I grew up in a very rural part of North Carolina. Tobacco fields, pigs and dirt roads surround the area where I grew up.  As a child, all I wanted was to live in the city. 

Leaving home to go to college was my first taste of city living.  

I was drawn to Winston Salem, NC by the skyline.  To a country girl, the Winston Salem skyline LOOKED like the city.  As a new young resident I expected to find STUFF to do.  I really didn’t know what kind of stuff, but I just knew that my life would be exciting because I would have so many things to do. 

Boy was I disappointed. Downtown shut down at 5:30pm during the week.  On weekends, downtown was the proverbial ghost town. Generally, the most exciting thing going on was a trip to the mall, Wal-Mart or somewhere out of town. Winston Salem wasn’t the “city” I expected. 

My first lesson on living in the city: There’s more to being a city than having a great skyline.

While completing my undergraduate education, I took an interest in Winston Salem.  I learned about its downtown and its brain drain problems.  I learned that even though the city is home to several colleges and universities, Winston Salem has trouble recruiting and retaining the 18-34 year old demographic. 

Winston-Salem, like a lot of American cities, has focused on suburban development at the expense of downtown.  This resulted, in Winston Salem, and in other cities that I’ve visited, in an urban environment that includes empty store fronts, boarded up windows, rampant crime and drugs, and spiraling disinvestment.  

As an 18 year old living in the city, I had a least one theory of what the city was doing wrong. In my mind, all Winston needed to do was redevelop downtown into something that would be fun and interesting to the huge college-age population that called the city home. 

Fortunately, someone else had the same idea, and started to do something about it. In 2003, the year I left Winston-Salem, the mayor convened a taskforce to study Winston’s brain drain problems.  He also started funding a downtown revitalization program, including new restaurants, festivals, and a downtown arts programming. 

Over the years, I’ve seen that other cities are tackling similar issues to Winston Salem. Over the past few years, I’ve taken a more professional interest in economic and community development, especially in downtowns and urban centers.  During graduate school, I’ve focused my attention on finding solutions to urban problems. 

Downtown, as city center, should be a cultural, economic, and community center.  I’ve made it my mission to help communities achieve the downtown, city center, or commercial district that they need.  

This blog is about improving urban environments.  I discuss ways that communities can achieve their revitalization goals using New Urbanism, Sustainability and Smart Growth principles.  Additionally, I write about city living, real estate development, urban planning, neighborhood development and affordable housing. 

And while I’m still drawn to city skylines, I now know that it’s not what you see from the sky that matters, it’s what is happening on the ground.