The Bluegrass and Beyond

In case you missed them, the Herald-Leader carried two excellent op-ed columns Sunday and Monday from two of Lexington’s most knowledgeable and passionate advocates for smart growth and preservation of what’s special in the Bluegrass.

Here’s the Sunday piece by Knox van Nagell, executive director of The Fayette Alliance.

Here’s the Monday piece by Hayward Wilkirson, who was a founding board member of Preserve Lexington, which last year opposed destruction of a historic block that’s now a downtown meadow.

I’ve always found it ironic that Kentucky was considered more innovative and successful in the early 1800s, when it was on the edge of the American frontier, than during the past century, when it was at the geographic center of a booming nation.

Maybe success isn’t so much about where you are physically as where you are mentally.

The Kentucky Long-Term Policy Research Center’s annual conference in Louisville on Thursday looked at the usual problems that vex this state: health, education and economic development.

But much of the discussion focused on new ways of thinking about and tackling those problems.

Doug Henton, a Versailles-born author and consultant who heads a California company called Collaborative Economics, said Kentucky’s economic future could be much different than its past.

Natural resources, such as rivers and mineral wealth, will be less important in the future. What will be much more important is how human resources are developed.

Globalization of the economy is changing the importance of place and the strategies that states must use to create economic success.

Economic development strategies that focus on tax breaks, cheap labor and low-cost energy will no longer work. That’s because industries that depend on those things have either moved work offshore or eventually will.

What will be important is “quality of life” — creating a place where the best and brightest people want to live and the most innovative companies want to set up shop.

That makes a clean environment important, as well as smart land use and growth strategies, good urban planning and good transportation systems.

The most successful businesses now tend to be small- and medium-size companies that embrace change and are good at networking. Because collaboration is important, companies tend to cluster in areas where ideas can feed off one another.

Local and state governments are often either too little or too big to effectively address issues that will be important in the future, such as growth strategies and transportation, Henton said.

Breaking down old political barriers and promoting regional collaboration will become essential.

Northern Kentucky has had some success with regional cooperation, as has the Louisville area since metro consolidation. Central Kentucky? Not so much.

From his work around the country, Henton said, he has observed that the most successful regional initiatives are bottom-up and collaborative. They are ones in which leaders from government, business, universities, non-profits and citizen groups work together across traditional political boundaries.

“Focus on people and relationships, and not organizations and structures,” Henton said. “It’s about group creativity and regional stewardship, and the regions around the country where this happens seem to have more vibrant economies.”

The basic foundation for any region’s success in the future will be a well-educated population that is able to seize economic opportunities.

“We need well-rounded people who are creative as well as having the basic skills,” he said.

Kentuckians must become more comfortable with change, and more innovative in how they deal with it. One good example is in the way Kentuckians approach energy and the environment.

Peter Meyer, an environmental expert and University of Louisville professor, said climate change is real, and further worldwide restrictions on the burning of coal are inevitable, whether we like it or not.

But while Kentucky faces many challenges, it also has some opportunities.

Kentucky state government is doing good work in improving energy efficiency, especially with the construction of new public schools. The state’s first “net zero” energy use school building will open in Bowling Green next fall.

But state government could be doing more to promote those projects as examples, he said.

Rather than pledging $300 million in state funds for a coal-liquefaction demonstration project, Kentucky officials should put that money toward conservation efforts.

Home electricity consumption is 24 percent above the national average, which means we have a lot of opportunities to do better.

But it will involve a mental shift from Kentucky’s devotion to coal — and to doing things the way they’ve always been done.

“We need to become risk-takers in this environment,” Meyer said.

Lexington was born and grew up around the Town Branch of South Elkhorn Creek, but over the past century we’ve done our best to pollute it, bury it and forget about it.

Water finds its way, though, even if it sometimes needs help.

Town Branch Trail Inc. has been working for a decade to develop a greenway along the creek west of downtown. The first fruits of those labors will be on display next weekend, when the initial two-mile section of the trail is opened with a benefit concert and bicycle rally.

The Freedom Concert, with music by Cora Lee and the Townies and Fifth on the Floor, is at 8 p.m. Friday at the new Buster’s in the restored Old Tarr Distillery, which backs up to the creek on Manchester Street. Admission is $10, with all proceeds going to the trail project.

The next morning at 8:15, the public is invited to meet at Cheapside for a police-escorted 10-mile bicycle ride out and back on roads to the completed trail section off Leestown Road and Alexandria Drive. There will be a hospitality tent at Lewis Manor, a circa 1800 home beside the trail in Marehaven subdivision.

When I walked the trail last week, people were already using it.

Workers had just installed stone-cutter Richard McAlister’s beautiful sandstone benches and furlong posts made of finely crafted “Kentucky marble” limestone. And there were several new signs along the trail explaining Central Kentucky’s landscape, geology and ecology.

Van Meter Pettit, the Lexington architect who put together the trail project, sees it as more than a place to exercise; it’s a way to learn about Lexington’s history and environment. It’s also a way to rehabilitate and protect the watershed and help deal with runoff and pollution problems that have grown with the city.

“There is a compelling story to why we are the way we are that even many natives don’t understand,” he said. For example: Lexington’s downtown is long and narrow because it was built along Town Branch, which now flows beneath Vine Street.

Town Branch runs along the west side of the finished section of trail, just beyond tracks that were part of Kentucky’s first railroad line.

In one section, the trail goes around a giant, centuries-old tree, surrounded by a stand of native cane. When the first pioneers came here 250 years ago, much of the Bluegrass was covered with cane. Now, it’s hard to find.

“This is about as good a snapshot of authentic Kentucky as you can get,” Pettit said.

On the east side of the trail is Central Kentucky’s modern landscape: several new subdivisions.

Efforts to build trails in established neighborhoods often are met with “not in my backyard” opposition. But these subdivisions are new, and many homeowners are building decks and landscaping their yards to take advantage of trail access.

Indeed, subdivision developer Dennis Anderson was key to the Town Branch Trail’s success. That’s because he realized the trail would not only be an amenity for his development, but would help with drainage and be a financially attractive way to use undevelopable land.

