Old Louisville is beautiful, yep. A lot more dangerous than it used to be, but that's unfortunately everywhere in the city now. The downtown business district isn't really by campus. Just south of campus looks pretty trashy to me, including the Churchill Downs area. I give a pass to Santa Fe if it's still there, because their tacos are killer.
It gets a lot nicer a bit further out by Southern Parkway, Beechmont, etc.
I guess that's all subjective though.
The on-campus / campus adjacent facilities built over the last 20 or so years all look nice and are a major improvement over whatever was there before like the shit around the silos.
I agree the campus is really nice for an urban / commuter school. Especially compared to the late 80s / early 90s. But you don't have to go far to find buildings that Saw could have been filmed in.
Next time I'm downtown I'll drive by and cop to it if I feel like I was overstating things. Just FYI I live in Louisville and have (almost) always enjoyed living here.