Rabbi Will McCubbins, China Grove, N.C.
♦ Yesterday I was sitting in my truck reading a free copy of the “fish wrapper” littering someone’s lawn over in the country club. I read about the County’s alleged research coming up with a brand for the county. The flying saucers have landed! The county got suckered big time paying out all that money for rebranding when nobody really pays attention to county branding anywhere. When people visit places they go there because the place has an attraction or several attractions they want to visit. I and most people travel over to Concord and Afton Ridge, not because they are in Cabarrus County, but because those places have things I want or things I want to do. Also you don’t really have to watch your back going there like you do in Shotzbury. Get real–nobody thinks about counties.
What makes this so-called branding even more malodorous is it really isn’t about the County, it’s all about Salisbury. And the barenaked facts are that sadly nobody is really going to Salisbury or staying it seems. I drive through Salisbury almost daily on my way to do most of my work down in the country club. Sometimes I drive through the Downtown area around Main and Innes. There must’ve been 26-28 first floor vacant store fronts maybe more because some store fronts had stuff placed in the windows to make them look lived in.
Somebody should open a gun store down in one of those empties. Of course doing business down there is too expensive so maybe that’s not such a hot idea.
Anyway I read this branding research. They were knocking East Spencer and touting Salisbury. Okay they’re not rich in East Spencer, but they don’t have the crime like Shotzbury. Areavibes.com says that East Spencer gets a B for Crime while Shotzbury rates an F. No surprise there.
Like Salisbury is the center of the universe and is going help the county with history, architecture, arts, culture, shopping, business, and restaurants. The fact is there’s much more history out in the County than in Salisbury. Read “Rowan County: A Brief History” by James F. Brawley and “A History of Rowan County, N.C.” by Rev. Jeffrey Rumple. You can read them for free on the RFP:
Most of the few actual historic buildings and landmarks in Salisbury are long gone. The Salisbury Prison is gone. Grimes Mills burned down. The Office where Andrew Jackson once law clerked was lost in transit and replaced by replica. The Shober Bridge isn’t the same bridge, but an inexact replica built 40 yards away from the original footings in the 1930’s by the Civilian Conservation Corps. The house, where Andrew Jackson once lived on Main Street, is gone. Fact is the citizens of Salisbury ran off “Old Hickory” Andrew Jackson, our president and the hero of the Battle of New Orleans, because he liked to party and brought whores to a big Salisbury Social dance.
According to Areavibes.com Salisbury is an awful #202 ranked city/town in North Carolina with a livability score of 76. Yet Granite Quarry was #81ranked city/town in North Carolina with a livability score of 79. And Rockwell was no slouch at#95ranked city/town in North Carolina with a livability score of 78. If you are fixing on moving out of Salisbury you might want to try your luck in Granite Quarry or Rockwell. The County schools are nowhere near as bad as Shotzbury’s. Before you move to Mooresville, Middleton, Huntersville, Concord, or Winston-Salem or other cities in North Carolina with far more livability than Salisbury, consider the County cities.
