• An article in Atlantic Monthly by Richard Florida titled How the Crash Will Reshape America that focuses on the fundamental change wrought by the recession and the areas that will be winners and losers in the process.  To put it simply he writes that the areas that will prosper are those that effectively cultivate an economy based on the creative class, and not heavily dependant on manufacturing.  He also references research showing that cities with a greater population density of creative and professional types leads to more innovation which in turn spurs economic growth.  In the article he talks about mega-cities like New York, but there's no reason that similar formulas can't work for mid-tier cities like Winston-Salem, especially when they are within shouting distance of other hubs of creative and professional classes like RTP and Charlotte.
• An article about the growth of Winston-Salem's downtown and it's potential to grow even more.  See the bullet point above for why this is important. 

While it might seem like things are moving slowly, what Winston-Salem is doing seems to be pretty smart.  If things continue to develop well then eventually the city will have a core comprised of a few square miles filled with what every city center needs: office space of varying quality and expense, restaurants, retail (need lots of work there), arts and other entertainment venues, apartments and condos.

While it's wholly appropriate to debate the use of public dollars to entice businesses to move here or help finance ballparks, it's also important to keep in mind that we're lucky that city leaders seem to have a fairly coherent strategy for downtown development.  The city leaders aren't perfect, and not everything is working as expected, but I think we're in much better shape than many cities in similar situations because we are primed to take advantage of the direction the economy is heading in America.