Category: Local

Toward a Better Lexington

Rob Morris 1 Comment Local , ,

“It has taken five years on Council to understand what we can and cannot control.”
Lexington-Fayette Urban County Council Member Kevin Stinnett, 7/2/2009

How do we make Lexington a better city?  Really better?  I have some ideas, but first we need to understand some of Lexington’s fatal flaws in order to design something better…

A Broken City
As a relative newcomer to the inner machinery of our city (but a lifelong resident), I have spent a few months trying to figure out how Lexington ‘works’.  As a downtown business owner, my focus has been on how we craft a functioning, vibrant, and livable city: How do we create a better Lexington?  And it has been a maddening exercise.  The more I delve into how decisions are made in Lexington – the more I understand what is actually going on – the more perplexed I become.  I am forced to conclude that our city is deeply, systemically, and utterly broken.

Lexington is an uncoordinated tangle of overlapping agencies, boards, task forces, committees, departments, rules, and processes.  Within this messy system, each organization is charged with its own distinctive – but often overlapping or conflicting – mission, mandate, authority, ability, accountability, and expertise.  Some of the organizations consist of long-term government administrators, some of elected officials, some of volunteers, others are quasi-governmental public/private agencies, and still others are fusions of all of these.

This highly fragmented machinery yields a city which fosters turf battles, redundant effort, convoluted processes, secrecy, uncertainty, and, as we have seen most recently, corruption.

The ultimate result is a profoundly inefficient city with an effectively paralyzed government.

Scandalous
Lately, our local news has been rife with scandals and poorly-conceived,
-designed, and -executed projects:

  • Out of control spending sprees at the Airport, the Library, the Kentucky League of Cities, and the Kentucky Association of Counties.
  • The scar of CentrePointe’s failure with its phantom financier, phantom tower, phantom business model, and phantom jobs.
  • The seemingly hasty and disorganized pending closure of South Limestone.

All of these scandals fit a disturbingly regular pattern: Inadequate oversight which leads to lax controls which permits gross mismanagement and/or outright waste of taxpayer dollars.

Behind this pattern of scandal and appalling inefficiency lies Lexington’s deeply flawed governing apparatus.  And when we observe that apparatus in action, we can begin to understand the root of the scandals.

Laurel and Hardy
Many Urban County Council meetings bear an astounding and troubling resemblance to a Laurel and Hardy “Who’s on First?” sketch.  A prime example of this was last Thursday’s Economic
Development Task Force meeting (See Ace Weekly’s wonderful reality-show spoof here for further examples).  A central question of last week’s meeting was “Who is (really) responsible for economic development in Lexington?”

At the outset, one councilmember stated, “It has taken five years on Council to understand what we can and cannot control.”  Re-read that statement, because it is a profound indictment of our city’s overcomplicated decisionmaking infrastructure.  Five years.  It takes five years for a councilmember to “get it” when they are steeped in it day-to-day?  How long will it take for an ordinary citizen?

And by the way, despite the councilmember’s assertion, I don’t think the Council yet understands what they can and cannot control, as the ensuing conversation demonstrated.

The Task Force (Consisting of Urban County Council members) debated the Council’s role in economic development relative to Commerce Lexington (“CLex”, Lexington’s semi-private chamber of commerce) and the Downtown Development Authority (“DDA”, a corporation commissioned by the city and charged with helping redevelop downtown).  Both CLex and DDA have a board of directors and a staff of professionals.

What emerged from the discussion (chronicled best by Debbie Hildreth on her new blog about acclimating back to Lexington) is that the councilmembers have little clarity and little agreement on the respective roles, responsibilities, plans, and accountability of the Council, CLex, DDA, and the CLex and DDA boards.  Reading through Debbie’s transcript, the councilmembers’ statements are filled with stale bromides, helpless complaints, quick answers and utter confusion.  It all becomes tragically comic when you see how our elected officials are not even remotely on the same page.

