Many regional and local economic development associations, city councils and chambers of commerce groups are very pleased with their local downtown revitalization projects. What was turning into urban blight is now bring people back to the downtown sectors. This is bring back better paying jobs, tax base revenues and helping small businesses. It is also attracting re-investment and tourism and this is a wonderful thing indeed.

Since 1995 we have seen this trend move forward and by 2000 we saw such project in nearly every state in our union. In 2005 we saw how some had succeeded beyond anyone's wildest dreams while only a few had failed. The First Lady is also a firm believer in downtown revitalization and must be so proud of many of the cities in Texas that have rebounded so well with such promising vision.

As more and more cities work to bring forth urban renewal and downtown revitalization we are learning f

rom the successes of past projects. There are now entire organizations with thousands of pages of "how to plans” for cities, which wish to move forward and strengthen their local economies and rid the city of the blight and crime in trade for more jobs, investment and local tourism. Everyone wins in downtown redevelopment, especially we, the people. Think on this in 2006.

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