New downtown buildings are good...sustainable economies of scale are better

(via PreservationGreensboro)

The above is a rendering of a proposed five-story mid-rise building planned for the 300-block of South Elm Street downtown (coverage from the News & Record, PreservationGreensboro and A Little Urbanity). And while another addition to the downtown skyline is long overdue and quite welcome, it will do nothing if our citizens do not have jobs. It might as well be just another empty building, another dot on the landscape.

Our local economy cannot be sustained on $9/hour service jobs. Because it is those types of jobs that are left in Greensboro...today. Manufacturing is gone. Furniture is gone. Tobacco is gone. Textiles are gone. Distribution, transportation, higher education...and service jobs are all that's left.

I work a $9/hour service job...at night. I substitute teach and tutor during the day to supplement my income.

I blog and strategize about local city and county politics and communication projects...in my spare time...for free.

I have a communications/journalism background, previously taught in the public schools, previously worked in Washington and Las Vegas...and I work a $9/hour service job. I work there because my family has to eat. And right now, there are no other professional opportunities in this area. It is sad because I'm here to make a better life for my daughter...to give her the opportunity like I had growing up to be raised in a neighborhood, where she can ride her bike and socialize with her friends from school, etc.

And yet I worry because if she decides to matriculate through school here, she may not have a job waiting for her here; she may do like all of our other young professionals...and leave. It is sad.

This is very typical of many many households across our city, our county, our area...even our state.

One final note...when I covered Rockingham County back in 2000 for the former publication known as Triad Business News, I interviewed many of their local economic development pros. One of them was very proud that they were touting an industrial site and a spec building off U.S. 29 for "call center usage." Rockingham County's savior at the time were call centers.

Not exactly thinking large...and now, even our call centers are laying off, from Aetna to American Express to iQor.

We have an explosive unemployment rate...and the silence among our elected body downtown is haunting.

E.C. :)