Paducah-McCracken County Consolidation

[Rural King]

Recently news and talk about a consolidation of the City of Paducah and McCracken County started up again, and I found an article by Lane Consulting/Kentucky Business Online about the issue. Its a very interesting read, and I encourage everyone to read it.

Source: Lane Consulants-The Lane Report- Kentucky Business Online:

http://www.kybiz.com/lanereport/issues/apr...llformetro.html

I'm all for Paducah consolidating with the county, as it stands now most of the population of McCracken county is based virtually just outside its city limits in other communities that literally adjoin it or in unincorporated areas just outside Paducah and its adjoining communties. Paducah ifcould to annex all its neighboring communities and populated areas that are not distinguisable from Paducah proper its population numbers would stand much higher than its currently deceiving 29K.

I also agree with a statement in the article that Paducah going from 11th in size to 3rd could greatly aid its pull in Frankfort to a more proportionally appropriate level to its overall importance to Western Kentucky and compared to other cities in the state.

I'm very fond of this idea, as I would love to see Paducah be the state's 3rd largest city and get the attention I personally think its derserves.

[LouisvilleDude]

It would be hilarious to see Paducah become Kentucky's third largest city... just goes to show ya that numbers can be easily misleading Another case in point: Louisville Metro's silly claim to being the country's 16th largest city. All they did was merge the city and county, effectively counting about twice the geographic area than they were the year before. I've got a good idea... let's merge the entire state of Kentucky into one huuuuuge metro area. Then we'll be right up there with New York and LA!

Still, I think the merger would be good for Paducah and McCracken County. They talk about merging the city and county school systems off and on, but of course they never do anything. Meanwhile, they've got an economic time bomb ticking with the USEC plant preparing to shut down in about four years. That's about 1,500 to 2,000 good paying jobs that need to be replaced somehow. Of course, having that many workers readily available is also a valuable asset if you're looking to attract a large project, like an automobile plant, so hopefully something will work out.

[Rural King]

^ Welcome to the forum!

I definately agree that Paducah has a major economic issue looming with USEC closing, but I think I've heard that the shutdown will take years to complete (along with cleanup) so the impact won't all come at once. Paducah, and the all of the Purchase for that matter, needs a major economic shot in the arm in the industrial sector. Paducah is doing good in the service, commercial, and medical sectors, but is struggling to retain and attract manufacturing. There is the new industrial site south of Paducah in Graves County just north of Mayfield that could have been a site for a auto plant, but last I heard they were going to try to lure a host of smaller industries to the site, which seems like the wrong strategy as the region already has facilities and sites all over that could host smaller manufacturing plants.

Paducah is skewed population wise I feel. Is there really a difference between it and Heath, Lone Oak, Reidland, Oakdale etc? Its all one urbanized area with seperate governments basically, all of which is centered and dependent on Paducah. If all those entities were under one city government, Paducah's, then the city would have its appropriate rank and pull in the scheme of things. Paducah is smaller today than it was 50 years ago because of all its indistinguishable burbs draining off its population.

Does anyone know about the annex laws in KY? Is there a reason why Paducah has not been able to annex these communities that pin it in?

On topic though, I think a metro government would be a huge aid in Paducah being competative in luring industry and getting pull in Frankfort. Perhaps merging the schools would be a good first step on the road to getting that full merger accomplished somewhere down the road. Did Lousiville or Lexington merge their schools or any of their services before they went full "Metro"?

[PghUSA]

That is some great news! I know a lot of cities in this region are considering following Indianapolis' and Louisville's examples and consolidating. Buffalo and Cleveland and Pittsburgh have all explored county consolidations. I hope they all go through, good luck to Paducah.

[Rural King]

I really hope it goes through as well. A peer city to Paducah, Jackson (TN), is also looking at consolidation. They both are facing the same sort of obstacles though, with the city being for consolidation and most of the the county being wary or outright against it.