Economy & Downtown
Chapel Hill's downtown has long benefited from its proximity to a captive audience of University students without cars. While downtowns around the country have been failing, ours has survived fairly well. However, we have seen an increase in the number of chain stores locating downtown, and instability in the Downtown Economic Development Corporation. In the near future, we will see new Town-directed development on two major parking lots have a big impact.
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Carrboro's downtown has also done better than many towns of comparable size, thanks largely to the presence of Weaver Street Market and progressive shoppers from the rest of the county. The Board of Aldermen has been addressing the evolution of the downtown, and have established a number of community resources in the downtown area including free wireless Internet access, and a low-power radio station.
I heard reference to http://freecycle.org on the radio yesterday, described as an organization to promote free exchange or donation of unwanted things that ought not to go to the landfill and still possibly useful. There is an Orange County group - is anyone here a member? How does it work?
The Weaver Street Market Board of Directors will meet Wednesday December 17 at 201 North Greensboro Street downtown Carrboro at 6:15pm. The Board will seek to answer the question posed in last month's meeting: "How bad can it get?" This is regarding the negative cash flow in the last fiscal quarter.
In the last fiscal quarter, the worker-owners did not receive a dividend. Consumer-owners receive a dividend as a point-of-sale discount. Is this fair?
Basically, if you own a share in the Co-Op, this is the one Board meeting you need to attend! Contact WSM BoD Chair J. Myers at coffee_bar@weaverstreetmarket.coop to inform him you will attend (meal provided by Panzanella Restaurant) and to receive an emailed copy of the meeting agenda.
I really want additional co-op owners to attend!
Via e-mail from Downtown Partnership:
Artists of all mediums are encouraged to share their creative expression and art for all to see! It's recommended that most arts and crafts be priced below $100 to make it accessible for folks to purchase. Some accepted submissions range from baked goods, collages, stuffed animals, pottery, screen printed posters and more!
There is a small fee for $35 per table which will help support future events at the Nightlight! Please submit a brief description of your work, any photos and/or links to your website by December 7th. Please direct all submissions/ questions to Alexis at nightlightinfo@gmail.com or 919.923.7910.
Date:
Sunday, December 21, 2008 - 9:00am to 1:00pm
Location:
Nightlight, 405 1/2 West Rosemary Street, Chapel Hill
With macro-economic indicators getting worse by the day, scaling down to the local is looking saner and more attractive.
One example of many is local currencies. Though our local currency, the NCPlenty, is barely in existence, it may be time to re-vamp it. The global and national economic climate may provide the environment necessary for making a local currency adaptive and succesfull.
In November the nation's official unemployment reached 6.5%. This is a figure that would change to 12.5% if included were those who are too discouraged to look for work any longer or those working fewer hours than they would like.
12% may be a significant number; As pointed out in Beyond Greed and Scarcity by Bernard Lietaer: In France, years ago,..
In speaking to the Friends of Pat Evans, err, I mean Friends of Downtown, Meadowmont developer and Board of Trustees Chair Roger Perry identified the same problems that I have been talking about in regards to Chapel Hill's downtown.
"You have to treat downtown with deference," Perry
said. "You've got to put more money into downtown than into outlying
areas." That means more and better lighting and, in the case of one
particular area, sidewalks.
"That we don't have sidewalks along Rosemary all the way is nuts," he said. "We're tying an arm behind our backs." [...]
Perry saved his most critical words for the
"irresponsible ownership" of some downtown buildings. Without
mentioning specific names, he riffed on "absentee owners" who don't act
as good stewards of the town or their properties, allowing buildings to
slip below fire code standards and otherwise exhibiting no sense of
urgency in filling vacancies in prime retail locations.
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