Each time I visit Greenville I am surprised about the change of downtown Greenville during the last 15 years. A dormant, lifeless downtown, where shops and restaurants were boarded up, homeless people slept in abandoned, empty hotel ruins and long lines formed in front of the Welfare Department is now an elegant, almost Italian-style, green metropolitan city. Variously designed urban and green spaces, sometimes furnished like a living room, offer entertainment, relaxation and almost daily free cultural events.
In 1997 all this was very different. It was a hot muggy summer day, when we traveled from Spartanburg on Wade Hampton Boulevard into Greenville for the first time. Before reaching Greenville we passed through Spartanburg and were already petrified. Spartanburg presented itself as a stale old textile town, which makes it seem to be frozen in time. The city and the Morgan Square were nearly abandoned. Many shop windows were sealed with boards. A completely antiquated and moldy furniture business, "Kimbrell's," offered furniture that looked like it was left from the sixties. A wig and a clothing store did not look much better. In this bleak environment there was.....

Unpublished Story about the rapid change of the city of Greenville, South Carolina spanning a period of 15 years.
In the Greenville area are the headquarters of many international companies such as BMW and Michelin, as well as many German and internaltionale automobile suppliers.

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