“We have the same old events, Christina Baisden said, “There’s no vision, no imagination towards what we can create to make people excited about being here.”
Baisden is a local reporter and community organizer living in Beckley, a city that she feels doesn’t live up to its highest potential, particularly in regard to its downtown area. According to Baisden, much of this can be attributed to the fact that residents are often left out of city planning and decision-making.
“A lot of people do not ask what the community wants,’ Baisden said, “There’s a lot of assumptions that are made or businesses just being opened by corporate entities that have no desire to make Beckley into the place it was made to be. They’re focused on turning Beckley into a pit-stop. We have no real identity.”
Unreasonable property pricing is also a barrier for locals feeling inspired enough to invest in the downtown area for themselves. Baisden said more support from city administration, possibly in the form of subsidized leasing, could make all the difference.
“If you look at downtown, a lot of these buildings are $1,500 a month to $2,000 a month, “Baisden explained. “That is just too much for young entrepreneurs that could bring business downtown. There has to be an organized effort to bring people together to open up blocks and not individual businesses. I’m not talking about one or two businesses, but strips of businesses and that includes atmospheres and opportunities to just have fun.”
This was also a challenge named by The Investment Playbook for Rural Appalachia (TIPRA) during their work in Princeton, West Virginia. Once down-trodden with empty storefronts and deteriorating buildings, Princeton’s downtown area is now known as the vibrant and bustling Mercer Street Grassroots District. In addition to other sweeping changes, the City of Princeton enforced the “2018 Rental Compliance Program”. This program works to combat property owners who refuse to renovate or sell their building by ensuring that they have and implement a plan of action to maintain their properties. Otherwise, they risk paying the city a fine.
TIPRA supports downtown redevelopment and revitalization throughout Central Appalachia. Since Princeton began its revitalization process in 2013, the district now boasts monthly events, renovated store fronts, new restaurants, a coffee shop and lots of foot traffic. Much of this growth is attributed to investment in music, art, food and third spaces, which are considered places to gather and converse freely without the expectation to spend money.
Artist and Community Organizer Lori McKinney was and still is a key component in Downtown Princeton’s revitalization. She talked with LEUPHORIQUE.COM at Create Your State in Oct. 2025 about the importance of this work.
“Whenever you activate your downtown, it gives new life to the place,” McKinney said. “There’s something about the identity of a place that can become part of the fabric. So many communities have that history of their downtown as being their identifiers. So when you think of a certain place, you think of the downtown because of the buildings that are iconic or time squares that had all the history of gathering there.”
Before Downtown Princeton would go on to host epic events like the Downtown Countdown, All Together Arts Week and the Mercer Monster Mash, developers let McKinney and other passionate organizers know upfront that it would take about ten years to see real change in their area.
“People told us we were crazy,” McKinney said. “We got made fun of a lot in the beginning. It’s the long-game. It’s not going to happen overnight and you have to be willing to look at the small wins.”
Unlike Princeton and a growing number of surrounding cities and towns, it seems Beckley residents are left only to dream of a colorful downtown area to pass time in. While not completely unattainable, Baisden reiterates that true community must be at the center of any attempts at revitalization.
“Until we focus on the residents that live here and stop focusing on this idea that tourism is what’s going to reinvigorate our city, we have to build something that’s so good that people don’t want to leave,” Baisden said.
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