“Without him,” Pettit said, “this trail would have been a nice idea that never would have happened.”

With this section of trail finished, Pettit is now turning his attention to another one-mile section that has funding. The remaining five miles is under feasibility study while trail organizers seek money, easements and rights of way.

So far, Town Branch Trail has received about $2 million in grants and other funding and $1 million worth of donated land, Pettit said.

Plans call for the trail to eventually be at least eight miles long, going from this first finished section to downtown. It will end along Manchester Street near Rupp Arena, where developers of the Distillery District plan to rehabilitate the stream and incorporate the trail into their multi-use project.

Eventually, Pettit would like Town Branch Trail to connect with the nine-mile Legacy Trail being built from downtown to the Kentucky Horse Park, as well as other walking and bike paths.

Even further in the future, there is talk of developing a trail beside the railroad line from Lexington to Versailles and eventually Frankfort.

So come out and see this first piece of Town Branch Trail. You’ll get some exercise, learn about Lexington and see how creative people are harnessing our rich heritage to literally pave the way to a better future.

There’s no zealot like a convert, and when it comes to believing in Kentucky’s potential, there’s none like Pearse Lyons.

The energetic Irishman, who moved to Lexington three decades ago and built his Alltech nutrition supplement company into a global giant, has a few thoughts about how the future could shine brighter on his new Kentucky home.

Lyons shared some of those thoughts Thursday with the Lexington Forum, telling the monthly gathering of business folks that the keys are education, innovation and building on Kentucky’s existing strengths and resources.

Lyons hopes to showcase many of those resources next fall, when his company sponsors the 2010 Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games at the Kentucky Horse Park.

But he’s getting a head start in Britain this month at the Alltech FEI European Jumping and Dressage Championships, Aug. 25-30.

More than 60,000 spectators and 150 competitors from 32 nations are expected to attend the games at Windsor Castle. One thing they’ll find, a short walk from the arena, is a Kentucky oasis.

The Alltech Kentucky Village, a tented area inside a white-plank fence, will give visitors a literal taste of Kentucky: burgoo, hot Browns, Maker’s Mark bourbon, Dippin’ Dots ice cream and, of course, Alltech’s Kentucky Ale and Bourbon Barrel Ale.

Everett McCorvey from the University of Kentucky’s Opera Theatre program will direct a vocal ensemble. There also will be displays promoting Kentucky tourism and products.

Muhammad Ali and Pearse Lyons announced creation of the Alltech Muhammad Ali Center Global Education and Charitable Fund in Lexington in May. Alltech Photo

Lyons is taking Muhammad Ali to Windsor, thanks to the Alltech-Muhammad Ali Center Global Education and Charitable Fund. After that, Lyons and Ali head to Dublin for a fund-raising dinner and a visit to the Irish town one of Ali’s great-grandfathers left for America in the mid-1800s.

Lyons said he gets dizzy sometimes thinking about how an Irish lad of modest means could grow up to earn a Ph.D. and create a company with annual revenues of $500 million and a 35 percent profit margin — much less hobnob with people such as Ali and Queen Elizabeth II.

It all came down to education, entrepreneurship and taking advantage of opportunities. The same formula can work for Kentucky, too, he told the Lexington Forum.

Lyons noted that Kentucky and Ireland have many similarities. They’re both beautiful, mainly rural places with about 4 million people, rich heritage and a history of seeing their smart young people leave for opportunities elsewhere.

Ireland reversed its fortunes by focusing on education and innovation, and Kentucky can do the same.

This time of economic transition is when Kentucky should look for new opportunities and new ways of doing things, Lyons said.

For example, Kentucky should neither ignore its rich coal reserves, nor expect to continue mining and burning coal the old way, given environmental concerns and climate change. Instead, he said, Kentucky should be at the forefront of figuring out how to make coal more valuable “within the new rules and regulations.”

One way to do that is by focusing on carbon-capture research. Lyons thinks one solution could be algae — the fast-growing slime that produces two-thirds of the world’s oxygen by soaking up carbon dioxide.

Another opportunity is aquaculture, because Kentucky has enormous reserves of fresh water, much of it underground.

“Fish is an incredible opportunity for Kentucky,” he said. “Where the poultry industry is today, the fish industry will be tomorrow.”

Algae and aquaculture are two of many things Alltech researchers are working on.

“The possibilities for innovation are enormous,” Lyons said. But innovation requires education.

Lyons said Kentucky universities must develop programs that will retain the state’s own students and attract those from elsewhere. And he challenged Kentucky businesses to invest in education.

He said Alltech donates laboratories to schools and pays graduate students to earn Ph.D.s, do research for the company and stay in Kentucky after graduation.

While looking for new opportunities, Kentucky should continue developing signature industries such as bourbon and horses that already have infrastructure and international reputations. For example, one thing that led Alltech to develop its popular Bourbon Barrel Ale was Kentucky’s ready supply of used bourbon barrels.

Along with more focus on education, Lyons said, Kentucky needs leaders.

“The leader’s job is to bring uncertainty out and certainty in,” he said. “That’s what our state needs. Because in 20 years’ time the whole world is going to change. Which way? I’m not sure. But it’s going to change. And please God it will change, because therein lies our opportunity.”

Organizers of the Legacy Trail, a 9-mile bike and walking path being developed from Lexington’s East End to the Kentucky Horse Park, are seeking your help in choosing a logo.

The public is being asked to vote among three logos. Register and cast your vote at www.mylegacytrail.com. Or you can text your chosen logo’s name (see chart below) to (859) 797-4900.

Those who register will be included in drawings for a $500 gift certificate from Pedal the Planet bike shop, a $250 gift certificate from John’s Run Walk Shop and a $100 gift certificate from J&H Outfitters.

Voting began yesterday evening at Thursday Night Live at Cheapside downtown and will continue through Aug. 13. The winning logo will be announced at Thursday Night Live on Aug. 20.

