And it seems that any official who reaches across county lines is asking for a bucketful of frustration. There's danger in that. If some counties plan and others don't, the region as a whole loses. Downtown, small towns Lexington, the region's largest city, has strong potential as a regional center, with a solid core of hotels, a convention center and fine historic neighborhoods like Gratz Park and Ashland Park. But downtown's potential as a vibrant urban center, a meeting place for the region, hasn't become the popular cause we see in vast numbers of regions across the United States today.
Major streets are mostly one-way traffic speedways, noticeably hostile to pedestrians.
This is a place to get through, not to. And though there are task forces working on student housing solutions, scarcely anyone mentions what a surge of downtown housing might do to change the whole feel of the place. Some of the Bluegrass' strongest assets are its smaller cities, each with intact town centers, fine architecture and a real sense of place. Just tour as we did and talk with residents of Georgetown, Winchester, Paris, Wilmore, Richmond, Berea or Versailles, and you're struck by the beauty and character of these places. And while nobody wants city streets clogged with big trucks just passing through, building a road to bypass the town and inviting development on it seems so clearly a self-inflicted wound.