It's easy to dismiss Placerville's decision to slap a 45-day moratorium on opening or relocating thrift stores as just another sign of the harsh economic times.
The El Dorado County town's council voted for the restrictions after three new thrift stores opened in the last year, with two others in the planning stage.
The final straw prompting the moratorium could serve to symbolize the plight of not just Placerville, but the nation. As Cathy Locke reported in an article in Thursday's Bee, an existing thrift store wanted to move into the long-vacant building that for three decades had been the home of the Placerville Ford auto dealership.
But if the thrift store boom in the foothills is a reflection of the recession we all face, it also has a positive side. It isn't just that stores selling used goods encourage, well, thrift, and very often support worthy nonprofit causes. It's that their proliferation usually serves as a reminder that an area has to find a new foundation for economic growth. And Placerville, to its credit, seems to have made that realization.
A lot of people in this region might think of Placerville solely in terms of its historic Gold Rush-era downtown or as a place to stop on the trip to Lake Tahoe. But many in the town of 10,000 feel it can be a lot more, and have begun to seriously explore what that could be, and what will have to be done to get there.
The city has commissioned a feasibility study that is the first step in a major redevelopment effort. A civic organization called the Placerville Area Convergence Team has strongly supported the effort and offered its own ideas of how the city could be revitalized. Merchant groups are shaping visions of the future of their business districts.
Clearly, those visions will need funding if they're going to be turned into reality. But Placerville has realized that it won't be able to base its future economy on thrift stores – or even auto dealers.
Like many cities, it is struggling. Unlike many, it has begun to map a route to a better future.
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