Cheyenne Olson of Berea recently sent me this photo of a giant sunflower in her garden. She said she has no idea how it got that big, but notes that it falls a bit short of the world record, a 25-foot sunflower grown in Norway in 1986.

If you want to ask Olson about her sunflower, she’ll be at the Third Annual 100-mile Potluck and Auction at Berea Community School on Sunday from 5:30-7:30 p.m. The event is sponsored by Sustainable Berea and the Berea Farmers Market.

Admission to the potluck is free, but bring a dish made with ingredients produced within 100 miles of Berea. Also, bring the recipe for inclusion in a cookbook of recipes from the first three annual potlucks that will be published in October.

The auction includes a variety of items related to local food. And it features seven of the ever-popular rain barrels painted by Berea-area artists. The auction benefits Sustainable Berea, an non-profit environmental organization. An auction booklet is on the group’s Web site.

Tall flowers, giant produce and big fish have long been a photographic staple of local newspapers. So, in that spirit, email me a photo of your outstanding specimen from this summer and I’ll post it on my blog. (No PhotoShop creations or wide-angle lens distortions, please. I can tell.)

It was a puzzle with no easy answer.

Two buildings from the mid-1800s — former servants’ quarters and Lexington’s oldest apartment house — were in such bad shape they had been condemned.

Their demolition would have left another sad gap in the historic neighborhood between downtown and Gratz Park.

Meanwhile, there is a need for affordable housing downtown for low-income people and retirees. Officials estimate that more than 8,700 households in Fayette County spend more than half of their income on rent.

With a lot of work and creative financing — such as tax credits and grants — the puzzle was solved Thursday with the dedication of First Presbyterian Church Apartments on Market Street.

The two buildings were carefully restored into a studio apartment, two one-bedroom units and seven two-bedroom apartments that will rent for between $330 and $550 a month. Tenants must have incomes below $22,700 for singles and $26,000 for families. Even before the first residents have moved in, there’s a waiting list.

Not only are the apartments affordable, they’re beautiful. While adding modern closets, fixtures and appliances, the developers preserved the buildings’ exterior, as well as inside touches such as windows, woodwork, wooden floors and fireplace mantels.

The large project team celebrated the apartments’ completion Thursday with a ceremony next door in First Presbyterian’s chapel.

“This project has been both a joy and an honor,” said Holly Wiedemann, a church member and president of AU Associates, which specializes in converting old buildings into affordable housing.

“It can be done,” Wiedemann said. “Historic buildings can be saved. Affordable housing can be produced, and it is desperately needed.”

Clyde Carpenter, a University of Kentucky architecture professor and member of the church, spoke passionately about both Christian outreach and historic preservation.

“Preservation is as much about the future as the past … it is about environmental sustainability, not wasting, not consuming,” he said.

In addition to giving historic buildings new life, Carpenter said, the apartments will add vitality to the neighborhood.

First Presbyterian, which recently restored its circa 1872 sanctuary, has played an important role in keeping the neighborhood vital. Among other things, the church restored Henry Clay’s law office next door and built a magnificent contemporary chapel in the 1990s that Carpenter helped design.

First Presbyterian Apartments, Carpenter said, represents a new ministry for the church.

AU Associates led the project on the church’s behalf with a big cast of characters. Financing came from Central Bank, the city, the Kentucky Heritage Council and the Kentucky Housing Corp. Design was done by S+A Architecture, with construction by Churchill McGee LLC.

Behind the scenes were many more partners, from lawyers Robert Vice and Mac Deegan to Kentucky American Water Co., which replaced water lines so old that some of them were made of wood.

“This is a model we need to replicate for other projects,” Urban County Council member Diane Lawless said of the public-private partnership. “Not only is it affordable housing, it is quality affordable housing. That makes all the difference.”

Click on each photo to enlarge.

It is a tried-and-true model: an “incubator” building with shared office space that cuts overhead costs and provides a creative community where business entrepreneurs can learn from and be inspired by each other.

Could the same work for social entrepreneurs?

In fact, it works quite well in many cities.

The Kentucky Conference for Community and Justice wants to create such a place in Lexington.

Within five years, the KCCJ hopes to have perhaps 20,000 square feet of shared work and meeting space near downtown for emerging non-profit organizations and entrepreneurs interested in making the world a better place.

The organization has a non-binding letter of intent to put the facility in the Old Pepper warehouse, a cavernous building on Manchester Street that is planned as a focal point of the Lexington Distillery District.

“When people come together, you have the space between where so much can happen,” said KCCJ Chair Shannon Stuart-Smith.

KCCJ has been developing the idea for two years in cooperation with other local groups. But the effort was jump-started late last month when a delegation visited the Centre for Social Innovation in Toronto, Ontario, one of North America’s most successful social incubators.

Located in a renovated industrial building, the Toronto center rents desks, telephones, printers, Internet connections and other modern necessities to social-oriented entrepreneurs, companies and non-profits that have fewer than five workers.

The center also fosters an atmosphere — both physical and psychological — that encourages networking, brainstorming and collaboration. That includes everything from informal conversations between desks to planned events, such as twice-weekly “salad club” meals.

That atmosphere is what KCCJ hopes to replicate in Lexington.

“The tenants didn’t think of themselves as tenants; they thought of themselves as partners in the program,” said jeweler Joe Rosenberg, a KCCJ board member. “What we’re hoping to do is take what they’ve learned and build on it.

“There’s no doubt in my mind that once you put this together, you’ll fill it up,” Rosenberg said.

Debra Hensley, an insurance agent and former Urban County Council member who has been working on the idea for several years, estimates there are 100 fledgling organizations and entrepreneurs around Lexington whose mission involves social and environmental issues. Many work out of their homes, or in isolated offices.

“Within 10 minutes, I thought, this is what I’m looking for,” said Jason Delambre, a young Lexington-based sustainable energy consultant. who went with the group to Toronto.

KCCJ, which started as a chapter of the old National Conference of Christians and Jews, has worked for decades to fight discrimination and promote human equality and inclusiveness. The organization sees creation of a social incubator as perhaps the best way it can contribute to future progress in Kentucky.

