A new Fresno organization has an impressive agenda, including halting the community's "brain drain," fixing downtown and making the entire city more livable. The Creative Economy Council just finished a report on improving Fresno, and its recommendations will soon be made to City Hall.
You can read the report by going to http://www.fresnocec.org/. The group offered nearly 100 recommendations on making Fresno better. A key goal is attracting more "knowledge workers" to the city. Most of the CEC members are creative young professionals who are bringing a new perspective on revitalizing downtown. We're fortunate to have these folks getting involved instead of getting frustrated and fleeing to other cities.
True to its name, the group has developed a creative way of making its many points. One is the March on the Mall scheduled for Feb. 28. That’s also the day the CEC report will be presented to the City Council. The march on the Fulton Mall should create quite a buzz around the report.
The march is aimed at demonstrating how vibrant Fresno could be if our leaders embraced the creative possibilities. Hundreds of volunteers will be on the mall that day playing out a variety of vignettes of urban life.
According to the CEC’s Web site, you’ll see:
-- Gatherings of artists painting on their canvases.
-- “Knowledge workers” sitting on benches with laptops pretending to access a free Wi-Fi network.
-- Professionals standing in line at a fictional trolley/light rail stop waiting for the next train.
-- Shoppers with shopping bags bustling up and down the mall.
-- Street performers, such as magicians, jugglers, guitar players and others entertaining mall visitors.
-- A group of tourists on a guided tour of the Fulton Mall.
The Creative Economy Council has a lot of enthusiasm and a lot of ideas. That can only be good for Fresno.
The March on the Mall should be lots of fun. It's a simple way to demonstrate that you support bold and creative action to revitalize downtown.
If you'd like to participate, just show up at 12:00 on 2/28 at the Clock Tower on Fulton Mall - that's it. We'll have volunteers there who will fill you in on what to do. See you there!
We had street performers downtown and still do. Just need to look for them since there running from the police as panhandlers.
Fix Fresno? Its real simple offer 5% first time buyer loans for anyone to own homes in Downtown Fresno. Must prove residency for 5+ years. Oh and the only qualifier for the loan is income not credit check. There must be a local bank that would be willing to work with the city on something like this.
The easier you make ownership of downtown the quicker downtown will grow.
Just returned from the Bay Area and they are planning wireless connections free to the Internet anywhere in town, not only SF but other towns.
Fresno should start to do things like this to attract the Internet crowd. Then we would really be "in."