Abandoned cities of the South

"Downtown" Greenwood, Mississippi

Downtown Greenwood Mississippi, similar to other towns I've been driving through in the South is well laid out, with beautiful brick streets and sidewalks, a mix of single- and multi-story buildings, trees, and a strong character unique to its place in Mississippi. The Yazoo river flows through the edge of downtown, providing with it a grassy park along its banks and a welcome respite from Mississippi's summer sun.

Unfortunately, the original downtown is all but deserted. The beautiful brick streets have been mostly paved over with asphalt, on every block at least one or two empty lots serves as a parking lot, replacing the original building that used to exist on the site. And where have all the people and stores gone? Two miles down the road to a generic, sprawling 5 line highway of strip malls. The question then is why did this happen and why do we keep building this way even today?

One lifelong resident of Greenwood said that the new strip malls were important because people liked their cars, and the downtown didn't have sufficient parking. Okay, so makybe the problem is parking. Currently the entire 15 block downtown has one or two operating businesses per block and only 1 parking space in 20 is used. In this scenario, perhaps some uses, such as grocery stores are best suited to be on the edge of town. There are plenty of uses however that are more amenable to pedestrian traffic and help to create a sense of vibrancy and livelihood - restaurants, bars, small retail shops, barber shops, professional services. Unfortunately, it's not clear that anybody truly misses their downtown or that anyone minds their community experience being driving up and down the highway to get from one generic strip mall to the next. Clearly, the role of the pragmatic urban planner is to first understand if locals even want a vibrant downtown, or if they prefer their lives driving from home to work to stores, which certainly may be the case.

Sprawl in Greenwood with an option to build on new greenfield

A turnaround?
Viking range company, founded by a hometown resident founded its headquarters in the historic downtown. The company is becoming a vibrant part of the city, building 3 plants on the outskirts of town, converting a former car dealership into its cooking school, converting a nother property into its showroom, converting a historic building into the state's only 5-star hotel, and attempting singlehandedly to bring life back to the city's center.