Spend some time in the core of virtually any major metropolitan area from Boston, MA to San Jose, CA and chances are you'll witness a city on the operating table.

Building cranes towering over gutted buildings, clogged traffic arteries, mounds of rubble and a rain of dust is the bittersweet medicine redevelopment prescribes to give life back to aging, neglected inner cities across the nation.

Urban renewal often isn't a pretty picture until the job is done -- at least that's the prognosis.

The exception could be the metro heart surgery underway in bluegrass country. The ongoing housing component of Louisville, KY's redevelopment effort has become a model for urban home building.

Building more than a home a day, the city's housing accomplishments over the past two years include more than 1,000 new housing units, The GlassWorks and Waterfront Park Place retail/housing developments, a city-wide rehabilitation program targeting nine neighborhoods that surround downtown and hundreds of new homes on previously vacant lots, according to Rob Kanzler, the city's director of housing.

The city's housing program was the only housing program found among the programs of 15 cities, with populations of 100,000 or more, named as finalists in the Conference of Mayors' City Livability Awards Program.

The livability program honors mayors and their city governments for developing programs (housing and otherwise) that enhance the quality of life in urban areas. Other finalists' programs include "Project Self-Sufficiency," Fort Collins, CO; "Parents for Youth Sports," El Paso, TX; "Crusade Against Cancer," Boston, MA; "Mayor's Office of Faith-Based Initiatives" Philadelphia and "Task Force on Fatherhood," Chesapeake, VA, to name a few.

Established in 1979, the City Livability Awards ultimately go to only 20 mayors and their cities in two categories -- cities with fewer than 100,000 people and cities with 100,000 or more people. The ultimate awards in each category are one First-Place City Livability Award, four Outstanding Achievement Awards and five Honorable Mention Citations.

The final awards will be announced in June at the 69th Annual Conference of Mayors in Detroit.

One Million Homes pilot city

This isn't the first acknowledgement for Louisville's housing efforts.

Louisville is one of 14 pilot cities in the One Million Homes program, a promise by the National Association of Home Builders, the U.S. Conference of Mayors, and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to create one million new homes in the nation's central cities in the next ten years.

Pilot cities demonstrate how to reduce impediments to home construction and increase production and quality of new homes in inner cities.

"We're receiving national recognition and exposure for the great things our city is accomplishing," said Mayor David L. Armstrong, the city's head during the last two years.

"We've taken action to create some 700 new housing starts since July 1 of last year. And, our eMain district is being touted as one of the next Silicon Valleys and is part of business course lectures at Harvard and the University of Michigan," added Armstrong during his State of the City address in February.

The city plans to develop an area along 8th and 9th Streets to tie the western edge of downtown with both the central business district and the Main Street corridor. The area, which is bounded by Market and Jefferson streets, will host offices, retail shops, restaurants, a hotel and nearly 200 condominiums.

GlassWorks, housed in the historic Snead Building at 9th and Market, will anchor the development with art glass studios, corporate offices, 81 loft apartments and an upscale restaurant.

"In a few years, the corridor along Eight and Ninth, anchored by the GlassWorks, will be saturated with new housing, shopping, restaurants and nighttime activity," Mayor Armstrong said.

A $1 million low-interest loan from the Mayor's Downtown Housing Fund helped make the $11 million GlassWorks project possible. A $2.5 million loan from the Mayor's Downtown Housing Fund also helped make the $33 million Waterfront Park Place project possible.

Across from the great lawn, fronting on the Ohio River, the 23-story high-rise will house 78 condos and 44 apartments within walking distance of Louisville's central business district. The West Main Street Cultural District and new baseball park are also nearby. Waterfront residents also will have front row seats to "Thunder Over Louisville," billed as the nation's largest fireworks display.

"My call for people to come back to the city is being heard. Louisville, indeed, is establishing itself as THE place to live, work and play," said Mayor Armstrong.

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