Take the Local Challenge...Spend 20% Locally This Christmas

This past Saturday was Small Business Saturday. I hope everyone took this opportunity to go out and shop with some of our local small businesses! If you forgot or didn’t have time with all of the Thanksgiving rush, there is still a lot of time left and it’s a great way to help your community.

When you purchase services or products from a local, small business you contribute to the Elizabethton and Carter County economy and make it stronger. Each time you make a purchase at a local, small business retail store approximately 48 cents of every dollar stays within our local economy compared to purchasing at a non-local, big box store where approximately 13 cents of every dollar stays within the local economy. That 48 cents can then be spent again locally by the retail store purchasing materials to make new products or making improvements to their building.

Additionally, when you decide to purchase products from any businesses in Elizabethton or Carter County you pay a small portion of your purchase in sales tax. The sales tax is used by your city and county government to pay for repaving roads, fire fighting services, police and sheriff services, and the school systems. By shopping with a local business, you also help keep that business alive and in turn that business pays property taxes which also help support the government services you rely on.

Lastly, when you make purchases with local, small businesses you help create a more stable and resilient local economy. Using the example in my first point, if you shop locally, and other businesses you spend your money with shop locally, and they purchase products from local businesses...well you get the idea. All of that money multiplies creating an internal economy that can be more resistant to impacts to the national or state economy. Asheville is an excellent example of this. During the Great Recession starting in 2008-2012, the Asheville, NC economy actually grew and expanded. Jobs were created, new construction was occurring while the rest of the state and nation slowed or declined. Asheville’s economy is strongly based on tourism and a buy local mentality.

This year, I’m challenging everyone in Elizabethton and Carter County to spend at least 20% of their holiday gift purchases with a local, small business -- that’s $200 if you spend $1,000 total or $100 if you spend $500 total. This could be a gift certificate to a local restaurant in Roan Mountain or a unique hand-made craft from a boutique store in Downtown Elizabethton. As you begin your shopping season, stop in and take a look at what some of our local, small businesses have to offer! You might be surprised to find just what you were looking for. Let’s talk about it!

Higher Density Could Bring Positives for Elizabethton

Density -- the word itself brings to mind large high rises in the middle of a large bustling city. But I want to convince you that density does not just apply to large metropolitan areas, but can be extremely beneficial, useful, and even bring more life to our city.

I was recently reading the Urban Land magazine when I came across an article entitled, “Density is Critical for Cities to Realize Advantages and Avoid Decline.” The article summarized a report recently released talking about the importance density plays in the success or failure of a city or community. The article gave me four takeaways that we can apply to Elizabethton.

First is finding the right locations for mixed-used development. Often this terms confuses people. Mixed-use development is development that accommodates multiple uses such as residential and commercial. Downtown is a great example of mixed-use development. We need to identify areas in our community that can viably utilize mixed-use development and create regulations to accommodate and encourage this type of development.

Next, we must have a plan to accommodate higher density levels in our community and share those plans with developers. We must develop a plan for higher density and work to improve infrastructure create more accommodating land-uses. We also must share this information with developers which will help encourage them to create higher density development in areas of the community that can accommodate it.

We must also look at density on a regional scale. We must not confine our planning and views to only the city limits, but look beyond those limits to observe the type of development that is occurring there. We must work with our county officials and neighboring cities to ensure that our development can be compatible with other development within the region.

Lastly, we must reimagine our community. Elizabethton is a great small city with many benefits that our surrounding communities do not have, but we must step back to look to the future of our community. One where higher density and midsize building developments occur. This doesn’t mean we lose our identity as a small city, it means that we look for ways to increase our sustainability as a city and ways to grow and become more attractive for others to move here.

Higher density provides many benefits to our city. Promoting more businesses and residences already within our city limits mean property taxes are shared between more property owners, utility expenses are shared between more customers, and more houses means more retail and shopping opportunities will be attracted to Elizabethton. We are already starting to see the effects of low density development in our community. How should we proceed in creating higher density locally? Let’s talk about it!

Less Fighting About Economic Development...More Working Together!

City Officials and Carter County Tomorrow (which I will refer to as the Carter County Joint Economic and Community Development Board) Officials were interested to hear this past Friday that the Carter County Commission would hear two resolutions at the next meeting Monday morning. One creating the Carter County Economic and Community Development Board and another creating various Adventure Tourism Districts within the County.

While these moves were not necessarily a surprise, we felt frustrated that Carter County felt the need to prepare a resolution to create such a board. Both city and the Carter County Joint Economic and Community Development Board (JECDB) officials have extended our hands to the County ready and willing to partner with them and move forward. We recognize that in a county with less than 60,000 people it will be difficult for either entity or even the Carter County JECDB to afford to tackle large Economic Development projects alone.

We encourage the County Mayor or a representative of his and County Commissioner Representatives to attend the JECDB meetings and take an active role. Set aside what has happened or who was involved in the past and let’s work together to move forward. There is a lot of work to be done, and no time to argue about what has happened in the past.

If improvements are needed, make the suggestion. If changes must be made, start the dialog. Either way, economic development will come to a slow if city, county, and JECDB officials are all not working together to move our entire county forward in one direction. We all may not agree exactly on the structure of the organization, but that can be changed. We may not agree on the effectiveness of the organization, but the board and city officials have been taking a hard look at alternatives to make it more effective ever since Mr. Anderson left.

There is one thing we all can agree on, and that is we all want to bring more jobs to Carter County. Let’s make this our focus and all work together on the JECDB to achieve this goal. I applaud the Carter County Commission for taking a step in the right direction by creating Adventure Tourism Districts. Now let’s all sit down together and determine what the next step we need to take is to bring more jobs to our community. Let’s talk about it!

Street Level Activities Helps Downtown Businesses

This past Sunday I went downtown to visit some of the businesses at the Annual Downtown Open House. As I drove into downtown to find a parking place, I was pleasantly surprised to see just how many people were walking around, darting in and out of shops, and driving around (probably looking for a parking spot like me). I stopped in and talked with many of the open businesses and everyone was talking about how positive their businesses had be impacted by the day. One owner said, “If nothing else, the people walking past and into my business can see what I sell so when they need it I’ll be here.”

How true that is. Events like this not only get shoppers excited, but also get the business owners excited. Having people and activities downtown generates excitement and interest. The staff and commissions in the city are working to change regulations in order to encourage street activities just like what we saw on Sunday to get people out and walking on the streets. More street activity by pedestrians generates more people walking by and dropping in to local downtown businesses...even if they don’t purchase anything the first time.

The excitement that is generated off of pedestrian activities makes it more attractive for other local businesses to move to the downtown district. The same is true for potentially interested developers.

Big national and regional chains look at four major components when selecting a new location. One of those is traffic counts, the number of cars that pass by the business everyday. For downtown, this translates a little differently. Because of the nature of a downtown, most buildings are only 25 feet wide and our concrete canopy additionally blocks the view of the business. The key for a downtown district and our downtown businesses isn’t going to be cars that pass per day, but rather people that walk pass per day.

As we continue to work to make downtown a better place, what other ideas do you have to help get people to stop their cars and walk through downtown? Let’s talk about it!