Community vs money? Is it really that simple?

Here is an interesting post on Cool Town Studios that briefly talks about our society’s growing economic trend of spending money on events and experiences rather than material luxuries.  The idea of spending money on local businesses that offer authenticity rather than national chains that offer formula-based mass production is already significant in many other cities – can that attitude find its way in the Dayton region?  With places like The Greene packed with people while our independents fight for survival tells me that our region has a long way to go before this idea gains traction here, but how long will it be before people grow tired of generic experiences that can be found in Anywhere, USA and begin to discover the many great locally-owned businesses we have here?  How long will it be before this region’s residents figure out that the key to happiness does NOT mean isolated living in a suburban McMansion, but it can be found living in an urban neighborhood that has true character and true community?  Does Dayton have the foundation in place for attracting people who want to live in culturally diverse communities, or will we continue to see those people simply move to bigger cities to find the urban lifestyle they are looking for? 

Cool Town Studios
by Neil Takemoto
Link:
Community vs money? Is it really that simple?.

Balancing a sense of community vs. financial wealth isn’t a known inversely proportional correlation, but probably more so than you think…

Update (6/26/2007):  Our fellow blogger David Esrati has a similar conversation going on over here – it is nice to see this conversation happening out there…