Just thought I'd write and let you know a little about Louisville.
Louisville is a city made up of a bunch of little cities. The original Louisville (now a suburb called "Old Louisville") was not very large, and is now an inner city suburb. Around it were a bunch of mini cities/towns that over time each grew to the point where the boundaries between cities was so blurred that they decided to make one large city called Louisville. Therefore, with the exception of a traditional central business district, Louisville feels like a very geographically dispersed city. It feels much much larger than Auckland, although the population is probably a little lower (population stats vary wildly for Louisville as it depends on which of the surrounding suburbs you include and don't include). The most general consensus is that the population is around 700,000 to 800,000.
However, it has an amazing inters ate/motorway system going both north/south (Interstate 65) and east/west (Interstate 64) plus two massive circular motorways, one circling the inner suburbs (Interstate 264, which as far as I can recall is at least 6-8 lanes in every part that I've driven on it so far), and one circling the outer suburbs (Interstate 265). This makes for a very efficient roading system. They still have heavy traffic in patches when going into the central city just as any city does, but these are very minor when compared to the likes of what Auckland experiences. All these motorways, and Louisville's not really a very big city for US standards.
Adding to the interesting layout of Louisville is the fact that downtown is located right next to the Ohio river, with the state of Indiana across the river. There are a couple of mini-cities just across the bridge from downtown Louisville in Southern Indiana which are, for all intents and purposes, part of the Louisville city, although unofficially. People who work in Louisville often live over the bridge and people who live in Louisville will often go shopping over in the Southern Indiana suburbs. It's really just an extension of Louisville, even though it's a completely different state. For that reason, the greater Louisville area is often referred to as "Kentuckiana".
We feel like we're reasonably enclosed here. We cannot see any mountains or hills, we simply see buildings, houses, trees and lots of big roads. We had been here a few months and went for a drive up into Indiana for an hour or so and suddenly realised, once up the top of a bit of a hill, that we hadn't been to any elevation for months. It's all just flat around Louisville... One of the really nice things about the city though (outside of downtown) is all the trees and greenery. There are lots of great parks and green areas, and all the suburbs are really old and so have lovely trees all through them.
Kentucky is a southern state with all the southern hospitality and friendliness that comes with that and has the largest protestant seminary in the world sitting in its suburbs (plus a couple of smaller ones). All this makes for a very interesting and uniquely friendly city. It's part of the bible belt but you'd really call this a bit of a bible bubble. There is an incredible number of strong and thriving churches around the city most of which having a large influence from the faculty, staff, or students of the baptist seminary. This makes for a very "Christianised" city. A huge number of businesses are overtly "Christian" in their ownership and operation, and everyone you talk to is somehow connected with a church. But it's the general warmth and friendliness of the people that has been the most interesting. I've often thought that New Zealanders were, generally speaking, a friendly group of people, but as a generalisation, these guys over here have us all beat. We're constantly surprised at the courtesy, politeness and friendliness of the average person on the street, even when they're driving on the road!
All in all, it's a really nice place to live. It's not a tourist destination at all, and while there is plenty to do in the city, there is nothing worth travelling a massive distance for. The possible exception to this is the massive new basketball/concert facility that has just been completed downtown. Although Louisville and Kentucky only have college basketball teams (they don't have an NBA team), their new facility rivals any of the famous NBA facilities in the US. College basketball is huge here...
We're really enjoying the city. It's a nice place to live, it doesn't get the consistent snow of the northern states, and it doesn't usually get the consistently sweltering temperatures of the more southern states. That said, it's far colder and hotter than we've ever experienced!! It's a really great place to have a family - somewhere that we're very happy to be for the next couple of years...
