Today’s N&R lead editorial follows up on Sunday’s cover stories, again emphasizing the notion that Greensboro’s economy is being built from the ground up:
Goodbye, paternalism.
Hello, collaboration.
That, in a nutshell, is how leadership style in Greensboro has changed in the last several years.
Gone (for the most part) are the CEO power meetings, the behind-the-scenes decision-making by a few.
……The hemorrhaging of the textile industry might have forced Greensboro to change its leadership style, but more recent revisions have come voluntarily. Nowhere is this better seen than with our institutions of higher education, which have put community service on steroids in the last few years. They provide Greensboro with formidable talent and resources and, perhaps most important, vision. From GTCC’s “Quick Jobs with a Future” effort, which retrains people in little time and for little money, to UNCG’s and N.C. A&T’s Gateway Research Park, these institutions are helping us all.
I went back and re-read the last third of Sunday’s cover story, which focused again on the Revolution Mill business incubator. Turns out that Guilford Technical Community College is the major tenant at Revolution Mill, and GTCC just happens to have a $79 million bond on the May 6 ballot.
Look, I’m not complaining for the hell of it, and I’m certainly not trying to say the N&R is glossing over the roles our public insitutions are playing in helping revitalize the local economy, even though I think they’re stretching things a bit by promoting the theme of an economy being rebuilt from the ground up with so much public money paving the way.
Again, is there anything more paternalistic than big government?
