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A TALE OF TWO CITIES
I never thought I would have to go over to Greenville,
South-damn-Carolina to see the future, but I'm glad I went,
thanks to the Athens-Clarke Heritage Foundation bus trip on
Saturday, May 24. Greenville has brought its downtown in the
last 30-plus years from abandoned to vibrant, and of course it
didn't happen by accident.
Greenville is not Athens, in spite of some similarities.
Greenville is a lot larger than Athens, although it does not
have a dominant university. Greenville is a moneyed town, with
old fortunes and foundations left over from its cotton-mill days
and newer corporate wealth represented by the influx of inter
national companies like Michelin and BMW, along with a lower
percentage of indigenous poor.
Nevertheless, the Greenville story is exciting to anybody
interested in cities and how they make people want to live,
shop and visit in them. (See Kristen Morales' story on p. 7.)
Back in the 1970's, Greenville, like Athens, was tearing down
its old buildings and concentrating on "progress." ("Advancing
Athens," y'all.) Then they wised up, as we did, and started fig
uring out how to use what they already had, after their anchor
stores, like ours, had moved to the mall.
The first thing they did, like us, was to hire consultants to
come in and draw up plans and tell them what they needed to
do. The second thing they did, unlike us, was listen to the con
sultants and buy into the planning.
Greenville, SC Mayor Knox White loves architecture and planning.
The smartest thing they did was elect Knox White mayor
18 years ago???without term limits. White is a lawyer from an
old Greenville family. He's a Republican, too, but what you'd
call a chamber of commerce Republican rather than the tea
party variety. And he has flat-out got the vision thing. Even
when he was on the city council before becoming mayor, White
caught on to the essentials of revitalizing his hometown. And
he learned how the city could partner with developers who had
the ability and the resources to bring back discarded landmark
buildings, build new ones and mix it all with enough residen
tial to create a demand for shops, restaurants and, yes, even
a Publix grocery store, which turned out to be the highest-
grossing Publix in Greenville County.
But the falls! The very epicenter of Greenville history, right
in the middle of town on the Reedy River, had been obliterated
by a four-lane highway bridge for a whole generation. White
kept pushing and finagling and fighting until he was able to
get that bridge torn down and replaced by a soaring pedestrian
bridge, and suddenly Greenville could see what an incredible
gem of a tourist and local attraction had been hidden from
them. And then White and his crew turned around and con
vinced everybody to build a minor league ballpark, with condos
wrapped around it, right downtown on, you guessed it, an
abandoned lumber yard. Yeah. Don't even think about it.
But that is Greenville, and we are Athens. They figured out
their strengths and capitalized on them. We've got to do the
same thing over here. (The mayor's son, a music fan, asks him
why Greenville can't be more like Athens.) And then we've got
to get together and agree on a plan and make it work.
The lessons of Greenville are that vision, planning, persis
tence and bold leadership will pay off. Those qualities are not
site-specific. They can work here in Athens. We've just got to
figure out how.
Pete McCommons editor@flagpole.com
ON FLAGPOLE.COM
from the blogs
A HOMEDRONE: Drive-By Truckers multi-instrumen
talist (and musical mad scientist) Jay Gonzalez has
launched a Kickstarter to fund a new ???five-song rock
medley??? called The Bitter Suite.
CULTURE BRIEFS: Enjoy photos and recaps of
readings, art openings and more with our new On
the Town blog series.
???P HOMEDRONE: Win a Phosphorescent prize pack
age, including tickets to next week???s Georgia Theatre
show and dinner and drinks for two.
ATHENS POWER RANKINGS: ME 0=0
1. Party Down South
2. Classic City Rollergirls
3. Steve Martin X
4. Little Kings Shuffle Club
5. David Schick
Athens Power Rankings are posted each Monday on the
In the Loop blog on flagpole.com.
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EDITOR & PUBLISHER Pete McCommons
ADVERTISING DIRECTOR & PUBLISHER Alicia Nickles
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AD DESIGNER Kelly Hart
CARTOONISTS Lee Gatlin, Missy Kulik, David Mack, Jeremy Long, Clint McElroy
ADOPT ME Special Agent Cindy Jerrell
CONTRIBUTORS Lee Adcock, Rachel Bailey, Hillary Brown, James C. Cobb, Kevin Craig,
Tom Crawford, Rashaun Ellis, Jan Kozak, Gordon Lamb, Kristen Morales, Rhonda,
Drew Wheeler
CIRCULATION Charles Greenleaf, Emily Armond, Will Donaldson, Matt Shirley
WEB DESIGNER Kelly Hart
ADVERTISING INTERN Maria Stojanovic
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NEWS INTERNS Erica Techo, Stephanie Talmadge
PHOTO INTERN Joshua L. Jones
COVER DESIGN by Kelly Hart
(see feature story on p.7)
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VOLUME 28
ISSUE NUMBER 22
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JUNE 4, 2014-FLAGPOLE.COM 3