New Mexico

revitalize downtown or what if we had an industrial park to bring in clean businesses or other ideas that help a city grow but limit sprawl and too many cars, etc.
Leaders are those who take those ideas and come up with practical plans to make the ideas a successful reality. In the years I lived 15 minutes south of Cruces in a rural solar home, I saw lots of good dreams coming from the dreamers but little that lasted.
Take the case of the downtown. They closed off the street to traffic to provide a pedestrian walking area for downtown stores but never figured out how to attract people to them. My town in North Carolina, on the other hand, didn't totally close downtown to traffic but made it a very slow drive with some parking and only closes it for events then came up with tons of events on most weekends from late spring to early fall, live music with dancing and beer and wine one Thursday a month and weekly dancing to live music but no beer every Friday. Even during the cold months, they have events but not as often. Ours has been successful forever but Cruces' died because they had no leaders willing to commit the money, change things that didn't work, and promote downtown with the businesses there.