Owensboro, Kentucky, May 2036 – On a sky blue Ohio River morning Mayor Denise Rose walks from her home on Baylor Place to a station platform on Frederica Street where she boards the sleek red and white Owensboro streetcar. The 15-year-old line links the shopping district at Southtown Boulevard to a downtown loop bounded by Third Street, Hathaway, and Ninth Street.
The ride, on dedicated tracks in Frederica’s wide center, is inexpensive and worth every penny. The view from the clean glass windows is a tour of a mid-size southern city founded in the 19th century, and renowned in the 21st century for risk-taking, innovation, collegiality, and hospitality.
The Public Life Foundation of Owensboro is following up on a comprehensive 1991 analysis of Owensboro – Daviess County, Kentucky conducted by Pierce Reports. The Public Life Foundation has hired the same organization – now called The Citistates Group – to perform a similar study titled What’s Done, What’s Next: A Civic Pact.
The Citistates Group is conducting interviews and research to lay out a fresh path to success for Owensboro in the 21st century. Preliminary reports from the research will be posted to this site throughout the summer of 2011. The final report will be available here in late summer.