Sci-fi flash forward. This is the movie you’re signed up for…
The billionaire oligarchs, the cultural and economic Marxists, and the agents of national demoralization all agree on a cashless system that operates using a state-operated cryptocurrency and social credit scores for people who agree to act right according to the tyrants. Since all the big box stores, banks, and mega-chains are owned by the same groups who support this form of tyranny, you will comply with it or else you will need to try to make it outside the system.
If only there existed an entrepreneurial incubator system that would offer an alternative.
Stay with me…
It’s an interesting phenomenon for those who study and follow Downtown revitalization, that eventually PEOPLE need to live and stay downtown. And not just a handful of people. As part of the process of revitalization, downtown (at some point) needs to have a population.
Let me explain. I’ve extensively detailed the social and cultural processes that destroyed downtown America in the late 20th and early 21st Century. It was a simple confluence of events in the lifeline of the technical society. People moved to the suburbs and/or became more mobile as the automobile became the primary fixture of the economy. Businesses moved out to the main drag to try to capture an increasingly mobile customer base. National chains grew up and expanded and eventually were able to squeeze out the family and mom-and-pop businesses. Super-big-box stores and restaurants then consolidated the business, Xeroxed it, and replicated it in micro-“downtowns” – identical all over the country.
Downtowns were vacated and became ghost towns or crime-ridden vestiges of the before-time. It was the Apocalypse. As the buildings crumbled, real estate prices plummeted, and that was the truth of things for a while. But, deep inside the living, creative human there burns a longing.
Eventually, the heart-longing for Mayberry took hold. Entrepreneurs and families started to buy the old buildings and renovate them. Cities realized they’d destroyed themselves by selling out to China and Main Street and the billionaire oligarchy class, so they began to re-think downtown. Revitalization began. That’s the Cliff Notes.
So, revitalization begins with a few intrepid visionaries, small family businesses, and entrepreneurs. The city, if they are wise, aids revitalization in what ways they can. Eventually, a few pioneers (or the business owners) move to downtown. They renovate lofts into apartments, etc. They open Airbnb style rentals or micro-hotels. But (and this is the rub,) downtown – though it is fun on weekends and during special events – can be a drag for people who live and stay there.
First, the businesses are open only on weekends. Then, maybe, it is Thursday through Saturday night. So, the downtown citizen, like everyone else, is forced up to Main Street and the enemies of small-town values if they want to eat, buy groceries, or shop from Sunday through Wednesday. Hopefully, there will be success and some businesses do begin to operate during regular, standard business hours throughout the week. Then next step, maybe a few more people decide that it is beneficial to move downtown. Perhaps more entrepreneurs build apartments or lofts in the old buildings and rent to downtown workers. People turn old storefronts into rental rooms where people can live or stay.
If revitalization is to be successful, the city officials and the culture need to support and encourage the establishment of the trappings of downtown LIVING… small stores open during the week and on weekends; even A bodega-like grocery store can be the trigger that multiplies the explosive growth of downtown. Then, restaurants and businesses learn that it can be profitable to extend hours and offerings to the downtown denizens.
So, there is a moment in time when revitalization can move forward, or it can stagnate. Decisions have to be made, and the decisions need to encourage a vibrant downtown life.
In Brownwood, so far, the powers-that-be have made many of the right moves. And remember, this isn’t just a financial and economic gamble – right now this is a war against the criminal billionaire oligarchy, the warmongering Chinese tiger, and the cultural Marxists who want to demoralize and destroy everything. Every right move in downtown revitalization is an investment in our own cultural and financial survival.
I spend a lot of time in this column-space telling you, the readers, to spend your money downtown. It is an act of survival and warfare against your real enemies. But we also need to encourage the city officials and entrepreneurs to make moves that will make it easier and more beneficial for people to live and work downtown. We need more living spaces. We need to encourage shop owners to normalize business offerings and hours.
Then, in our sci-fi movie wherein the people who want tyrannical social credit scores, bug salads, and a 100% government-regulated AI/VR life, there can be hope for those who don’t want to live that way.
Just a thought.
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Michael Bunker is a local columnist for BrownwoodNews.com whose columns appear on Wednesdays and Sundays on the website.