Wharton has an important post up for Greensboro's new City Council and any government who is convinced that new development is all about new buildings. If Greensboro's goal is to promote development that has the highest impact for Greensboro's local economy (in other words, the people who actually live here) - rehabilitation and adaptive re-use of our existing stock of structures wins hands down over new construction, and Wharton tells you why...
"...Rehab jobs tend to be done by small, locally based companies, unlike big, new developments, which are often built by huge, national companies that take their profits out of town and out of state."
The historic re-hab industry (if we can even term it as an industry) is almost a hidden economy. Wharton points us to the body of work on this subject by Donald Rypkema who argues convincingly that this 'industry', and the money it generates for the local economy rivals the big, flashy developers that many of our local leaders drool over.
Educate yourselves on what types of development will best benefit Greensboro's citizens and you will find that the answer is not consistantly adopting the 'tear it down' position that Greensboro has practiced for so long.
When, in the future, an old structure appears to be standing in the way of 'progress', our leaders should ask themselves "how can we fix it?" - not "what will replace it?". The people who will benefit from such a question are not lower paid crews and highly paid general contractors from Atlanta or Charlotte, but highly-skilled Greensboro citizens.
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