The next step involves figuring out how to raise $1 million to $5 million to build the space and develop a business model to sustain it, Hensley said. Similar centers in other cities have a variety of financial models, depending on local circumstances.

“We’re making a tremendous leap with this project,” said longtime member Marilyn Moosnick.

But then, the work of the Kentucky Conference for Community and Justice has always involved making tremendous leaps. Perhaps that’s why it has been able to do so much good.

How’s this for a summer adventure: Dozens of young people are riding bicycles across the country and meeting in Washington. There, they plan to lobby their members of Congress and Interior Secretary Ken Salazar on climate-change and environmental sustainability issues, such as bicycle transportation.

Six of the travelers, ages 16-21, arrived in Lexington from Shelbyville on Monday afternoon. They had started in Pueblo, Colo., a month ago, averaging about 50 miles a day with all of their gear loaded on their bikes.

The trip is called The Trek to Reenergize America, www.trektoreenergize.org, and this group is chronicling its trip on its own Web site, www.fromthesaddle.org.

“We’re excited to be here,” said Remy Franklin, 18, of Taos, N.M., who will be starting Dartmouth College as a freshman in the fall.

Franklin and his five companions were camping Monday night in the Southland neighborhood, in the yard of Tim Buckingham, a staff member of Kentuckians for the Commonwealth and a member of Lexington’s Bike Polo league. Buckingham invited some of his cycling friends over and put on a cookout for the visitors.

The travelers planned to meet up with other groups Saturday in Charleston, W.Va., and together make their way to Washington by July 26.

Franklin said the group planned many of its overnight camping stops, but not all of them. “A number of times, we’ve rolled into towns and just met people,” he said. “We’ve been pretty well taken care of. Everyone has been so friendly when they find out what we’re doing.”

The group found itself in Louisville last weekend during the annual Forecastle Festival, which featured Widespread Panic, The Black Crowes and other musicians interested in environmental activism. The travelers didn’t know about the festival, but a Louisville host called the promoter, who gave them free tickets.

“People are so generous to us,”  said Lucy Richards, 20, of Durango, Colo., who will be a freshman at Stanford University in the fall. “We meet tons of people every day and tell them about what we’re doing. There’s so much interest in the environment and climate change.”

Travelers Lucy Richards and Remy Franklin do a video interview with Shane Tedder, sustainability coordinator at the University of Kentucky. At right is Brad Flowers of Lexington.

Conversion of the Eastern State Hospital property into the new campus of Bluegrass Community and Technical College is perhaps Lexington’s most important urban redevelopment project in decades.

So it is good to see that the people running this project seem to be serious about doing it right.

BCTC President Augusta Julian assembled a strong planning team that has been working for months in consultation with a diverse group of specialists and stakeholders. Now, you can have your say.

Officials will hold a public forum to seek comments on the campus master plan at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday at the North Lexington YMCA at 381 West Loudon Avenue.

“We have made every effort to talk to everyone,” said Stan Harvey, a principal in the design firm Urban Collage. “Even though we’ve come a long way, it’s early enough in the process that it can still be refined.”

A second public hearing will be scheduled in the fall, when the site plan is near completion.

The project was made possible by a brilliant land swap announced last year: Eastern State, one of the nation’s oldest hospitals, will get a new facility on the University of Kentucky’s Coldstream property on Newtown Pike. BCTC will get a new campus on the Eastern State property. UK will get BCTC’s Cooper Drive campus for future expansion.

The new BCTC campus will be a landmark project for several reasons.

For one thing, it is a rare opportunity to build a new college campus for an institution experiencing huge growth and rapid change to meet the needs of Kentucky’s 21st-century economy. Julian sees the possibility that enrollment could double from the current 12,000 students within a decade.

But the planning team wanted to avoid the classic commuter-school design — an island of buildings surrounded by a sea of surface parking. The plan calls for more than 60 percent of parking to be in structures along railroad tracks, with surface lots concentrated near the “back” of the campus along Loudon Avenue.

Morgan McIlwain, of M2D Design Group landscape architects, said a lot of thought was given to how to integrate mass transit into the plan, as well as bicycle and pedestrian access. Officials plan to incorporate into the campus a part of the proposed Legacy Trail — a bike and pedestrian trail that ultimately will link downtown Lexington to the Kentucky Horse Park.

The planning team also realized that the campus will have a huge impact on redevelopment of the surrounding area, which includes the YMCA, Lexmark and Coolivan Park.

The team estimates that 88 acres of surrounding property is now either vacant or “underutilized.” Much of it is old industrial land that Harvey hopes can be rezoned for high-density residential, commercial and other private developments that he expects to grow up around the campus.

A lot of thought has been put into Fourth Street, which will connect the campus to nearby Transylvania University, and Newtown Pike, the extension of which will connect it back to UK and the Cooper Drive campus.

The 48-acre Eastern State site, which has been closed to the public since the hospital began operations there in 1816, was something of a mystery. When Loudon Avenue was extended many years ago, workers discovered 4,500 graves that were reburied there in an area that will be maintained as a cemetery.

The planning team has worked for months with the Kentucky Heritage Council and others to survey the site. Surprisingly, no more graves have been found, Harvey said.

The team is recommending the renovation and reuse of four of the dozen buildings now on the site. Those include the white-columned administration building, the hospital’s most recognizable structure, and an architecturally significant 1906 “laundry” building.

But it turns out that the most historic feature of the property is the front lawn, whose design has essentially been unchanged since 1816. McIlwain said the lawn will be preserved, as well as the relationship of buildings to Fourth Street and Newtown Pike.

Plans call for the campus to eventually have about 14 buildings of three to five stories, with a total investment exceeding $500 million over two decades. A new state law will require construction to adhere to “green” building standards. That could include roof gardens and water-permeable paving.

In addition to Urban Collage and M2D, the project team includes two other top local firms: EOP Architects and Staggs and Fisher engineering. International firms on the team include Perkins + Will, which specializes in campus design, and HDR civil engineers.

