Revitalize Old Towns

Quality Jobs - Revitalization plans are useful once there is investment, but how do we spark investment? Part of the solution is to provide quality jobs. People left old towns because the jobs left. To bring jobs back, towns should...

• Incentivize local production, and coordinate it as a main street experience. People should be doing what they're meant to do.

• Provide training at workers' universities for services that benefit the town.

• Set quality-of-life standards that require corporations to internalize the cost of their damage, both socially and environmentally. It allows small businesses to compete.

Civic Life - One or two families cannot provide the time and energy necessary to turn the place around. It has to be an all-or-nothing proposition from a critical mass of people. Remote workers can move in as a group from the city and use their salary to support small business. The bedroom community will turn into a full-service community as the local economy develops, and residents can forgo their remote-work salary for a full-time income in town. 

• Engaged volunteers and nonprofits should supplement the town's planning board where it lacks resources. Small towns don't have the staff to review important projects and research best-practices. Residents can work together with the town to guarantee high standards.

• Many old towns don't have an economy (because they were hollowed out by over-consolidation), so they are desperate for investment. The corporations that took away their economy use that as leverage to offer back some of it, but without meeting standards. It damages the town's biggest asset, which is its main street, by replacing it with big box stores, fast food chains, gas stations, etc. People won't move there to start businesses and fix up run-down properties unless there is a guarantee that low-quality development won't ruin their investment. 

Ownership Society - The people who had their jobs taken away are often low-wage workers, or they're on public assistance. They rent split up Victorians that aren't well preserved, and if the town appreciates (and property values increase), it prices them out of living there (because the landlord can charge higher rents). Locals know the town and it's history, and they contribute to the town, so it's a waste for them to leave. Towns should...

• Buy out the landlord's equity and return the split up Victorians to single-family homes. The renter-turned-homeowner can now participate in the town's appreciation because they own property, and they have a reason to take care of it. 

• Sell blighted properties to residents under special loans that require them to make repairs. Training for that, as well as other skills, should be offered by the town through a workers' university. 

• Charge people according to what they contribute to the town. Tax absentee landlords and speculators who don't utilize their property. Reduce property taxes for those who are retired or unemployed, as long as they maintain their property and add to the community. Subsidize small businesses that provide good jobs and places to hang out.

• Provide affordable apartments and multifamily houses near the center of town where there are services and public transportation. Not everyone needs to own a house. 

Natural Development - Natural development looks better because it expresses how we live. It evolves incrementally over time, which requires less planning and less financing. The major impediments to small developers are regulations and financing. Towns should...

• Simplify the permitting process so people can build for themselves, using toolkits provided by the town.

• Implement high standards, both socially and aesthetically. It improves the town's reputation, and attracts investment. 

• Prioritize main street development because that's the heart of the community. The town center should be subsidized until it can support itself.