When someone looks up the word revitalize you will see the meaning as reinvigorate, reenergize, boost, revive, refresh and the list goes on.
When we talk about doing this to historic downtown Cochrane in order to give the businesses that dwell there a better chance to thrive, I can't help but wonder how this will make it thrive? As our town continues to grow, so does the demand to have stores that sells products at prices lower than typical market value.
Will the little shops downtown be able to continually compete with this? I truly feel that people will continue to patronize the big box discounters – which some are locally owned, by the way – for the basic fact that their prices are less, and that’s what we all want. Many of the boutique stores have built their businesses on offering goods that cannot be bought here in Cochrane, however with the larger stores coming in with similar products, and lower prices, will they find it harder to compete on that level.
When people say that they buy "locally," there is a misunderstanding that the little locally-owned shops are what is considered buying locally. In fact, people see it as buying within Cochrane, and not Calgary, as being locally bought, and yes that includes the big box stores.
Don't get me wrong, I feel that downtown Cochrane does embody a character, look, flavour and heritage that we are proud of, but is beautifying it by planting trees, benches and archway signs etc., going to actually make it thrive? I feel that no matter how much you improve the appearance of the downtown area, the bottom line is that you cannot overlook the unsightly closed/empty stores that are constantly popping up.
Unfortunately, there is no amount of beautifying that can correct the inevitable.
Monique Maddox
