By: Leslie Cantu; Salisbury Post

Communities will get the quality of development they demand, said a smart growth and historic preservation expert Wednesday.
Ed McMahon, the Charles E. Fraser Chair on Sustainable Development at the Urban Land Institute, gave a presentation at Town Hall that encouraged planners and town officials to encourage development that fits into the character of Summerville, rather than generic development that could be found anywhere in America.
Not only does such development look better, but it helps tourism and economic development by improving the visitor’s overall experience, he said.
McMahon used Lancaster County, Penn., — Amish country — as an example.
People go to Lancaster expecting bucolic countryside, he said, showing a picture of an Amish man driving a horse-drawn buggy down a rural road.
Then he showed what the area actually looks like – a wide, busy road with not a tree in sight and signs sprouting atop each other advertising such attractions as the “Dutch Wonderland theme park.”
“People go to Lancaster County and they don’t come back,” he said.
As a result, despite extensive advertising, Lancaster County has seen a slow but steady decline in tourism, McMahon said.
McMahon’s presentation was filled with such “marketed image vs. reality” photos. He showed a photo of a historic columned house as it would appear in an advertisement, and then the view from the house itself: of a convenience store and a billboard advertising cigarettes.
The visual image of a community also factors into people’s decisions when they decide to move somewhere or move a company somewhere, he said.
The more Summerville starts to look like anywhere America, the less reason there is to visit, he said.
Summerville is actually starting with a lot of assets, he said, including beautiful houses, nature, and a downtown that’s more than just one street.
“You’ve got more assets than a lot of places in South Carolina,” he said.
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