The new BCTC campus will change the face of northwest Lexington. Now’s the time to have your say about what that face should look like.

The New York Times Magazine on Sunday profiled Will Allen, the urban gardening guru and local food supersalesman who will speak this fall in Louisville at the annual Idea Festival.

Allen, 60, a former pro basketball player, is the brain behind Growing Power farm, which provides nutritious local food and jobs for inner city residents of Milwaukee, Wisc. Allen’s work has brought him one of the famous $500,000 “genius” awards from the MacArthur Foundation and other honors.

Allen will speak at the Idea Festival on Saturday, Sept. 26, at 8:45 a.m. at the Kentucky Center. Click here for more information. Click here to read the New York Times Magazine profile by Elizabeth Royte.

A tough economic period isn’t the time to hunker down and wait for the storm to pass. It’s a time to seek new ideas and create a more prosperous future.

In fact, history has shown that some of the best innovation occurs in uncertain times like these.

“I think it’s an opportunity to think strategically,” said Kris Kimel, president of the Kentucky Science & Technology Corp. “It kind of gives you cover while everybody else is scurrying around to think about new opportunities and how to take advantage of them. Anytime there’s disruptive change, there are new opportunities.”

Kimel is also the founder of the annual Idea Festival in Louisville, which on Friday is announcing the lineup of speakers and performers for this year’s event, Sept. 23-26.

As usual, the Idea Festival will feature an eclectic assortment of some of the brightest minds on the planet. You can hear what they’ve been thinking, and the massive collision of ideas might give you a few of your own.

The biggest celebrity appearing this year may be chef Anthony Bourdain, the author of Kitchen Confidential and host of The Travel Channel’s No Reservations. On the other end of the food spectrum, Will Allen, founder of the non-profit organization Growing Power, will talk about developing community food systems worldwide.

Musicians performing at the festival include the Ahn Trio, a chamber music group from South Korea; concert pianist and psychiatrist Richard Kogan and 10-year-old cellist and pianist Marc Yu, who will talk about what it’s like to be a child prodigy.

Scientists speaking include Bert Hölldobler of Germany, co-winner of the Pulitzer Prize for a book based on his research about the behavior of ants; noted astronomer Bob Berman; Chris Turney of Australia, who studies the history of climate change; University of Kentucky neurobiologist Diana Snow; and University of Louisville biologist Lee Alan Dugatkin, who studies the evolution of goodness.

As always, there is a large group of speakers from the world of film, including actress Veronica Bero; actress and director Domenica Cameron-Scorsese, daughter of Martin Scorsese; screenwriter Michael Dougan; and documentary filmmakers Arthur Rouse of Lexington and Kembrew McLeod of Iowa.

The Belgium-born sidewalk chalk artist Julian Beever will be creating a special piece during the festival, and Dutch artist Daan Roosegaarde will discuss his work, which explores the dynamic relationship between architecture, people and electronic culture.

The second $100,000 Curry Stone Design Prize will be awarded. Last year’s winner, architect Luyanda Mpahlwa, will speak about his work designing affordable housing in South Africa. Also speaking about architecture will be Kulapat Yantrasast, whose Los Angeles firm is designing the expansion of the Speed Art Museum in Louisville.

Speakers from the media include best-selling humorist A.J. Jacobs; Jurriaan Kamp, editor of Ode, a print and online publication about people’s passions; National Public Radio technology journalist Moira Gunn; and Dana Canedy, a Kentucky-born editor for The New York Times, who will discuss the memoir she wrote for her young son about his father who died fighting in Iraq.

Nat Irvin of the U of L College of Business will speak about his demographic research into African-Americans in business; UK psychology professor Phil Kraemer will discuss the psychology of innovation; and social scientist Michael Johnston, who won U of L’s prestigious Grawemeyer Award for Ideas Improving World Order, will talk about his research into political corruption.

Cambodian human rights activist Somaly Mam will discuss her efforts to fight human sex trafficking, and Hira Ratan Manek, an engineer from India, will talk about his research into the ancient practice of sungazing.

The festival has moved from the Kentucky International Convention Center to the Kentucky Center for Performing Arts and the surrounding area of West Main Street, including the 21C Museum Hotel and the Galt House.

The festival will include a dinner under the stars on the streets of downtown Louisville, activities for kids and IF 2.0, a program that includes a pre-festival workshop and special events.

For the Idea Festival schedule, ticket prices, reservations and more information, go to: www.ideafestival.com.

It seemed almost inevitable.

Chris Canon’s family farmed hundreds of acres of cotton and soybeans in Mississippi. Sandy Canon’s parents raised begonias and fuchsia in California and finally “stopped entering them in fairs so other people could win.”

But the Canons had two sons, white-collar careers and a suburban home. Agriculture didn’t have a place in their busy lives until Chris got some 2×4s and built a raised bed in their backyard.

Then another. And another. And a dozen more.

“Chris kept planting more and more,” Sandy Canon said of her husband. “And I had to freeze it and can it.”

So, for the third summer, the Canons are selling vegetables once a week at the Lexington Farmer’s Market — most grown in their backyard and some in the fraction of an acre they cultivate on a wooded farm in Washington County.

“We make some pocket money, but a side benefit is that we’ve spent more time together than we have since before the children came,” she said. “And we really enjoy the people at the market. It’s a social experience.”

The Canons’ backyard on Duncan Avenue near the Red Mile is the smallest and most urban of the dozen Central Kentucky farms that will be on display Saturday during the self-guided Lexington Farmer’s Market Farm Tour.

Other farms on the tour include Abigail’s Apiary, which will demonstrate how bees work; Bleugrass Chevre, which specializes in goat cheeses; the Chrisman Mill and Lover’s Leap wineries; Henkle’s Herbs and heirloom tomatoes and the Barton Brothers’ sweet corn farm.

This is the 2nd annual tour sponsored by the Lexington Farmers’ Market, which recently moved its Saturday market to Cheapside and this week begins a Wednesday evening market at The Mall at Lexington Green. It also has a Sunday market on Southland Drive and Tuesday and Thursday markets at South Broadway and Maxwell streets.

