Brett Banter

We've been reading a lot lately about the rebirth of downtown Greenville and how many of the gambles paid off. For example, the construction of the Peace Center was promised as a harbinger of the arts as well as a key to revitalization along the Reedy River. A lot of people were skeptical, but it worked. A lot of the same things were said about the West End baseball stadium, the Falls Park Bridge and scores of other projects. They all worked.

It has always been said Greenville's growth benefited from great vision and planning. But what if was just a lot of luck? A story in today's New York Times looked in-depth at what happened to several small cities that got caught up in planning projects that turned into disasters. Big-time disasters. Coyotes running through abandoned project like disasters. A lot of the stories of woe deal with cities that built arenas in the last decade and how those arenas have consistently failed to bring in business and therefore gone into major debt with the cities holding the bill. Usually, these arenas were hailed as the jump start to major renewal projects. These projects have mostly failed to materialized. While the economy has a lot to do with the problems, it really makes one wonder what happens when plans go awry.