New Year's Day: Strangely Exciting

New Year’s Day 2009: Strangely Exciting
2009 started off with an unexpectedly exciting 9:00am business call with an intuitive and intelligent artist in Lenoir. I have to fess up…I did not expect a business call with an artist on New Year’s Day to result in such an energizing and productive outcome. But it did.
We outlined a strategy to introduce local residents to my client, the developer, and his plan to incorporate a local arts council space for the public to enjoy at StarCross Village. The conversation quickly morphed into a plan to announce a developer sponsored design ‘charrette’. A design charrette is an intensive session in which participants collaborate to draft a design solution for a project. In places like Boston and San Francisco this type of design planning would be relegated to municipal arm-twisting and development ‘linkage’. But in Lenoir, volunteerism is a natural outgrowth of community ownership and civic pride. This is unlike most development projects.
In fact, after the business call with this individual on this holiday morning my sister called and at that moment it hit me. I love Lenoir. Even the love of my big sister was not strong enough to shake me from the reality that StarCross Village is only a symptom of a much more serious affliction: Hope. I could not even explain to a loved one how the impact of this dialogue with a stranger affected me. “How could this work be so fruitful for my client, and yet, so personally satisfying?” I asked myself as I pinched my arm to confirm this was real.
I would need to explain something to the developer. How would this productive phone call and the resulting investment expense payoff? My opinion was to look at a time-tested urban phenomena with decades of experience to prove its truth. When artists move into a neighborhood, soon afterwards others begin to arrive because they want to explore what was created by inspired artists... and before long, the neighborhood is gentrified.
There are many points to support our optimism: 1) a contagious spirit of hope and technical competency is coming from smart people in a friendly place, 2) local, state, and federal governments have enacted legislation to motivate wealthy people and socially responsible corporations to invest in a sustainable project, 3) an abundance of sunny days to support a neighborhood with renewable energy, 4) jobs … to build a neighborhood, and an emerging industry sector - photo voltaics, wind turbines, and energy electronics, all made right here in North Carolina.
Barack Obama’s ‘audacity of hope’ idea has become a reality to many people working on this project. Can we provide evidence to support our assumption that this neighborhood should be built in Lenoir?
There is one inalienable right that is possessed by the people who will live and work in this neighborhood: The right to pursue our own happiness to live in a comfortable place that is beautiful, friendly, and sustainable.
Somehow this day is strangely exciting. It takes an artist to change the world.