If you haven't looked at that list since I first published it in July of 2013 you'll want to look again as I've updated it no less than 10 times since then with more horrid news about how Greensboro is failing to pass muster and the challenges we face.
Take for instance our very Internet connections which allow me to post this and you to write it. According to Susan Crawford–former special assistant to President Obama for science, technology and innovation:
"The rich are getting gouged, the poor are very often left out, and this means that we're creating, yet again, two Americas, and deepening inequality through this communications inequality."
And where does Greensboro stand in these 2 American internets? According to the map below taken from Gizmodo.com we fall in the bottom 50%.
The Greensboro City Council controls contracts with cable TV and Internet providers and can at the end of their contract revoke their right to do business here. The good news from Gizmodo is that there are no Pizza Deserts in Greensboro- a pizza desert being defined as any place where one has to travel more than 10 miles to buy a pizza.
On another positive note, if you can figure out how to use it this New Yorker interactive indicates the Greensboro area is a growing leader in craft beer production. Too bad Red Oak, Greensboro's largest craft beer brewery is located not in Greensboro but in Whitsett where they pay property taxes to the Town of Whitsett and buy their water from Burlington's Lake Macintosh. Hey, Councilman Zack Matheny, could that be one of those businesses Greensboro never lost because of Greensboro's higher tax rates? Just askin' that's all. You know, being that Red Oak used to be located in Greensboro.
Here's another via way of Gizmodo. The map of where Americans are moving indicates that people are flooding the Southland and North Carolina. That is: except for Greensboro. This city looks as barren as some of the mountain deserts of northern Arizona which, if you've ever been there, you know are mostly protected lands, national parks, Indian reservations and largely uninhabitable for average Americans.
Here's some interesting figures that Fec dug up recently in a piece titled Poverty In Greensboro:
"Mecklenburg and Greensboro have the largest shares of that poverty."
Haven't we spent the last 50 years trying to be like Charlotte/Mecklenburg? I guess Jim "Bobblehead" Melvin's dreams have finally come true. We're dirt poor just like Charlotte!
"Its poverty rate (2009-2011) counting off-campus college students: 20.1 percent."
That's right, what CEO in his right mind would move his company to any city where the poverty rate exceeds 20% and his is bound to be overrun by uneducated and untrained applicants, criminals and beggars on every corner?
" Poverty has moved to the suburbs.
And North Carolina’s 12th Congressional District leads the nation, according to a report issued Thursday by the Brookings Institution, a public policy research group in Washington.
The district, which runs from Charlotte to parts of Greensboro and Winston-Salem, had the nation’s highest growth of poor suburban people between 2000 and 2011.
The number of poor people grew 663 percent."
I checked, 663% is not a typo. Greensboro can no longer afford to wait for the State and Federal governments to help us. Tomorrow 1.3 Million people will lose their unemployment benefits-- the Greensboro City Council must act now!
Greensboro ranked high on the list of Most Foreclosures For Sale, As reported on this blog, those foreclosures included now former Mayor Robbie Perkins' downtown condo and $1.3 Million Dollar home in Irving Park-- Greensboro's most exclusive neighborhood. Now you tell me, what CEO want to hobnob with a bankrupt mayor who cheats on his wife, can't pay his bills and has the Securities and Exchange Commission breathing down his neck? Most CEOs I've ever heard of would prefer to stay as far away from the SEC as possible.
Why would any CEO move his company to Greensboro when the areas being pitched most by Greensboro are the highest crime areas?
Why would a CEO move his company to Greensboro when the of City of Greensboro is unable to provide documentation that their previous economic development projects for which citizens and corporations were taxed were in-fact a success? CEOs are number crunchers, they deal in facts, not fantasy.
And with that folks, I leave you to the original, Attention CEOs: Why You Don't Want To Bring Your Company And Your Family To Greensboro, North Carolina, AKA: Greensboro Sucks and bid you a happy New Year. If you live in Greensboro you're going to need it.
Update: 12% of our mortgages are ‘seriously underwater’
Update 2: Greensboro was rated 175 out of 200 for comparable city's in 5 year job growth.
Update 3: 33% Of Greensboro Urban Pop. Lives In Food Desert
Update 4: Greensboro Ranks bottom 10 in Equality of Opportunity Harvard Study.
Update 5: Greensboro is ranked a Transitional City by the Demand Institute in Greensboro Fails Another Test.
Update 6: Greensboro #4 For Empty Industrial Parks
Update 7: Most Gerrymandered City In America? Yep, that too.
Update 8: Greensboro at high risk of natural disasters.
Update 9: Downtown Greensboro Not Safe For Pedestrians
Update 10. April 6, 2016 Greensboro ranked poorly run and tickets issued because parking meters are broken.
Update 11: May 4: 2016: Greensboro Named One Of The Worst Cities To Start Career
