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Images of city monuments and iconography flashed across the screen last week as Mayor Nancy Vaughan took the stage at Piedmont Hall:
The Windsor Chavis Nocho Community Complex.
The city’s new hockey team, the Gargoyles.
Pickleball courts.
Top Golf.
The Tanger Center.
During the hour-long presentation Vaughan and other city leaders, including members of city council and City Manager Trey Davis, spoke about the year’s theme: the pathway to progress.
“As the mayor of this great city, I am proud to say we are realizing the mission for the city of Greensboro,” Vaughan said.
Vaughan highlighted many economic wins—a contract with semiconductor business IQE, a $305 million investment that should create more than 100 new jobs; Syngenta’s $140 million lab and office expansion as part of its 70-acre campus.
But not all those who watched the presentation agreed with the shiny outlook on the city.
Taking to Facebook, Guilford County School Board Chair Deena Hayes-Greene pointed out some areas that were notably excluded from the address.
“How is it possible that the International Civil Rights Center & Museum, the number one reason people visit Greensboro, was completely absent from the city’s vision of itself?” Hayes-Greene asked. The city deliberately left out the historic disinvestment of the area surrounding Benbow Park, Hayes-Greene wrote, despite recently becoming the first historically Black residential neighborhood to join the National Register of Historic Places.
For these omissions, Hayes called the presentation “a masterclass in selective storytelling.”
While the city pointed out initiatives like its re-entry program for formerly incarcerated residents, Hayes-Greene argued city leaders have not done enough to alleviate negative outcomes that disproportionately affect the majority-minority residents of Greensboro.
“None of it was acknowledged,” she wrote.
Rather, a bulk of the presentation focused on the city’s emphasis on the “play” part of the live/work/play mantra, including the opening of Top Golf, the creation of 40 pickleball courts at the First Horizon Coliseum, the upcoming season of the Tanger Center, and the city’s new hockey team.
At one point, the city unveiled a new autonomous van pilot program that would shuttle Tanger Center attendees from parking decks to the entertainment venue for free.
Some questionable data also cropped up as part of the presentation.
During his portion of the address, City Manager Trey Davis said the city has hired a “record number of sworn officers” in the last year.
In a follow-up email, Annette Ayers, the police department’s public information manager, said 60 sworn officers were hired in 2024. Asked whether it was a record-breaking number, Ayers called it “a great year for hiring,” but couldn’t confirm it was a record.
After the presentation, both Vaughan and Davis said they see one ongoing challenge, despite the city’s successes: housing.
“I feel like we’ve got to make sure we have adequate housing for the jobs that are coming here and the people that live here,” Davis said.
His priority is working with city leaders to make sure that the “right type of housing” is being prioritized, he said.
“We can’t just see all single-family housing,” he said. “We need different things like multiplexes and duplexes.”
In her eyes, Vaughan said, streamlining the permitting process is the way to go. But she also said “permits don’t necessarily translate to brick and mortar” and current interest rates and ongoing tariff conflicts may impact the ability to build housing.
“We’re going to see building may back off a little bit until there’s a little bit more trust in what’s going on,” she said. “So that one’s going to be hard.”
Still, during her final remarks, Vaughan compared Greensboro now to almost two decades ago after the 2008 recession when the city lost many of its legacy employers. With the introduction of the Toyota megasite and Boom Supersonic, both of which were announced in the last five years, she said the city is moving forward.
Vaughan said she’s “proud to be part of this team” but that she’s “comfortable” with stepping down after this year.
“It was not an easy decision to step aside, but one I’m really comfortable with,” she said. “So you know, I won’t be going far. I’ll still be hanging around.”
Watch this year’s State of the City Address on the city’s YouTube page here.
Sayaka Matsuoka is a Greensboro-based reporter for The Assembly. She was formerly the managing editor for Triad City Beat.
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