Growth in Louisville's 25-to-34-year-old population has remained relatively flat

Thousands more millennials choose Louisville's peers over the city each year

Some 14 percent of Louisville's population is between 25 and 34, compared with 17 percent in Austin

After college, Louisville native Will Eckman knew he wanted to launch his marketing career in a city — and not just any city.

Eckman was looking for a dense urban core, mass transit, professional sports teams and a diversity of people and large companies.

His hometown didn’t make the cut.

“It feels like a great city in the dark,” Eckman said.

Unlike San Francisco (Eckman’s choice after college) and Denver (the “up-and-coming” city he recently moved to) Louisville hasn’t yet made the “bold moves” — a stand on the environment or a local company's steep hike in minimum wage — needed to turn millennial heads like Eckman’s, the 28-year-old told the Courier Journal.

He pointed to a story that dominated Denver’s business headlines last month: VF Corporation’s selection of Denver for its new headquarters. The apparel company behind The North Face and JanSport is moving from Greensboro, North Carolina, and bringing with it hundreds of jobs.

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Meanwhile, in Louisville, where Eckman still follows the news, neighbors are bickering about whether to allow Topgolf, the combination bar-and-driving-range, to take up residence where an abandoned wing of the Oxmoor Center mall now stands.

To Eckman, it seems silly.

“Do I see that as a huge way to help develop the economy in Louisville?” Eckman said. “I mean, it could be one of many things that helps it grow, but I don’t see Topgolf as an economic indicator of success.”

In the race to attract young talent, Louisville is falling behind its peers, according to a Courier Journal analysis of the U.S. Census Bureau’s annual American Community Survey.

The metropolitan areas of Austin, Nashville and Raleigh — all places Louisville dwarfed in population as recently as 1980 — are adding thousands more 25-to-34-year-olds from out of state than Louisville each year. So are Cincinnati, Columbus, Indianapolis and other regional peers. Louisville's 25-to-34-year-old population flatlined in the 1980s and has never caught up.

Nashville added young people at twice the rate Louisville did last year. The city's chamber of commerce points to the Music City's ability to keep students after graduation. More than half of the region's 26,000 graduates each year choose to stay in Middle Tennessee, said chamber spokeswoman Emily Boylan.

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At the University of Louisville, the Career Development Center doesn't know how many graduates stay in the city. The center does not track what percentage of students find work in Louisville compared with other markets, Director Bill Fletcher said in an email.

However, more U of L freshmen are from out of state than ever before, said Fletcher. That complicates city retention.

"Although many of these students will fall in love with all that Louisville has to offer, some may want to return home," said Fletcher, adding that the shift has led his office to direct more students to job openings in Illinois, Indiana, Ohio and Tennessee.

Compared with a city like Austin, Louisville's population is old — and it's not getting any younger. Today, some 14 percent of Louisville's population is between age 25 and 34. In Austin, it's 17 percent. On the other end of the age scale, 6.2 percent of Louisville's population is 75 and older, compared with just 3.7 percent of Austin's.

Despite this, the mayor's office says Louisville is doing the right things to attract millennials. That includes promoting affordable neighborhoods, attracting more computer coding boot camps and adding green space and bike lanes, spokeswoman Jean Porter said in an email statement.

"There’s work yet to be done, but these efforts are starting to pay off," Porter said.

Louisville has also cast its aging population as a virtue. Mayor Greg Fischer's administration talks of riding a "silver tsunami" to make Louisville a center of geriatric care.

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The business of caring for aging baby boomers is an asset when it comes to attracting millennials, Porter said.

"Good jobs are top drivers for people to move to a new city," she said in an email. "That’s our focus."

The local chamber of commerce, Greater Louisville Inc., says an aging population is also a risk.

Louisville is at risk of losing jobs, businesses, investment and the tax revenue and entertainment options that come with, said GLI spokeswoman Alison Brotzge-Elder.

GLI is seeking a fountain of youth.

This summer, GLI launched a $1.2-million social media campaign aimed at young nurses and engineers living in a 500-mile radius. The ads direct viewers to GLI’s liveinlou.com job board, which hosts listings for more than 3,100 jobs.

But promoting Louisville's open jobs may not be enough, said Uric Dufrene, executive vice chancellor for academic affairs at Indiana University Southeast and a business professor who tracks the local economy.

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According to Dufrene's analysis of job postings in the region, Louisville offers a fraction of the jobs requiring math and computer science skills that peers like Omaha do. Take liveinlou.com, where listings for jobs such as tanning consultants, truck drivers and warehouse assistants far outnumber calls for nurses and electrical engineers.

And while the national economy rebounds from the Great Recession, Louisville's historic strength in manufacturing may be an albatross. Increased automation has made many manufacturing jobs obsolete. Jobs in other sectors are not enough to offset those declines in manufacturing, Dufrene said.

Louisville’s Midwest-Southern sensibility may also be stunting the city’s growth, said Brotzge-Elder.

“We don’t like to brag about ourselves,” she said.

The ad campaign and Louisville’s appearance on the popular cooking show "Top Chef," expected to air in December, may start to change that, Brotzge-Elder said.

And some say Louisville has already hit an inflection point. The trend may already be reversing.

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Photographer Aron Norman says he moved back to his native Louisville from New York last year.

In 1993, Norman came out as gay and immediately had his sights set on the big city.

“I wanted to be where all the action was and that definitely wasn’t here,” said Norman, who marveled at the willingness of New Yorkers to take risks on young talent. "In New York, by God, if you are good and are willing to work, it can happen really fast.”

In the interim, however, Louisville has transformed, Norman said. It’s become “kind of cool.” With its growing acceptance of LGBT culture — as evidenced by a thriving drag scene that Norman says rivals that of Nashville and Indianapolis — and its lower cost of living, Norman was drawn home.

There’s just one thing Norman misses.

“Having some sort of streetcar or light rail would really make it a lot more like a city,” Norman said.

Reach reporter Alfred Miller at amiller@gannett.com or (502) 582-7142. Follow him on Twitter @AlfredFMiller. Support strong local journalism by subscribing today: courier-journal.com.