Bev Perdue’s “Main Street Solutions”
Bev came out yesterday with the third installment of Building a New North Carolina: Main Street Solutions. This initiative will give a boost to the economic development of small towns and cities across North Carolina.
The state Department of Commerce has an existing Main Street program, but it only gets $450,000 annually from the state legislature. That’s a pittance considering the importance of our small towns and cities.
Bev’s immediate goal will be to increase funding to $2.25 million, so that we can help more towns around the state. That sum still represents only a fraction of what the state pays in annual incentives to relocating businesses. The projects funded through Main Street will themselves serve as tools to attract relocating and start-up businesses.
Taking from best practices in other states and success stories here in North Carolina and in consultation with local leaders; Main Street Solutions will develop a flexible menu of options from which our smaller town and cities can choose in activating their own economic development strategies.
Please read more about the program here.
If you haven’t already read the first two parts of Building a New North Carolina, Rural HOPE and BRAC Budget Reform.
BlueNC is dedicated to freedom and fairness for the people of North Carolina. If you share that vision, welcome. If your intention is to disrupt our efforts, please find somewhere else to express your opinions.
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Comments
I like this idea.
When I was on the Chapel Hill Town Council, downtown issues were front and center month after month. They still are. I'd much rather see economic development dollars supporting initiatives like this than corporate giveaways like the Goodyear fiasco.
Recommended.
J
PS I hope this program will have engage the hard eyes of business people, not just politicians. Some downtowns are beyond saving, I fear. We'll need smart criteria for assessing investment opportunities that have a good chance of succeeding.
Downtown
My wife and I were just speaking about how the death of downtown's also has side-effects most of us don't think about. You don't walk to the grocery store, post office, hardware, book store, movie theater. There goes that exercise. You don't have a good meal at the local eatery, instead you stop at McDonald's on the way to the mall.
Your kids don't have a sense of community, neither do their parents. AND, you have to drive to work.
One of the pitfalls of childhood is that one doesn't have to understand something to feel it. - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
Jesus Swept ticked me off. Too short. I loved the characters and then POOF it was over.
-me
As a member of
my town's DDA (Downtown Development Association) I applaud this move. Towns and Cities across NC are actually putting in place their own incentive/grant portfolios for small businesses and property owners in downtown/Main Street districts. It's really exciting to hope that more state money might be available to boost and strengthen the real economic engine in NC -- small businesses.
"They took all the trees and put them in a tree museum Then they charged the people a dollar 'n a half just to see 'em. Don't it always seem to go that you don't know what you've got till it's gone? They paved paradise and put up a parking lot."