Nearly 100 people came together from all over Greensboro on Wednesday to discuss the city’s future.
The What’s Next Greensboro? event, held at the Guilford County Schools Community Education Center, was organized by the Greensboro Chamber of Commerce, Action Greensboro, Elon University’s Kernodle Center for Civic Life, NC Campus Engagement, the Guilford County Schools, The Assembly and its Greensboro newsletter, The Thread.
Everyone from elected officials and business leaders to students and community organizers converged for the dialogue on Greensboro’s assets, challenges and what’s needed to move the city forward.
“We really have a lot of strengths and assets as a city,” said Greensboro City Councilmember Adam Marshall, who joined in the evening’s series of breakout discussions on everything from the economy and housing to keeping more of Greensboro’s many college students in the city after graduation.
“We need everyone and every part of Greensboro engaged in the direction we want the city to go in the future,” Marshall said.
Dorien McLean, a current student at UNC-Greensboro, agreed.
“There are so many colleges and universities in Greensboro and they touch and move everything,” McLean said. “If we can make students feel like they’re part of the city and where it’s going now, they can see themselves as part of the city in the future.”
The event used a deliberative dialogue process adapted from the National Issues Forums Institute’s What’s Next, America? initiative, designed to help communities listen, consider different perspectives, identify priorities, and move toward action.
“We don’t have a strategy for what’s next,” Leslie Garvin, executive director of North Carolina Campus Engagement, told the crowd. “But the potential is here. If there’s energy, if there’s excitement about some of the ideas that rise to the top, we’ve got a lot of folks in the room who have capacity to keep bringing us together.”
Learning how to deliberate—to talk about both big ideas and specific ways to execute them—is important, Garvin said. It’s different from a lot of other ways people talk in public. Public dialogues are more inclusive, asking people to place as much emphasis on listening as talking and come to a consensus on how to move forward.
What emerged from an evening of dialogue at separate tables was concern about how to make sure both good jobs and attainable housing exists in the city. That will allow Greensboro to build on the energy of its seven colleges and universities, many people said throughout the evening, as well as emerging and growing industries like aviation technology which could transform the entire region.
As important as dialogue around problems and specific solutions is the act of coming together itself, said Sarah McGuire, director of Civic Engagement with Action Greensboro.
“Through these events, we want to elevate the importance of civic health while also creating real opportunities and outlets for people like you to engage with each other,” McGuire said. “We hope that tonight is not the end of that story. We hope that you’ll leave the meeting having met someone new, heard a new perspective you hadn’t considered, or feeling a little more connected to Greensboro.”
The What’s Next Greensboro? event was the latest in The Assembly’s series of Newsmakers events, designed to bring people together in Greensboro to discuss the civic health of the city and its most pressing issues. Look for more opportunities to be part of these events in our weekly Greensboro newsletter, The Thread.