The Lexington Farmers’ Market has been around since 1975, but its recent popularity coincides with growing public interest in locally grown food. Rona Roberts, a Lexington communications consultant who writes the Savoring Kentucky food blog, cites several reasons.

“Part of it is driven by a longing for flavor and the realization that the very best flavor comes from things closest to you,” Roberts said. “There’s a lot lost in transportation.”

That, along with more focus on health and nutrition, has prompted more people to buy produce from farmers’ markets and other local growers such as Elmwood Stock Farm in Georgetown and Honest Farm in Midway.

Many people are becoming more conscious of the environment. They’re concerned about agricultural chemicals and the petroleum used trucking food cross-country.

In addition, the economy has prompted people to look for ways to save money and make their communities more self-sustaining.

Local organizations such as Seedleaf are promoting urban gardening as a way to get nutritious, economical food to people at risk of hunger. Seedleaf teaches people how to grow food and helps establish community gardens.

On the farm tour last year, more than 50 people stopped by to see the Canons’ backyard garden. It inspired one woman to go home and build two raised beds in her backyard. “She said it changed her life,” Sandy Canon said.

More than anything, though, organizers want to inspire more loyal customers for local farmers. After all, that’s what it will take to grow and sustain a local food economy.

If you go

Lexington Farmers’ Market Farm Tour

Saturday, June 20, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

$10 adults, $5 students, younger than 12 free

More information: www.lexingtonfarmersmarket.com

Seedleaf: www.seedleaf.org

Savoring Kentucky: www.savoringkentucky.com

Marlendale Farm has been in Ellen Clark Marshall’s family for six generations.

What the General Assembly does in the next week or two, she thinks, could determine whether it stays in the family much longer.

Marshall’s parents stopped breeding Thoroughbreds on the 200-acre farm on Newtown Pike nearly 40 years ago. Since then, the insurance agent and her two sisters have leased most of the land to other horse breeders.

But the standardbred breeder who has rented 130 acres for six years isn’t renewing his lease in December. He’s moving his horses to Pennsylvania to take advantage of lucrative incentives funded by slot machines at the state’s racetracks.

As we sat on her patio looking out over lush green pastures, Marshall showed me a long list of other horsemen she said she has approached, without success, about leasing her farm. Many of them also are shipping horses to Pennsylvania and other states with slots-enhanced race purses and breeder incentives.

“I’m frantic trying to find someone to lease this farm,” she said. “How am I going to pay my taxes, my insurance and maintenance? The farm pays for the farm.”

Unless the General Assembly approves legislation backed by Gov. Steve Beshear to allow slot machines at Kentucky race tracks, Marshall fears she will have to sell her land.

That could include the home where Marshall has lived for most of her life. The oldest part of the home is an enclosed log cabin built decades before her ancestor Caleb Tarleton acquired the property in 1826 from John Bradford, publisher of Kentucky’s first newspaper.

As small horse operations leave for other states, Kentucky risks losing its signature industry, Marshall said.

“People are going to go where the money is to sustain their operations,” she said. “Where does that leave me? Where does that leave my 200 acres?”

More than who owns the land, Marshall worries about the land itself. Central Kentucky’s unique landscape is disappearing at such a pace that the World Monuments Fund has identified it as one of the 100 most endangered places on earth.

If horses follow tobacco as a declining industry in Central Kentucky, landowners who aren’t independently wealthy will have little choice but to sell their property for development. As suburbia sprawls, the lush green pastures will disappear.

Some opponents of slots at tracks are skeptical of giving the horse industry a monopoly on expanded gambling. Others worry about gambling’s social costs. Still others fear that expanded gambling will prop up the horse industry in the short run, only to kill it in the long run.

State Sen. President David Williams, R-Burkesville, has said he recognizes the horse industry’s competitive disadvantage but opposes expanded gambling. He recently proposed raising $83 million a year for race purses and breeder incentives through a lottery ticket surcharge and other taxes and fees.

But Beshear would not add Williams’ plan to the agenda for the special legislative session that begins Monday. The governor wants lawmakers to vote on his slots proposal.

Solutions to the horse industry’s economic problems may be debatable. But Carter Duer, the breeder who is ending his lease on Marshall’s farm, said the problem is real.

Most people in the Kentucky horse industry aren’t billionaires who breed and race as a hobby. “It’s the way we make our living,” Duer said.

Duer said he stopped leasing a second Lexington farm two years ago and shipped those horses to Pennsylvania. His last remaining local operation will be the 360-acre Peninsula Farm on Ironworks Pike, which he owns.

“I’d move them all up (to Pennsylvania) if I could, but I have too much invested here,” he said. “There’s no advantage in Kentucky, except Kentucky itself.”

As Marshall and I talked on her patio, Wayne Ball, who does maintenance on her farm, joined us. He ticked off a list of people shipping horses out of state and farms up for sale. “We’re losing our grip on the horse industry,” he said.

“No,” Marshall replied. “We’re throwing it away.”

Urban County Council members voted 11-4 to move forward with a project to put sidewalks along a busy stretch of Tates Creek Road between the University of Kentucky and Lansdowne Shopping Center.

Voting against the project were council members Cheryl Feigel, Julian Beard, Chuck Ellinger and K.C. Crosbie.

The project was opposed by some residents along the busy south Lexington road who objected to having sidewalks put in the public right-of-way in their front yards.

Council member Linda Gorton said it best: “This road isn’t just for people who live on it. It’s for everybody.”

For more details, read Heald-Leader reporter Beverly Fortune’s story here.

Urban County Council members, this is a test.

You and Mayor Jim Newberry have made a great start in the past two years toward making Lexington a more pedestrian- and bicycle-friendly city. The vision you have outlined is ambitious and progressive.

How you vote Thursday night on whether to proceed with the Tates Creek Road sidewalk project will tell the rest of Lexington whether you’re serious.

These long-overdue sidewalks would connect with existing sidewalks on either end of a 1.6-mile stretch of Tates Creek Road, which runs from Dove Run Road to Lakewood Drive.