And it is no wonder that our Council is befuddled.  The situation is actually far more complicated than just the Council, CLex, and DDA.  Within the Council itself, there are a bewildering array of committees and task forces, all of which could lay legitimate claim to economic development.  There is, of course, the Economic Development Task Force.  But there is also the Infill and Redevelopment Task Force.  There is the Planning Committee.  But there is also the Budget and Finance Committee.  And the Outside Agency Oversight Committee.  And the Corridors Committee.  (But wait, there’s more!)  There are staff professionals within Lexington’s Division of Planning.  There are volunteers who serve on the Planning Commission.  And with CentrePointe, there is the Courthouse Area Design Review Board, which issues the building permits for the site.

Within this ridiculous balkanization of our government, who has the jurisdiction, the responsibility, and the accountability for building a better Lexington?  Everyone and no one at once.  And therein lies the problem.

All of these organizations can claim they spearhead Lexington’s development into a better city.  All of them “own” a piece.  But ultimately, none appear truly accountable for actual on-the-ground progress.

The Lyric
With a noble project like the restoration of the Lyric Theater, who is in charge?  Who takes the lead on coordinating and executing the Lyric’s redevelopment?

The Lyric could plausibly fall under the auspices of the DDA.  Or CLex.  Or the Infill and Redevelopment Task Force.  Or the Economic Development Task Force.  Or the Planning Commission.  Or, even, the Corridors Committee.  Ultimately, though, responsibility fell to another shard in the splintered machine: the Lyric Theater Task Force (who, by the way, appeared to do a great job).

And while the Lyric task force optimized the project for the theater’s redevelopment, it isn’t at all clear where this project falls within the wide array of potential development opportunities in our city.  It isn’t clear how the Lyric was connected to our other urban initiatives.  In a fiscally-strapped economic environment, was the Lyric the best possible allocation of public funds?  We can’t really tell, because we haven’t really prioritized such development projects by return on our public investment.

Destination 2040: Destined to Fail
Some councilmembers have pointed to the Destination 2040 report as a roadmap for Lexington to follow in its development endeavors.  Destination 2040 is an admirable vision of the future constructed by our citizens.  It is filled with interesting ideas and initiatives to help improve our city.  But it is most certainly not a roadmap.

Destination 2040 lacks clear prioritization of the initiatives it proposes.  It fails to identify adequate operational details of how to fund, structure, and execute the components of the Destination 2040 vision.  And, most of all, it fails to address the profound structural inefficiencies within Lexington which have long hampered such well-intentioned visions.

::

Toward a Better Lexington

What kinds of structural changes are needed in Lexington?  I have a few ideas.  I hope that you will add more. 

Transparency
When I began to look at how our city works, I quickly joined the chorus of advocates for greater transparency in how decisions get made in Lexington and throughout Kentucky.

And that advocacy has begun to pay dividends (whether the results of our actions or not).  As local officials take their first baby steps on Twitter, and as more of our citizens engage in local decisionmaking through attending meetings in person, watching them on public access television (GTV3), or following vibrant discussions on Twitter, one fact has become abundantly clear to me: Transparency is not enough.  Not nearly enough.

While transparency has helped reveal the scandals and issues facing our city, transparency alone won’t really solve them.  Don’t get me wrong – we’re now starting to see into the machine.  It’s just that we’re learning that the machine is completely dysfunctional.

Comprehensive Urban Development
Whatever ‘system’ we have in place today, it isn’t one which promotes sustained urban development.  I use the term urban development purposefully here: It is more than mere city planning; It is more than simply promoting our city; It is more than just economic development.  Urban development looks at our city as a functioning engine of economic and social progress, and strategically deploys our city’s ‘fabric’ – spaces, corridors, amenities, people, businesses, buildings – to maximize sustainable advancement in our economy, in our social lives, in our physical environment, and in our aesthetic surroundings.

In short, it looks at how we intentionally design a better-functioning, vibrant, and livable city.

Simplification
It is clear that the splintered approach to bettering our city is failing.  Our continuous scandals and perpetual lack of progress cement that conclusion, as does the bewildering overlap of dozens of separate well-intentioned but poorly-conceived organizations.

