Commercial / Economic Renewal

Whether it's called "green economy", "green economic development", or "sustainable development" your community's sustainable revitalization program must obviously address the growth of your commercial and other economically-productive activities.

But to produce renewal that's both rapid and resilient, this necessitates more than the usual "economic development" strategies based on wooing employers with incentives.  Commercial and industrial leaders should be effectively engaged in the renewal of all 12 sectors of your restorable assets.

If you already have a strong economic development agency--or a Chamber of Commerce that concerns itself with the community's needs as a whole (rather than just the needs of business)--it could be an ideal sponsor for your community's Real Revitalization  Program.  Is this organization trusted and effective?  Does it wish to take an even larger, longer-term role in the community's future? If so, sponsoring the Real Revitalization Program is also the best way to help it create (or become) a revitalization forum. 

A revitalization forum is a permanent public-private organization that supports an ongoing revitalization program.  [Note: Readers of reWealth (McGraw-Hill, 2008) will recognize this type of organization as what that book technically referred to as a "renewal engine". It was revealed as the key factor behind the most dramatic urban regeneration success stories documented in reWealth.]