UNCG story doesn’t flatter Greensboro area

What’s good for gown isn’t necessarily so for town.

The latest issue of the Chronicle of Higher Education, which covers colleges and universities nationally and internationally, features UNCG as its main front page story. It offers fairly favorable descriptions of the campus and describes challenges Chancellor Linda Brady faces trying to cut the budget.

What’s not so flattering is the view of what’s off campus.

“Erosion in textile  and furniture manufacturing and in tobacco processing has decimated the Piedmont triad,” the story says.  “With the exception of a small, new restaurant district on the south end of Elm street, the city’s main strip, downtown Greensboro has a feeling of desolation, with anchor building that are decades out of date.”

Wow! This seems excessive.  While the loss of textiles and furniture have hurt, the story makes no mention of Fed Ex, Honda Jet and RF Mico that have entered the area, the expansion of companies such as Replacements Ltd. and Timco and the continued prosperity of VF Corp. VF moved its headquarters here in the 1990s after earlier acquiring Blue Bell, a long-time Greensboro company.

Tobacco?  Maybe Winston-Salem needs a light for its historic tobacco industry, but Greensboro has seen growth in this commodity.  In addition to maintaining the giant Lorillard plant that has been here more than 50 years, the company moved its corporate headquarters from New York to Greensboro not too many years ago.

From the perspective of people who have been watching downtown for decades,  “desolate” seems exaggerated when compared to the real desolation of downtown in the 1970s and 1980s.  Since then, besides restaurants and bars,  there have emerged a baseball park that’s still relatively new, a city center park, a public library, a law school, a children’s museum, condominium complexes and other projects. Anyone who thinks downtown is desolate should go there after 10 p.m. Thursday through Saturday.

And what does the writer mean about the anchor buildings looking dated?  The high-rises,  Renaissance Plaza, the Jefferson-Pilot Building (now Lincoln National) and Wachovia Tower, still look fresh 20 years after being built.

Sounds like the reporter spent too much time on the UNCG campus, and not enough exploring the rest of the city.