If, as Greek statesman Pericles of Athens once put it, “All good things on this Earth flow into the city,” then he might well have considered cash, construction, manufacturing and jobs bad in these modern times. 


Take a look around, and you’ll see none of those things are flowing anywhere in California. Between the economic collapse, the recession, double-digit unemployment and the wholesale gutting of redevelopment agencies, all good things are, at best case, barely at a trickle.


But there are signs of life, and a sense that with iron will, private capital and a little cooperation on the part of local governments, a handful of projects are poised to spring to life in Monterey County – projects that could reinvigorate local downtowns and bring temporary construction jobs, permanent employment, retail dollars and sales tax revenue along with them. 


In Salinas, Bruce Taylor and his Taylor Family Farms, a company with estimated sales exceeding $1 billion annually, has entered into an exclusive negotiating agreement with the city to build a five-story world headquarters, with ground-level retail, on the site of a parking lot adjacent to the National Steinbeck Center. If Taylor is able to break ground next January as the company hopes, within a year or so Oldtown Salinas could see upwards of 400 people permanently employed at the new facility. 


In Monterey, developer Doug Wiele, who brought to life the first LEED-certified retail development in the state with his Trader Joe’s on the site of the old Safeway, has plans to do it again on an even grander scale, envisioning a restaurant and gourmet food complex on a site where fire destroyed 20 businesses on Alvarado Street in 2007. More tourists visiting Alvarado Street can only be a good thing: good for the hotels, good for the Osio Theatre and good for surrounding nightlife.


But again, it’s going to take will and capital. And for some cities, it may also take a new way of thinking. Infill development of the aforementioned type doesn’t take new zoning or code changes, but it does take cooperation, on the part of staff and on the part of neighbors who will be temporarily impacted by construction. 


All good things can flow again. Now we just need to get to work.

Get in depth looks at the cities below.

Struggling in Salinas

Mediocrity in Monterey

Status Quo in Sand City

Golden State of Frustration

Promise in Pacific Grove

Mixed Messages in Marina

Stalling in Seaside

Salvage Love