My proposal: Eliminate today’s governmental tangle by collapsing the DDA, Planning Commission, the Division of Planning, and the LFUCG Economic Development Office (for starters) into a single, centralized, and well-staffed organization with the clear mandate, clear authority, and clear accountability for successfully implementing our city’s urban development initiatives.

Focus
Concentrating urban development authority in a single organization will only work if we provide them with crystal-clear priorities on what is important.  With dozens of possible initiatives, visions like the Destination 2040 report lack clear priorities.  In essence, it declares that everything is important.  And in trying to do everything, we’d fail to accomplish anything.

We need to provide such an organization with guiding principles on what’s important (and what isn’t).  Is the organization designed to maximize tax revenue, jobs, infill, downtown density, or something else?

From out of these principles, we should set realistic and quantifiable goals: “3000 new jobs by the end of 2010”; “$30 million in new tax revenues by 2012”; “10% higher residential density in downtown by 2014”; etc.

My initial thoughts are that the core principles and the goals attached to them should be outlined by the Urban County Council.  That said, I’d like to see a way to balance continuity and change: As a city, we probably don’t want long-term initiatives derailed by short-term political changes.  But we also don’t want to ‘lock in’ failing projects merely for the sake of continuity.

From these principles and goals, staff professionals should derive the best 4 or 5 initiatives for achieving the established goals.  Would the Lyric Theater have emerged as one of the 4 or 5 best possible urban development projects?  I don’t know, but I have my doubts.  It doesn’t appear to scale very well on “jobs” or “revenues” dimensions.  But, of course, neither does CentrePointe at present.  Would we risk destroying surrounding businesses to “beautify” South Limestone’s streetscapes?  I don’t know, but I have my doubts.

Accountability
When the Economic Development Task Force met last week, councilmembers bemoaned the $400,000 provided to Commerce Lexington to bring new business to the area.  To date, there’s little proof that this ‘investment’ has paid dividends.  How much business?  How many jobs?  What new tax revenue?  CLex really isn’t accountable to the Council, so there’s no real penalty for not delivering.  Where’d the $400,000 go?  The Council would like to know, too…

When we make the transformation to a simplified and focused urban development authority, we must have accountability for progress on these development initiatives.  Do they adhere to our principles?  Are they meeting our goals?  Are they successful?  If so, who gets rewarded?  If not, who gets fired?

::

Do I expect my proposed system to be adopted?  Not really.  But I would like for our leaders to begin to discuss seriously reforming how our city’s decisionmaking machinery functions.  And the system which emerges must be more transparent, more simplified, more focused, and more accountable. It must help us build a better Lexington.

A modest proposal to end blight

Rob Morris 2 Comments Local , , , ,

Comp Care Lot
Comprehensive Care Parking Lot

Every morning when I walk into work at Lowell’s, I see 8-foot-tall tree-weeds growing through unkempt hedges and spilling over into the public sidewalk.  I see a planter adjoining our building, burgeoning with weeds and grass and the massive stump of a long-dead tree.  I see a pitted, crumbling parking lot with clogged drainage.

Many customers assume it is our lot.  It does adjoin our building.  And they can’t see the sign declaring “Comprehensive Care Center Parking Only”.

IMG_2483
116 Mechanic Street

Across the street I see a tiny old shotgun house with a gigantic half-rotted tree looming ominously over both the house and the main Lowell’s parking lot.  After the ice storm and other storms this spring, downed branches lay in the asphalt front yard of the house.  For over two months.

Absentee owners neglect both properties.  Neighboring businesses have conducted the most of the maintenance on the properties over the past couple of years.  In effect, they are abandoned.

As a business owner, I worry about the effect it has on Lowell’s famously loyal customers.  Even if they cherish us and the service we provide, I’m genuinely concerned about the ability of such eyesores to repel visitors to the shop.

I often talk with nearby business owners, who share my concern for the negative effects of these properties on our neighborhood.

