"Vibrancy Index"

In 2006, downtown Winston-Salem had 50 restaurants and 15 retail businesses.  The greater city boasted 20 galleries and museums, 13 music venues, and hosted 670 cultural events and 7 festivals per year.  During the time period of July 2010-June 2011, those numbers increased to 81 restaurants and 76 retail businesses downtown, 16 music venues, 22 festivals (not including 2 biennial festivals not held this year), and a whopping 2,519 cultural events.

The numbers speak for themselves.  Interestingly, the information was presciently gathered by the Arts Council of Winston-Salem and Forsyth County to quantify the revitalization efforts going on in the city.  While there are a few caveats (such as the fact that "bars" were not counted as restaurants in 2006 but were in 2010-2011), the findings over this time period are nevertheless astounding considering they took place in the face of one of the nation's worst ever financial crises.