I find it fascinating that the Green movement has increasingly become a marketing strategy by cities to make these cities seem more "livable" and in the process actually making it so. Air quality improves, clogged streets become bike arteries, traffic noise drops, local produce in Farmers Markets both provide fresh alternatives to grocery stores but also spur those grocery stores to buy local for their produce as well. City planners start to think about green spaces and walkability indexes. The cities become a bigger magnet for green businesses, which also has the effect of pushing more traditional industrial businesses to either become greener or to move their facilities, in the latter case denying them the top talent that increasingly migrates to the green cities over their industrial counterparts.

Once over the initial hump of changing a community's mindset the verdantization of a community tends to initiate a virtuous cycle. It doesn't happen overnight - it may take a couple of decades - but the difference between green and industrial communities are increasingly becoming obvious, and those corporations that are reliant upon an indifferent populace in order to minimize their reclamation costs are now increasingly finding it difficult to find such places to operate, or to lure people there to stay long term.

And the bike trails have made a big difference here. Now bike shops abound, kids are getting more exercise, families have wholesome free activity opportunities, and the whole vibe of the city seems to change. And yes, there are synergistic effects. This is a really big "church" town, being in the bible belt, and a whole lot of the churches here outreach to the large poor population through green initiatives--community gardens seem to be springing up everywhere, and there are lots of programs to fix broken bikes and distribute them to poorer sections of town.

Fortunately some of our business leaders have strong ties to the community and we have two new pedestrial/bike bridges across the Wolf River, one made with some sort of sustainable wood of some kind. And the bridge doesn't even have a corporate logo on it! There is still such a thing as altruism for its own sake, at least in a few places.