* * *

Many folks have wondered why I have been so vocal on the CentrePointe mess.  There are many reasons, but one of the biggest is that the abandoned properties surrounding Lowell’s have given me firsthand experience the negative effects of blight like the CentrePointe scar.

There are many such highly-visible, blighted, non-productive and apparently abandoned properties in Lexington: CentrePointe in Downtown, Lexington Mall on Richmond Road, and Continental Inn on New Circle at Winchester are some of the most apparent.  But there are numerous smaller examples littering our city.

Just like the properties surrounding our shop, the absentee owners seek to avoid any and all expenses.  They avoid capital gains taxes by refusing to sell their properties.  They avoid maintenance expenses by refusing to invest to make their properties economic contributors to the community.  They avoid property taxes by refusing to improve their decrepit real estate.

Such abandoned properties generate near-zero direct contributions to the economy.  Moreover, they generate negative economic effects for surrounding properties and businesses: They drive away business and drive down property values.

* * *

It is time for such neglect to end.  It is time to make sure that lazy landowners are motivated 1) to improve their holdings and 2) to transform their properties into contributors to our community’s economic engine.

My modest proposal: Implement a ‘blight tax’.  Lexington landownders whose property qualifies as ‘blighted’ would have to pay a moderately severe annual blight tax.

The definition of ‘blighted’ would need to be worked out, but should include an assessment of the property condition, as well as proof of substantial progress on needed improvements.  We could start with Division of Code Enforcement standards.

To overcome their avoidance of maintenance expenses, property taxes, and/or capital gains taxes, I’d propose that the blight tax have some teeth: Say, 35% to 50% of assessed property value per year.

In the CentrePointe case, the blight tax would generate $8 to $12 million per year of revenue to the city until the developers improve their land.  When historical buildings were demolished to make way for CentrePointe, many rationalized that the old buildings were greater eyesores than the pit which remains today.  I disagree.  But a blight tax may also have helped prevent the demolition-by-neglect which occurred on that block over the years.

I would imagine the former Lexington Mall and Continental Inn properties would generate amounts similar to CentrePointe, given their sizes and their locations on busy thoroughfares.

Such tax revenue could be specifically allocated to offsetting the effects of blight: community improvements to sidewalks, bike paths, streetscapes, parks, community centers, business incubators, community ventures, and the like.  If property owners avoid the blight tax by making their properties more valuable (i.e., by improving them), then all the better.

To create a vibrant city, we need to ensure that Lexington doesn’t have the economic scars that blight leaves behind: dead spots which contribute little (or which actually destroy) monetary value in our community.

My proposal is the blight tax.  What’s yours?

Homesick

Rob Morris 3 Comments Local, Personal , ,

An open letter to Lexington’s leaders from the next generation
by Carson Morris

“How do we build a city the next generation will be homesick for?”
– Rebecca Ryan (via Tom Eblen)

Dear Leaders of Lexington,

CarsonSS
  Carson Morris, Superstar

As you return to Lexington from your trip to Madison, Wisconsin, flush with ideas and possibility in the wake of your visit, I wanted to let you know that we stand ready to help make Lexington better.

While 260 of you were experiencing Madison directly, several hundred of us were following your visit in near-real-time, thanks to those few of you who shared the event using Twitter.  And while you were talking with Madison, we were actively talking about you, Madison, Lexington, and our future.  We had a vibrant discussion.

And when I saw Rebecca Ryan’s question, I hoped that you really took it to heart.  Because it means everything when I decide whether to stay in Lexington or not.  And it should inform every decision you make about our city: How do you build a city I will be homesick for?

Making me and my generation homesick won’t really be about “stuff” and status.  I know many of you were talking about tangible things – jobs, industries, neighborhoods, amenities, buildings, bike trails.  But that isn’t really what we value.  Those things don’t really make us want to stay here.  Making UK a top 20 research institution?  That may be great for attracting companies to Lexington, but I don’t see how that keeps me here.

If you want me to be homesick, you’ll have to connect with my heart.  Then, when I leave, Lexington will tug on my heart.  It will call to me.  Lexington will be the one place on earth I want to be.

