Opinion: Downtown is a city’s backbone
REGIONAL–Asheville Citizen-Times op-ed contributor Kim MacQueen makes a pitch for the importance of town centers, using Asheville as an example.
She writes:
Despite their size, locally-owned businesses offer benefits to our communities that big-box stores simply cannot:
- Local flavor.
- Contributions to the local economy.
- Money spent in locally-owned businesses stays in the community.
- Donations to charities at more than twice the rate of national chains.
She also writes what the community needs to continue to improve:
- Continued support from the city government and Chamber of Commerce.
- To understand the problems with downtown are problems for all of us.
- To make a commitment to shop downtown and support local merchants …
- Those of us who live and work downtown have a responsibility to sustain our neighborhood, keeping it vital and attractive.
Read the specifics of her arguments here.
Tags: Asheville, Asheville Citizen Times, chamber of commerce, charities, Downtown, Economy, national chains, Opinion
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