INC NEWS - Letter on shopping locally; Editiorial on Ninth Street (today's Herald-Sun)

[John Schelp]

Letter: Shop with locals
Herald-Sun, 19 Sept 2006
 
Do you shop with locally owned businesses when you
need to make a purchase? If not, consider these facts:


--Local business people make enormous contributions to
the quality of life in this community. 

--They create jobs, boost the tax base and have always
invested in our community. 

Look behind the scenes of any civic activity today and
you will likely will find local business people giving
their time and money. 

The efforts many have provided over the years could
not be replaced by any amount of government assistance
or tax money. 

Many are unsung heroes of our community. 

Any time a dollar is spent, it generates a dollar's
worth of economic activity and employment. 

If that same dollar is spent several times locally, it
generates several dollars worth of employment,
behaving as if it were several dollars, not just one! 

Your dollar can generate benefits several times its
face value, when you and others, shop and spend with
locally owned businesses. 

Money spent at "non-locals" doesn't have the same
effect. 

Customer service is almost non-existent at the "big
box" stores, and your business, or complaint, is but a
blip on a radar screen to them. 

Small business owners have to be much more sensitive
to your level of satisfaction to keep you coming back,
and in most cases I think they try harder. 

I dread the day when our only options are "big box"
stores whose stockholders have no idea where Durham is
located. 

Alan Stephenson
Durham

****

Editiorial: Planning for a better Ninth Street
Herald-Sun, 19 September 2006   

We've celebrated before in this space the efforts to
plan for what would be the best course for the Ninth
Street area. 

Nearly a century after the area's first boom created a
vibrant shopping district for workers at nearby Erwin
Mills, the Ninth Street business district is enjoying
a renewed boom that dates to the late 1970s. 

But with increasing development in the area, the
prospect of Duke's Central Campus becoming a reality
soon and just the passing of time, change probably is
inevitable. And like any collection of locally owned
small retail shops and restaurants, Ninth Street must
constantly be alert to differentiating itself from the
many larger shopping areas and major chain outfits. 

The City-County Planning Department and a volunteer
group called Durham Area Designers are trying to be
sure the change is planned, rather than casual and
even haphazard. 

And residents and merchants had a valuable opportunity
this past weekend to be part of that process at the
Ninth Street Charrette. 

One strength of the Ninth Street area is the sense of
ownership and involvement from the surrounding
community, so it is altogether proper and in keeping
with Durham's best traditions that the process should
be open and flexible. 

The charrette churned with ideas -- for how the public
spaces might be defined, for example, or for how
parking could be handled to retain the character of
the commercial district. 

Planners showed examples of urban building concepts
from San Francisco to Helsinki to help drive the
brainstorming. 

The charrette is only one part, and an early part, of
a process that will generate far more discussion and
many more ideas. 

In the end, we're confident it will help to retain the
character and attractiveness of what the Old West
Durham Neighborhood Association web site accurately
describes as "one of the Triangle's most popular
designations where visitors, students and neighbors
enjoy a diverse offering of excellent restaurants and
eclectic shops in the heart of an old mill village." 

****