That busy stretch includes a shopping center, two banks and three large churches. It also is a key connector between southeast Lexington and the University of Kentucky’s Arboretum and campus.

If the sidewalks aren’t built, Lexington would likely have to give up $811,000 federal funds secured to pay most of the project’s $1.1 million cost.

These sidewalks have strong support from many area residents, including the Lansdowne Neighborhood Association.

Several dozen sidewalk supporters rallied at Lansdowne Shopping Center on Wednesday evening and walked along the proposed sidewalks’ path toward town. “We’re very hopeful that tomorrow night this thing will pass the council,” Council member Linda Gordon told the group.

But a group of residents along Tates Creek Road who don’t want sidewalks going through their yards — even though it is public right-of-way acquired when the road was widened several years ago — have hired a good lawyer and raised objections. Two council members, Julian Beard and Cheryl Feigel, have echoed their opposition.

I can understand some of the Tates Creek Road residents’ “not in my front yard” attitude. But these sidewalks have been planned for years. Many of Lexington’s nice residential thoroughfares, such as Richmond Road, have sidewalks that make them better places to live.

People already walk and bike down this busy stretch of Tates Creek Road. They’ve been doing it for years. It’s time they were able to do it safely and comfortably.

Besides, council members, if you reject the Tates Creek Road sidewalk project at this late date because of some special-interest pressure, you will lose public credibility for your vision of making Lexington a more pedestrian- and bicycle-friendly city.

If you’re going to talk the talk, you need to build the walk.

Click here to see a video report on Wednesday evening’s pro-sidewalk demonstration.

At age 25, Ben Sollee has gained a national following with his heartfelt songs, his soulful voice and his unconventional cello technique.

Sollee can do amazing, unexpected things with a cello. He’s doing one this week, and it also involves a bicycle.

“I was looking for something a little bit different in touring,” he said. “I had gotten in this habit of flying to one side of the country and flying back for one gig, then hopping in the car and driving six hours for another gig. The pace was inhuman. I wasn’t really feeling the places I was at anymore.”

Sollee is feeling those places this week.

Oh, is he feeling them.

Last Wednesday, Sollee and two friends began riding bicycles from his Lexington home to the annual Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festval at Manchester, Tenn., where he will perform this weekend.

They rode from Lexington to Frankfort in a steady rain, and Sollee gave a concert when they arrived. The next morning, they officially began the 330-mile Pedaling Against Poverty Tour.

Each day since then, the trio has ridden about 50 miles a day, stopping to play concerts in Danville, Berea, Somerset and Cookeville, Tenn. Another show is planned near McMinnville, Tenn., on Wednesday. Then they ride to Bonnaroo.

In addition to making a statement about environmentally friendly music touring, Sollee said the trip is intended to promote the anti-poverty charity Oxfam America and Xtracycle, the California company that made the bikes he and Marty Benson are riding.

The stretch bicycles have 24 gears, disc brakes and a cargo platform in back. Sollee has his cello case strapped to one side. His gear is strapped to the other side for balance.

Benson is videotaping each day’s progress and posting it on Xtracycle’s Web site.  Benson’s sister, Katie, is with them on a regular road bike.

“Considering I hadn’t really ridden much before this tour, it’s going great,” Sollee said Monday. As he talked on his cell phone, Sollee pedaled Ky. 90 through Wayne County. His voice was occasionally drowned out by the swoosh of a passing truck.

“We had a really hard day going from Berea to Somerset … hauling about 60 pounds of gear up all those big hills,” Sollee said. “Heading into Somerset I didn’t think I was going to make it. We pulled in eight minutes before show time.”

There have been a few minor breakdowns and a couple of wrecks without injuries. Sollee ran off the road near Harrodsburg while trying to ring a bell on the back of Benson’s Xtracycle. It’s a game: Whoever rings the other’s bell the most pays for dinner at the end of the trip.

“Marty rang my bell today and wrecked his bike,” Sollee said. “It was sweet revenge.”

Sollee said he has learned several things on the ride, such as how roads are graded, how diet influences stamina and the importance of pacing yourself. And he has learned it is hard to draw a crowd at small-town concert venues.

Usually, Sollee is good at drawing crowds. National Public Radio named him one of the top 10 “unknown artists of the year” in 2007. He became a lot better known last year with two CDs, If You’re Gonna Lead My Country and Learning to Bend.

He performed on ABC-TV’s Jimmy Kimmel Live! in March and was among those who played at Pete Seeger’s 90th birthday concert last month in New York’s Madison Square Garden.

Sollee was the featured performer at February’s “I Love Mountains” rally in Frankfort. His next project is a CD with Daniel Martin Moore to raise awareness about mountaintop removal coal mining.

It is an impressive resume for a native Lexingtonian who not that long ago was studying at Yates Elementary, Winburn Middle, Lafayette High and the University of Louisville school of music.

When I called again Tuesday afternoon, Sollee had 45 miles under his belt for the day and was eight miles from Cookeville.

“We’re within spitting distance,” he said. “We made really good time today.”
With Bonnaroo only two days and about 75 miles away, Sollee seemed to have gotten a second wind.

It’s hard to know if Sollees’ Bonnaroo performances will be as high-energy as usual. Life on the road is hard on a musician, especially when he has to pedal his cello up all of those big hills.

Check out Marty Benson’s daily videos from the trip:

I first visited Vancouver to cover the opening of Expo ‘86. When I next returned in 2002, I noticed that a lot had changed in western Canada’s largest city.

I didn’t realize how much had changed until last Saturday. That’s when I attended a seminar at the University of Kentucky, Planning for Livability and Sustainability: Lessons of the Vancouver Achievement for Lexington and the Bluegrass.

It looked at how Vancouver’s focus on people-friendly development has improved the quality of life. In fact, the research arm of Britain’s Economist magazine calls Vancouver the world’s most livable city.

The seminar was organized by UK professors Ernest Yanarella and Richard Levine. Like the annual Commerce Lexington trip, it was an opportunity to look at other cities’ experiences.

