THE REVOLUTION COTTON MILL in Greensboro, North Carolina was the largest mill of its kind in the world. In its time, it represented innovation and progress. Viewed from McAdoo Heights, a mill workers’ neighborhood, the chimney stack still has a big presence although much of the rest of the factory has fallen into ruins or has been demolished. A small portion is being refurbished as offices. The name originally proposed for the new plant was Revelation, a weird mixture of showmanship, business pride and religious zealotry that’s common to the Southern mind. The mill and industrialization had a profound effect on the entire region. For the majority accustomed to an agricultural way of life, the order of factory employment rearranged their lives, their economic and social future. Revolution was not their first choice, but it was more accurate.
Today, the region has been hunting for a new revolution, trying to fashion itself as a center for design innovation, as a transportation hub, as an “aerotropolis”, as a cultural venue, as a bio-tech center, and so on. These are all big ticket items requiring public money, unlike private enterprise symbolized by the area mills of days past. As the plans and initiatives keep coming in, I wonder if this is the way to go. In the past, Winston-Salem was dominated by tobacco and R.J. Reynolds just as Greensboro was dominated by textiles and the Cones. Today we accept the wisdom of a diversified economy replete with many “lifestyles” if we wish to attract the “creative class” and keep bright and intelligent young people in the area. Diversification continues to be a work in progress but it's a flexible one to which green projects, energy efficiency, and small entrepreneurial efforts can be attached. But if geography is destiny, then a modern transportation hub may be Greensboro’s “natural” and most obvious direction for the future. Pursuing smart policies that build on this may prove to be the most fruitful only because the pathway is clearest and could lead to the greatest number of decent paying jobs.
Pursuing high tech industries with high paying professionals is in many ways an easier, more tempting approach because it avoids the controversies that have plagued the Piedmont and much of the South: low wages, poor education, and right to work laws. When cities bid on employers to come to the area (Dell is an example) they justify the expense with jobs. But no discussion ever ensues about the wages these jobs pay and whether they allow for a worker to marry, raise a family, send his kids to college and save for retirement, because in most cases, they don't. For decades, the way in which working and middle class families survived with flat wages has been by having two parents work. Chasing high tech jobs (for the solidly professional, upper middle class) poses many different problems (such as the quality of schools, art and cultural events) but it’s difficult to imagine the services for these elites (with snazzy malls, boutiques, art galleries, spas, and golf club memberships) would provide enough jobs for the majority of the population.
Any meaningful discussion about the area’s future has to tackle wages. If most area jobs, whatever they are, cannot pay enough for a secure standard of living, then we’re in deep trouble. Most policy makers and planners prefer to kick these matters upstairs, saying these are national problems too complex for regional and local solutions. Which to my ear sounds like (to use an old phrase) a cop-out or the kind of provincialism, small thinking and lack of imagination the area has suffered from for too long.
At least the Revolution Mill provided direct employment to a lot of working class citizens and the mill houses (“honest architecture” as one architect described them to me) still stand. My wife and I live in one and each evening when we walk the dog, we have a beautiful view of the Revolution smoke stack catching the last light.
