Winston-Salem’s resurgent downtown is no overnight success

winstonsalemskyline

Triad Next, my monthly column in the Triad Business Journal, looks at the revitalization of downtown Winston-Salem, which my radio report was based on. The full story is here on Medium.com.

Excerpt: From Krankies Coffee on the east side to Camino Bakery in the center to Moselles Fresh Southern Bistro in West End, downtown Winston-Salem – which, unlike downtown Greensboro, preserved so much of its original architecture, from storefronts to factories – is alive and buzzing and growing…Yet to truly appreciate all that’s happened and continues to happen – look at the new deluxe apartments in Plant 64, look at Mast General coming to Trade Street – it’s important to remember how desolate and dreary this huge swath of town was just a decade-and-a-half ago.

Downtown Winston-Salem, a remarkable renaissance long in the making

In some form or fashion, I’ve been writing about and experiencing revitalization efforts in downtown Winston-Salem for more than 25 years — since we lived in West End with our young family (1988-1993). The wide-scale progress that’s taken hold, and appears permanent, in the past decade or so, is pretty remarkable. I talk about all that in this radio report on 88.5 WFDD.

Surprise — North Carolina a national leader in solar energy

A report released earlier this month by the Pew Charitable Trust extolled the virtues of a “new cash crop” in North Carolina. It’s not hogs or chickens, tobacco or soybeans. WFDD contributor Justin Catanoso gives the answer in his column this week in the Business Journal. “It’s solar energy,” he says. “North Carolina has 100 solar energy farms, which is the fifth highest capacity in the country.” Here’s the radio report on 88.5 WFDD.

Woods Hole Research Center responds to misleading NY Times op-ed on climate change

Climate scientists everywhere reacted with stunned outrage  as word spread about an op-ed piece in the New York Times on Sept. 20, 2014 under the headline: “To Save The Planet, Don’t Plant Trees.” Operating on kernals of truth that distort and misinterpret far larger facts and realities about the role of forests — tropical and otherwise — in mitigating the damage of climate change, Nadine Unger, an atmospheric chemist at Yale, wrote, somewhat incredulously, “It is a myth that photosynthesis controls the amount of oxygen in the atmosphere. Even if all photosynthesis on the planet were shut down, the atmosphere’s oxygen content would change less than 1 percent.” Not so, climate scientists say. Not even close.

The full story is here at National Geographic NewsWatch.

Photo by Justin Catanoso

Triad Next: Room for Collaboration

What a collaborative workspace looks like.

What a collaborative workspace looks like.

My second column in the Triad Business Journal, published Sept. 26, takes a look at the trend toward collaborative workspaces in the Triad, with a focus on Flywheel, which opened recently in the Innovation Quarter in downtown Winston-Salem.  I posted my column here on Medium.com while it’s behind the TBJ paywall for a month.

Excerpt: “According to a recent Gallup survey, about one-third of the U.S. employees operate outside the traditional confines of office towers, cubicles or factories. In other words, one in three American workers don’t have a traditional place to work.”

Triad joins the trend in collaborative work spaces

According to a recent Gallup survey, about one-third of the U.S. employees operate outside the traditional confines of office towers, cubicles or factories. In other words, one in three American workers don’t have a traditional place to work. My radio report on Sept. 26, 2014, based on my Triad Next column in the Triad Business Journal, looks at the growing movement in collaborative work spaces with a close look at the newest — Flywheel in Winston-Salem.

Fixing Climate Change May Add No Costs, Report Says

A wind turbine being installed in northern France. Research says the benefits of such efforts may offset the cost of subsidies. Benoit Tessier/Reuters
Justin Gillis, the New York Times climate change reporter, breaks a story that sounds like science fiction, but is plausible with enough political will in countries such as the U.S., China and India — the world’s leading emitters of greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming.
The story, published Sept. 16, is here, and it follows a trend of more optimistic, solution-based reporting on the issue of climate change.

Triad Next: Triad builds framework that suits creative class

Joey Adams, 33, a Greensboro software developer, is co-founder of The Forge, a makerspace in downtown Greensboro.

Joey Adams, 33, a Greensboro software developer, is co-founder of The Forge, a makerspace in downtown Greensboro.

When I was executive editor of the Triad Business Journal from 1998 to 2011, I wrote a weekly front-page column titled Triad Talk. After a three-year hiatus, Editor Mark Sutter agreed to my idea to return as a monthly columnist with a new name, Triad Next. The first column on the Triad’s growing support for young, creative professionals ran on Aug. 29, 2014. It’s behind a paywall for 30 days. But you can see it on Medium.com before then.

Excerpt:  Take downtown apartments and ballparks, coffee shops, microbreweries, art hops,food trucks, live theater and bike paths. Add in idea slams, accelerator labs, collaborative office space, entrepreneurial meetups and business incubators. That’s when the perception shifts. That’s when you hear something like this: “I see no reason why I can’t build my company here,” says Chris Padgett, 26, founder of Fusion 3 Design, a 6-month-old 3D-printer manufacturer in east Greensboro. “It’s places like this that make me optimistic.”

Photo by Justin Catanoso

Sun and Wind Alter Global Landscape, Leaving Utilities Behind

 New wind turbines in the North Sea off Germany. Renewable resources account for 30 perent of Germany’s power generation, more than twice what the U.S. produces. Photo: NY Times.

Justin Gillis, the New York Times’ climate change reporter, writes: “Of all the developed nations, few have pushed harder than Germany to find a solution to global warming. And towering symbols of that drive are appearing in the middle of the North Sea.” The Sept. 13, 2014 story is here.

Excerpt: Electric utility executives all over the world are watching nervously as technologies they once dismissed as irrelevant begin to threaten their long-established business plans. Fights are erupting across the United States over the future rules for renewable power. Many poor countries, once intent on building coal-fired power plants to bring electricity to their people, are discussing whether they might leapfrog the fossil age and build clean grids from the outset.