Case:
Business High Point Chamber of Commerce
Project Overview
The Washington Street neighborhood has been a cultural and economic hub for High Point’s African American community since the 1800s and was once known as High Point’s “Black Wall Street” because of its concentration of black-owned businesses and cultural institutions, including hotels, pharmacies, and legal offices. Yet Washington Street’s bustling activity has declined in recent decades due to disruptive highway construction, the closure of an important educational institution, and broader disinvestment. Business High Point, the City’s Chamber of Commerce, has been working to increase investment in the area to develop new commercial spaces and bring more activity to the neighborhood from all across the city.
A team from Business High Point and Change Often, a social innovation firm, worked with EDDIT to ensure that the Washington Street corridor benefits from the city’s overall economic growth, reflecting both its historic role in the economic success of Black residents and the modern day diversity of the city itself. Washington Street can also provide a space for new homegrown commercial activity, as the eventual brick-and-mortar site of some of the businesses being supported and mentored through Thrive High Point, the chamber’s women and minority business ownership program.
Data Insights
Washington Street is located less than a mile from both the Furniture Market District and the core of downtown, which has been undergoing revitalization and investment efforts for the past seven years. It is also close to High Point University, which has experienced significant growth over the last two decades. This map highlights the proximity of the three areas, overlayed with the number of visits per day to different parts of the city, produced using cell phone data. This map can be used as a tracking metric to measure success as the work to revitalize Washington Street continues.
The Business High Point team uses this map to show how activity and development momentum in the highlighted zones can draw in a new wave of diverse business owners to the area, increasing prosperity throughout. They link a revitalized Washington Street with the success of the city overall, arguing that redeveloping and reinvesting in this corridor can make it a catalyst for even broader equitable economic growth.
There is great potential for the revitalization of Washington Street to be part of High Point’s economic development success story and a model of equitable development for historic neighborhoods across the country. The work produced by Business High Point and Change Often dovetails with the city’s current efforts to update their long-range comprehensive plan, which calls for denser development, a focus on downtown vibrancy, and improving walkability, bikeability, and transit connectivity across the city.
If you are considering working with the EDDIT team, do it. Do it. You will not regret it. You will learn a lot more than you thought you would learn.