| My favorite Bankster(retired), has single handedly turned the main st in a small town here in Nova Scotia around, there were others holding on, and some trying, but her very accute targeting of interests and providing those services as loss leaders has drawn people back, and all the store fronts are occupied, and the vape shop is at the end of the strip.
The activity is high enough that some of the older established business interests were forced to leave there just out of town tax havens and grab a spot down town,while the grabbing was good. |
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| ▲ | metalman 2 days ago | parent [-] | | I spoke to her an hour ago about a project she is pushing for cast bronze grates to go around municipal trees that I am working to get someone local(out of worksoftware dev) to do CAD drawings and then we need a huge flatbed 3D printer for patterns that I would take to a local foundry for casting, where I have partisipated in other projects.
But the main character of this is your average overachiving person with vast personal experience in multiple personal business, government, and finance positions, who stated, and I quote directly 'I am going to turn this town around', and has.
I think the only reason she deals with me at all is that I keep surprising her by failing forward and upward.
Thinking a bit more, I would (and will suggest) that she tackled the whole town as a reno project, which she also does with homes('I just write the cheques') as it had good bones, and she is very good at getting other people to also write cheques.
The key is likely that she does not ask for permission or help, (' I put my own money into this') got started with her own project, got elected to council, and has pushed and cajoled, and cut deals, while bieng gracious, cheerfull , etc, but never loosing site of the bottom line ('it's making money now')
To be clear, I see other towns with more people and money and development, floundering when it comes to having a social and cultural center. Absentee landloards, land banking, roving developers, capital flight along with purchased citizenships and
no planning whatsoever, the last is where my bankster friend has just stepped in. Art, music, activities,books,education, theater,food,bars,services, shopping, banks, government, etc, all in a 4 block core, most of it was vacant 5 years ago. | | |
| ▲ | kombookcha a day ago | parent [-] | | Thank you for the writeup. As someone from a small town struggling with the sorts of things most small towns struggle with, it's interesting to hear turnaround stories like this. |
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