We need to address the following issues: connectivity (I'll explain later), economic development, and education. By connectivity I'm talking about a plan that focuses on the downtown, but not at the expense of outlying areas. I'm talking about strategically connecting affected areas such as Alberta, Forest Lake, etc... to flow toward the downtown making a big loop if you will. This can be achieved best through a combination of walking/biking paths, targeted public transportation and better road-traffic flow. Zoning and efforts to build "mixed use City Centers" along the way will best help achieve this goal. Each area should have its own focus - not to compete with other areas but to enhance and add value to Tuscaloosa--especially in the downtown area so that we can attract new businesses based on value and quality of life. (We can't attract higher value business downtown right now because commercial rents there are too low for developers to look at this! It's cheaper just to keep sprawling out to the county - letting the downtown die!) For education, we should place an additional emphasis on the schools serving the most affected areas and integrate community programs and even business incubators to these schools. Better education can only help Tuscaloosa attract new industry and better jobs, and why should we export our "brains" to Birminghan, Atlanta, and beyond? Economic Development can better be achieved through a city-wide emphasis on innovation. Programs based on a new & better rebuilt Tuscaloosa can include technology incubators that focus on combining the areas natural resources (including agriculture - green farming, renwable energy, etc...) with national trends, all the while seeking to take advantage of linking these efforts more closely to the University and area business leaders and investors. (I recently organized an event with the inventor of the I-pod, Jon Rubinstein to address these same issues. Though focused outside the US - these are our issues)