How do you create a Lexington for my generation?  How do you make us homesick for Lexington?  As you settle back into your regular routines, I wanted to help you set an agenda to implement the lessons of Madison for me and my
generation.  Here are a few of my ideas.  I’m sure my friends will have many more:

Listen to us.  For years, we’ve listened as you tell us what our generation wants and needs.  And then we leave town to go to school or to find a job.  And those other places seem built for us, so we never come back.

Too many times, your tuners are set to “broadcast” instead of “receive”.  As leaders, you are used to being listened to.  We understand that.  But I and my generation need to be heard.  And we need to know that you hear us.

The Madison experience was a great case in point.  For months now, our generation has been urging you to adopt Twitter (and other social media platforms) to talk with us.  In Madison, a few of you suddenly began using Twitter.  While we appreciate your new openness, we also wonder why you didn’t grant us the same credibility as those you talked with in Madison.

If you want us to stay, you must listen to us more.

Engage us.  At one point yesterday, Mayor Newberry declared that “I don’t think there has been a time in Lexington’s history where we’ve had the level of civic engagement we have now… Lexington needs your engagement in our community now.”

This is a profound and true statement from our mayor.  We do need your engagement (including you, Mr. Mayor). Now.

We’re already having conversations about the future of our city.  We’re already saying what matters to us.  We’re already talking about leaving.

In order to engage us, don’t wait for us to find you: you need to come to where we are and join our ongoing conversations.  Follow us on Twitter.  Spend time in our schools.  Read and comment on our blogs.  Share your thoughts and what you think about ours.  Debate with us.  Ask us what you can do.  Then do it.  Build on our ideas.  (P.S. We have a LOT of ideas.)

If you want us to stay, you must engage us more.

Value us.  As community leaders, you have so many opportunities to keep us in Lexington.  One of the biggest: demonstrate how much you value our talent and our intellect and our creativity.

When I get to high school, hire me as a summer intern.  Let me work on special and important projects.  Encourage me to engage my friends in the efforts to grow your organizations.

While I’m in college, toss me the keys and give me the opportunity to create something you might never imagine.  Will I stumble?  Absolutely.  Could you lose money?  Possibly.  But – if I’m successful – we both will profit.  And, either way, knowing that you value me will make me incredibly loyal – to you and to our city.

When I graduate and get a job, ask me what kind of places I want to live in.  What I want to do after hours.  What kind of neighborhood I want.  What is important to me.  Then – and this is the vital part – go build it for me.  It will benefit us both.

(P.S. Also do these things for your current generation of citizens and employees.  Then stand back.  Your success will blow you away.  It might keep some of the current generation in Lexington, too.)

If you want us to stay, you must value us more.


Respect us.  Listening.  Engaging.  Valuing.  It is all about showing fundamental human respect for us and our viewpoints.  If you demonstrate that kind of respect in your actions and in your attitudes, several wonderful things will begin to happen.

First, the right kinds of “stuff” – jobs, buildings, neighborhoods, amenities – will begin to emerge to tug on our hearts.  Our community – and our love for our community – will become much more vibrant.

Second, our economy will begin to flourish.  Giving us a platform to express and implement our ideas will help create the idea-rich economy that you learned about in Madison.  Having our voices and views incorporated into the community’s future gives us a stake in making that future happen.

Third, our brand will improve.  As Daddy has mentioned previously, you don’t get to decide our brand.  Blue horses or spotted yaks are irrelevant to whether I choose to love my city and to whether I choose to stay in Lexington.  A better brand emerges from being a better city.  And that starts with respecting your citizens and employees.

If you want to build a better Lexington – the kind of Lexington you are envisioning upon your return from Madison – you must listen to us.  You must engage us.  You must value us.  You must openly and actively demonstrate your respect for us.

Then, you will have built a city that my generation will be homesick for.  That could be your legacy.  We’re already here.  And we want to engage you.  We want to help you succeed.  Join us.

