Pago Principle: Run toward what you fear, not away from it

Redevelopment projects can be a scary process, but community leaders need to manage their fear and address declining downtowns head on to save their futures.

Most people are afraid of change. Who likes to shake up the status quo? But sometimes it’s necessary to push through the discomfort for the greater good.

“Courage is doing what you’re afraid to do,” said Eddie Rickenbacker, a World War I flying ace. “There can be no courage unless you’re scared.”

It’s the same message we tell communities with declining downtowns: Fear must be managed; that’s courage. Run toward what you fear, not away from it.

Pago Principle: Fear of change begets decline

Many communities get stuck in the downtown death spiral—when the rate of decline overtakes the rate of improvement for core buildings in an area. Let’s say there’s 120 buildings in a community and every year three of them get an upgrade.

Over 10 years, the 90 buildings that haven’t been upgraded are deteriorating fast, and the ones that have been improved are going to need more work very soon.

Unfortunately, when the spiral starts, small communities doing small things won’t stop it. How do they break the cycle?

As we’ve written before, some communities may wait with open hands for the government or a big business to kickstart their economy for them.

But that’s not actionable, and there are no guarantees in passivity. As we’ve written before, communities jumpstart their own economic engines by investing in their downtowns.

Pago Principle: Take measured risks to succeed

The community of Van Wert, Ohio, is an excellent case study. Leaders there could see the decline of the downtown was a massive, intractable problem with no easy solutions. Who would fix all the aging buildings that needed millions in repairs?

They could have ignored it and moved on to tackle a smaller problem. Instead, they decided to do something about it, something that hadn’t been done before.

Van Wert’s leaders partnered with Pago USA and other organizations rooting for their rebirth. We guided them through the process of buying their strategic downtown buildings using private funds.

We helped secure state and federal resources to change not just a few buildings, but dozens of them across the entire downtown. Because a few key leaders in Van Wert took action, others saw the downtown project as a worthy investment.

Pago Principle: There’s no alternative to courage

Once Van Wert’s civic leaders realized they had a chance to save their downtown, they seized it despite the risks and the worries about what could happen.

It’s natural to fear failure or certain obstacles along the way, but Van Wert’s leaders also found they were not too difficult to surmount.

One Van Wert leader, Chuck Koch, rightly pointed out that if the community foundation didn’t want to upgrade one of the buildings it had bought, it could sell it. Or tear it down and start over.

Because Van Wert didn’t give in to fear of the unknown, it is in the midst of turning around the decades-long decline of its downtown. They ran toward what they feared instead of away from it; that’s courage.

It’s what every community needs for undertaking a redevelopment project large enough to turn around its economic future. Without a willingness to take measured risks, there won’t be real change.