Who are Louisville's peers? Also, is manufacturing back?

We chat about Louisville's peer cities on the Access Louisville podcast this week.

Louisville Business First Reporter Stephen P. Schmidt recently wrapped up a story on the topic. While the list of Louisville's peers definitely varies depending on who's being asked a few things were clear.

First, Cincinnati, Indianapolis or Nashville, Tennessee — who we often like to compare ourselves to — are not really our peers because they are much bigger now than they used to be. Instead Memphis, Tennessee, Birmingham, Alabama and others are closer comparisons to Louisville.

During the show, we also discuss some ideas that Louisville could steal from other cities. Removing I-64 from the Downtown Louisville riverfront is one suggestion we come up with, as other cities have had success opening their riverfronts. Another suggestion we land on is a riverwalk in the vein of San Antonio — something Louisville has looked at in the past, including on a recent Greater Louisville Inc. trip.

In the second half of the show, we talk about Kentucky's resurgent manufacturing economy.

Schmidt recently visited Ford Motor Co.'s Louisville Assembly Plant to cover news of a new electric vehicle manufacturing process that's being launched in support of Ford's upcoming (and yet unnamed) midsize EV truck. We talk about how Ford's launch compares with what Toyota is doing at its plant in Georgetown, Kentucky. During the show, I reference a recent interview I did with the president of Toyota Motor Manufacturing Kentucky, which you can read here, in which we discussed EVs.

Schmidt also visited GE Appliances's Louisville operation to check out a recently unveiled manufacturing line there. And we chat about the news that Corning will begin manufacturing 100% of iPhone and Apple Watch glass at its facility in Harrodsburg, Kentucky.

Does this mean that the manufacturing industry is finally making a comeback? We chat about it on the show.

Access Louisville is a weekly podcast from Louisville Business First. It's available on popular podcast services including Apple Podcasts and Spotify.