Thanks,
Carson

Carson Tate Morris
2 years, 5 months old
Citizen, Future Voter, and Superstar

I choose both

Rob Morris 5 Comments Ideas, Local , , ,

“The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two
opposing ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to
function. One should, for example, be able to see that things are
hopeless yet be determined to make them otherwise.”
                                                — F. Scott Fitzgerald (via Ace Weekly)

“You must be the change you wish to see in the world.”
                                                — Mohandas K. Gandhi

There is a revolution brewing in Lexington.  Fed up with the intransigence and bureaucracy of ‘old’ Lexington, ‘new’ Lexingtonians are gearing up for an overthrow of the old regime.

As a lifelong rebel and iconoclast, I love it.  As a business owner, I want the more vibrant Lexington (and downtown) that these changes promise.  As a father of a two-year-old, I want my son to have the greatest opportunities to learn, live, play, and work – and want his birthplace to provide those opportunities.  Lexington must change, or it will not grow.  If it does not grow, Lexington will wither and die.

Still, I’m a bit troubled…

More on why in a bit.  First, we need to describe the new and old Lexingtons.  (Or, if you Twitter – and you should – #OldLex and #NewLex.)

OldLex is rooted in our city’s and our region’s traditions.  It wants to build on the heritage of our horse farms, our coal, our bourbon, our tobacco, and our basketball.  It values formality and processes and order and control, and is often obstinate in the face of change.  OldLex tends to respect big international companies, large events, and wealth.  It generally shuns technology.

NewLex is borne of our city’s innovative and intellectual potential.  It yearns to be free of restrictions and limitations imposed by centuries of tradition.  It values innovation and creativity and transparency and freedom, and usually gleefully wallows in the messiness and chaos of change.  NewLex tends to respect speed, intellect, local-ness, and the environment.  It embraces technology.

So there, in admitted caricature, are the two cultures of Lexington.  They currently stand in perplexed opposition to one another.  They blink in bewilderment at the other’s actions (or inactions) and question the other’s motives.

I am a confirmed NewLex kinda guy.  As a reader of this blog, I suspect that you also lean toward the NewLex camp.

But, as I mentioned, I’m troubled by something in the conflict between NewLex and OldLex.  I also hear the same concern echoed in comments on my blog and in NewLex Twitter discussions.  In summary, it is this: The desire for continuity is almost as strong as the desire for change.

While we decry the adoption of outdated icons of horses as the central identity our city, we still love the beautiful horses, the farms, the racetracks, and the uniqueness they bestow upon our city and state.

We wish that some of the $36.5 million that just went to our new basketball coach had gone instead to improve our schools or our university.  But we do love our ‘Cats, our Coach Cal, and our championships.

We cannot fathom why our city’s representatives haven’t adopted more transparent practices and implemented more current technologies, but what, really, have we done to facilitate that?  (Have I already forgotten how mystifying Twitter was just a couple of months ago?)

As much as we advocate overturning the old ways of thinking and the old ways of doing things, we NewLexers sure like a lot of the old things.

And we should like them.  The horses, the basketball, and the bourbon are all significant and important parts of our heritage and our identity.  They are a part of what makes us ‘US’.

And in that heritage lies our one bond with our OldLex foes, and, I believe, our single best opportunity to effect real and necessary change in our city.  As NewLexers, we must challenge ourselves to embrace and leverage our past as a springboard into our future.

Can a vibrant horse industry exist alongside an even-more-vibrant Eds-and-Meds economy?  I think so.

Can we use Lexington’s defunct distilling industry and empty warehouses to build a vibrant arts and cultural (and distilling!) community?  I think so.

OldLex certainly comes with many flaws.  But, if we’re honest with ourselves, NewLex can be just as problematic.  We often come off as brash and abrasive.  I kinda like being brash and abrasive.  The problem is that ‘brash and abrasive’ doesn’t get the hard work of changing our city done; It brings such work to a halt as OldLex digs in their heels.

