By Eric Alexander, Executive Director of Vision Long Island
Reflecting on the state of our nation this July 4th gave me the realization that I have been blessed in the course of my last 30 years meeting tens of thousands of Long Islanders working diligently to improve their neighborhoods. This experience contrasts with the deluge of negative news media that tells us that we are all racists, wards of the state, illegal, unkind, at war with each other and fearful for our future. It is true that we are at a historically low level of trust with all things big – government, business, media, not for profits – but support for local community efforts, municipalities and institutions remains strong.
On Long Island we do have the voices of commentators that wring their hands with academic arguments about all that is wrong about our region from lack of housing choices, high taxes, energy costs, attacks on local municipalities and if we had one large government all would be better. In this barrage of hopelessness we ignore the low unemployment, strong quality of life, great schools, a beautiful natural environment, a growing diversity in population bringing cultural opportunities and many distinct downtown places that Long Islanders care deeply about and are undergoing transformation.
Like many suburban areas around the country we have problems that exist and persist we should recognize and support the myriad of folks actually tackling the problems our region faces community by community. Our team at Vision Long Island has been working with and recognizing the leadership of these local businesses, municipalities, community leaders, builders and design professionals for years at our Smart Growth Awards ceremony. This year 900 leaders witnessed this honorees that crystalize this hyper local community progress from AARP, Island Harvest, Jobs with Justice and projects and leadership in Hempstead, Farmingdale, Port Jefferson, Freeport, Valley Stream, Northport, N. Amityville and Great Neck.
Well beyond the leaders recognized this year 57 of Long Island’s 103 downtown business districts are actively working on revitalization programs, 40 have traffic calming projects addressing road safety and 40 have developed transit oriented development housing in their downtowns totaling over 10,000 units over the last eight years. Many have increased arts/music/culture and all of them have new restaurants, beautification programs, increased community events, festivals, fairs and other activities. From an economic point of view businesses are actively looking to site their operations in downtown locations and there are much lower vacancy rates in office space on Main Street than in traditional office parks across the Island.
What I would like to do with this column is give a true Main Street view as to what is happening on Long Island’s many downtowns and spotlight the changes and challenges facing the communities we care so deeply about. As a guy who lives on a Main Street for over 20 years and now raising a family here I hope to share a perspective that truly comes from regular folks. With that goal in mind please let me know what is happening in your community, how you see changes good, bad; what is working and new ideas. It goes without saying that the small businesses and local municipalities need your commerce, time and support of our Main Streets by patronizing them this summer and throughout the year.
You can reach me at ea@visionlongisland.org to dialogue on any of the above and I’m looking forward to the conversation.