In need of a Vision

Not a religious one. The kind of vision that will keep two entrepreneurs in a small town on the banks of the Hudson River.

Two nights ago, my friend and his partner were pissed off. They’d moved from the city to relocate their design business in a beautiful town in upstate New York. It’s the kind of beautiful town that could be really be beautiful, and functional, and even moderately wealthy instead of teetering between resurgence and decline. Like most towns on the river, its fortunes sunk when the highway opened, river traffic stopped, tourism to the Catskills dried up and industry left. But like some of these towns, they’re enjoying a renaissance as their neglected beauty is being discovered and dusted off.

That means people like my friend are investing their money and time trying to make Main St. work again. Restaurants, stores and artisan workshops are cropping up to complement the inevitable Wal-Mart Mall on the edge of town, with opportunities for discretionary income to be spent and Main Street to be repopulated.

In other words, making the barely-beating heart of the town function again. You know, revive the traditional form of community that people crave so much. Make Main Street real instead a fantasy experience in Disneyworld.

But the town leadership has vacillated, obfuscated and dithered. They can’t decide whether to be the depressingly familiar, hollow, Wal-Mart-centric collection of suburbs or a historic town making a comeback. One that’s joining the movement for localism and new authentic industry that’s reinventing the Hudson Valley. One that has a diversity of businesses, population, entertainment…and tax revenue.

So my friends and many others are deciding to leave. Without knowing that their and their neighbors’ investment (not just of money, but in friendships and enthusiasm) is going to pay back because it’s being channeled to a common vision with resources to support it, why stay? Why not go to a town that’s clear about what it is and where it’s going, with a citizenry that helps each other get there and with incentives to make the tough life of running a small business worthwhile?

A vision would make all the difference in taking a community that’s stagnating into one that’s generating energy and producing happiness. Forget a cave in Lourdes. The people need a vision for Main Street.