NewLex often appears impractical.  We are full of plans and ideas, but frequently come up way short on tangible actions and, ultimately, results.  We must learn to transform our ideas and plans into actions on the ground.  We must, in short, be the change we wish to see in the world.

So I make a declaration that may not be popular with all of my NewLex compatriots: I choose both.  I choose the heritage that makes Lexington great.  I choose the creativity and intellect that will drive us into the future.  I choose to act with transparency and speed.  I choose to love the singular beauty of our horse farms.  I choose to reject the parts of (Old AND New) Lexington which hold our city back from becoming truly great.  NewLex?  OldLex?

I choose both.  I choose Lexington.

A better brand for Lexington

Rob Morris 7 Comments Ideas, Local , ,

Lexington’s leaders are busy picking a new brand for our city.

Sorry, gang.  You don’t get to decide.

Lexington_01_sm Last week, the Urban County Council’s Planning Committee considered the city identity possibilities of the blue horse that Pentagram (an international design firm) crafted for the Lexington Convention and Visitors Bureau.  The committee forwarded the discussion on to the full Council.

Unfortunately, the Blue Horse Debate is a waste of time, talent, money, and attention.

Our representatives fail to realize that Lexington’s brand is largely out of their hands.  And it certainly isn’t in Pentagram’s hands.  Whether they choose
to promote a blue horse or a spotted yak is irrelevant to Lexington’s brand.

Telling versus Earning
Marketers (and leaders) suffer from a kind of conceit.  The marketers’ conceit is that they can tell us what their brand means.  They fail to realize that brands are reputations which are earned.

A brand isn’t a
declaration.  It isn’t an intention or a vision.  It isn’t what leaders say it is, no matter how well it is designed and researched.  It isn’t a great ad campaign or a really slick logo or a lyrical tag-line.  It is certainly not a marketing function.

Brands arise from all of our experiences with that product or that city, not from what the leaders of any company or city want them to be (or say they are).

The best brands don’t tell people they’re great.  They earn greatness.

If people believe that Lexington is a boring town, then (unfortunately) that is part of our brand.  If people believe that we are a technology backwater, then that, too, is part of our brand.

This is scary because our brand is pre-set in peoples’ minds, and it takes a lot of hard work to be good enough to dislodge entrenched perceptions.

It is scary because it isn’t about saying we’re better; it is about actually BEING better.  Really better, not just in-our-marketing-plan ‘better’.  Not just approve-a-message/logo/strategy-in-a-meeting ‘better’, either.

We have to earn a reputation for better schools, better businesses, better technologies, better leaders (and not just at LFUCG, either), better conversations, better people, and better visions of the future.  And we can’t buy that reputation from any design or branding firm.

To improve our brand, we have to truly transform Lexington.

Inertia
So why do our representatives persist in their silly pursuit of the blue horse?

Over the years, I’ve frequently witnessed something I call institutional inertia.  Institutional inertia happens when individuals in an organization don’t really feel responsible for (or influential upon) the success of the organization.

In those cases, the easiest thing to do is just stay the course, even if that course is doomed to failure…  When inertia raises its ugly head, it is often, maddeningly, the powerful (those who think they have the most to lose) which become the most hostile to change and most determined to stay the destructive course.  Doing nothing is always easier than doing the right thing, especially when doing the right thing is a lot of hard work.

And paying someone to design an ‘identity’ is an easy-but-doomed course for improving Lexington’s brand.  There is no ‘magic bullet’ for crafting a better brand for our city.

If we want a better brand for Lexington, then make sure our city is an attractive, welcoming place for our visitors.  Ensure that our people are knowledgeable, warm, and friendly.  Create rich, distinctive, and memorable experiences for both our citizens and our visitors.  Foster the growth of vibrant businesses and arts communities that make Lexington a compelling place to work and play.

Then, perhaps, Lexington will earn the better brand we are seeking.

Update: 4/28 Cross-posted to both Ace Weekly and Transform Lexington.

Full disclosure: In a previous job, Rob severed his firm’s relationship with Pentagram.

[where: 200 E Main St, Lexington, KY, 40507]