whose offspring have left, possibly for the suburbs, he said.
In the '90s, the white population of this part of the city declined by 5,500, while the number of black, Asian and Hispanic residents rose about 2,100. The highest percentage gain was among Asians, whose population doubled from 600 to 1,200.

























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