Louisville's representatives likely missed that because they were wearing rose-colored glasses. They were thinking "big picture" about would a successful project could mean for the city and were ignoring the details. They were probably (rightly?) assuming that an organization like Google would be able to learn from their mistakes and "this time would be different". Really, it's hard to fault them for thinking this way, but just like every other situation in business, if it seems too good to be true, it probably is.