Of course, it’s not that Lexington doesn’t already have a lot going for it. It could teach other cities a thing or two. But Vancouver is a good example of a city that never seems to be content with good enough.

Vancouver is twice the size of Lexington, with a metropolitan area population seven times larger. But the cities have some similarities, such as being surrounded by uniquely beautiful landscapes that are both valuable assets and barriers to growth that increase the cost of living.

The seminar’s main presenter was Ian Smith, Vancouver’s former senior planner and now project director for a large mixed-use development that will begin life as the 2010 Winter Olympic Village.

Smith said Vancouver’s approach to city planning and development has changed dramatically in the past two decades. The process began with Expo ‘86. When the world’s fair was over, its 165-acre site became the first of several old waterfront industrial areas to be redeveloped into mixed-use urban neighborhoods.

It isn’t just the look of Vancouver that has changed, Smith said. It is the development dynamic. Vancouver has become more aggressive about working with developers to make sure projects are as good for the city as they are for the developers.

“We needed to create a different model between the city and private developers that was win-win,” Smith said. “Local government needs to take a leadership role. It can’t be left to chance.”

Smith’s description of Vancouver’s development process reminded me of a similar system in downtown Columbus, Ohio, that I wrote about in February. Rather than asking developers to submit detailed plans based on a complex set of rules to a fragmented city bureaucracy, there’s a collaborative process aimed at making developments the best they can be.

That process includes public participation and a professional urban design review board, which in Vancouver’s case has 12 members — six architects, two landscape architects, two engineers, a developer and a city planning commission member.

Vancouver emphasizes good urban design, especially human-scale streetscapes friendly to pedestrians, bicycles and public transportation. Planning for large mixed-use projects doesn’t just consider utilities, roads, stores and schools, but child care, parks, indoor recreation facilities, public art and environmental impact.

Vancouver’s housing prices are among Canada’s highest, largely because of the constraints of being surrounded by water and mountains.

But Vancouver has shown that high-density, mixed-used neighborhoods can be great places to live.

With each new development, Vancouver has pushed for environmental innovation. A showpiece is the 2010 Olympic Village, the first phase of a new urban neighborhood that by 2018 could have 18,000 residents.

Like other cities Lexington has looked to for ideas, Vancouver has plenty of flaws. But its experiences offer some good lessons:

Lexington’s mayor and council must be aggressive about setting standards that encourage exceptional development. That means articulating a clear vision for high-quality downtown growth rather than reacting to disparate projects as developers propose them.

It also means engaging the public in meaningful participation and empowering the city’s professional staff to focus more on innovation and excellence than local politics.

One more thing: Lexingtonians must get comfortable with increasing density in urban neighborhoods. More density is good for the environment and will protect precious farmland. It also can make neighborhoods better. That will require leadership.

It takes a pretty good seminar to keep me inside on a warm, sunny Saturday when I could be out biking. But Planning for Livability and Sustainability: Lessons of the Vancouver Achievement for Lexington and the Bluegrass was fascinating.

The seminar today at the University of Kentucky was organized by UK professors Ernest Yanarella and Richard Levine. It was a followup to a similar seminar at the Kentucky Horse Park in 2007.

About 40 people attended, including Vice Mayor Jim Gray, Urban County Council member Diane Lawless and David Mohney, chairman of the Downtown Development Authority. I wish some others from council, the city planning staff and Commerce Lexington whose name tags I saw on the registration table had been able to come.

Ian Smith, Vancouver’s former senior planner and now project director for the 2010 Olympic Village, gave a terrific presentation about how his city has in just the past two or three decades transformed itself by bringing many segments of the community together around the goals of making Vancouver a model for urban livability and environmental sustainability.

Early next week, I’ll write more about that, as well as about the presentation by Mark Roseland, director of the Centre for Sustainable Community Development at Simon Fraser University near Vancouver. He talked about what that university is doing, and the role universities can play in helping a city and region improve its environment and economy.

But here was an interesting sidebar from today’s session:

Gray, who has been critical of the Downtown Development Authority for supporting the secretive development of the controversial CentrePointe project, said during a discussion that Lexington’s council members and the mayor need more help and leadership from senior planning staff members to make good policy decisions.

“We don’t have the level of competence that our city deserves in these roles,” Gray said. He added that Lexington government needs a change of political culture to allow senior staff members to feel empowered to seek out innovative ideas and help lead policymakers and the public toward good solutions.

That brought a sharp response from Mohney, who in addition to being the DDA chairman is a UK College of Design professor and former dean who has worked for years to involve students in helping Lexington do a better job of urban planning.

“It’s a tough town to make this work,” Mohney said. “It’s going to take time.” (quote corrected from initial post)

Lawless jumped in, complaining that the city’s bureaucracy is too fragmented. “It’s often like a shotgun, with each pellet being powered by a different division,” she said. “We need an urban planner who has that over-arching vision.”

Lawless said the result is a slow decision-making process where each interest group works with a different part of city government, but there’s too little coordination, leadership or vision. To help with that, she is pushing to have 16 recommendations from the lengthy Downtown Master Plan process finally adopted into  law.

Mohney noted that Lexington was at the forefront of American urban planning in 1958 when it created a growth boundary to protect Bluegrass horse farms. “The problem is we did nothing after that to redefine our growth strategy,” he said.

Lawless said this is a good time to do that, noting that the current mayor and council seem to have the political will to address tough, long-neglected growth issues. “The only way it’s going to happen is for us to roll up our sleeves and do something about it,” she said. “Now is the time.”

Soon, it was time for Roseland to begin his presentation. But the discussion continued for a few minutes on Twitter, with Gray, Mohney and Lawless — along with me and local bloggers Eric Patrick Marr and Taylor Shelton — typing away on their BlackBerrys.

Thanks to that social media platform, several hundred people could follow that conversation. It even prompted one of them — Rob Morris, owner of Lowell’s Toyota repair shop downtown and a budding blogger — to leave work and come over to listen to the rest of the seminar.