Small Towns, Big Ideas

Will Lambe, author of  Small Towns, Big Ideas: Case Studies in Small Town Community Economic Development, will be the featured guest for the next smallwander.com conference call.

The University of North Carolina’s School of Government, in collaboration with the North Carolina Rural Center published the book, which is the result of a yearlong study by Lambe, associate director of the Community and Economic Development Program at the School of Government.  The collection features real stories, from real places that are successfully confronting real challenges similar to those facing small communities everywhere, such as globalization, geographic isolation, urban sprawl, aging populations, and natural disasters.

Small Towns, Big Ideas profiles towns in 18 states ranging in population from 175 (Chimney Rock, N.C.) to 15,000 (Helena-West Helena, Ark.).  The case studies are told in an engaging narrative that includes information useful to civic leaders in small communities and policymakers dealing with rural development issues.

According to Lambe, “One of the main themes emerging from these case studies is that successful small towns tend to employ a range of strategies that cut across community and economic development broadly.  The case studies allow us to take the strategies apart and to draw conclusions about how and why particular strategies work across a wide range of small communities.”

Lambe is also interim director for the North Carolina Local Government Service Corps, a three-year initiative that will place graduates of the Master of Public Administration programs at UNC-Chapel Hill, UNC-Wilmington, and Appalachian State University into the service of economically distressed rural communities, beginning in 2009.  The Service Corps was initiated as a result of observing—during the Small Towns, Big Ideas study—the need for economic development and capacity-building assistance in many small communities.

Small Towns, Big Ideas can be downloaded from www.cednc.unc.edu/stbi.  The site also features a database of the case studies, searchable by criteria such as community type, location, and population.  A hard-copy of the publication can be ordered through the Rural Center’s website at www.ncruralcenter.org.

Our live conversation with Will will take place on Monday, March 30, at 10 am.  It’s free and open to the public.  There is also an option for you to type in your questions.  Immediately after the talk, a recording will be posted.

Here is the dial-in information:

EVENT:  Small towns, big ideas
DATE & TIME: Monday, March 30th at 10:00am Eastern
FORMAT: Simulcast! (Attend via Phone or Webcast — it’s your choice)
TO ATTEND THIS EVENT, CLICK THIS LINK NOW…

Judy Wicks on Local Living Economies

I went to a talk given by Judy Wicks last night at the NC Museum of History, hosted by the Center for Environmental Farming Systems.  As one member of the audience commented, Judy is a dynamo.

She is a co-founder of Business Alliance for Local Living Economies (BALLE), which builds networks of locally-owned businesses within communities that promote buying from each other, respecting the environment, and paying a living wage.  At home, she built the Sustainable Business Network of Greater Philadelphia.  Each of the networks draws on local experts representing the building blocks of a sustainable economy:  food, power, health, construction, etc.

She is a living example of following her conscience.  As the owner of the White Dog Cafe, she originally felt resistance to the living wage movement because she did not want to be told by others what she should pay her employees.  But after looking at the faces of her trusted staff, she thought, of course she wanted to make sure they were able to cover their basic needs.

This personal connection with people and place has been an ongoing theme for her.  She feels personally responsible for her restaurant’s location, which is also where she lives.  She has been living on the second floor of her brownstone building in Philadelphia ever since she fought to prevent it from being torn down to make room for a mall.  After a drought died up the natural areas close to home, she became conscious of how she was contributing to global warming and converted her restaurant to run on 100% renewable energy.

The White Dog Cafe is famous for being the first in the Philadelphia area to use humanely-raised cows and pigs and organic produce.  In order to make that happen, she had to personally set up a network of suppliers.  And, she didn’t stop there.  She felt strongly enough about shifting her local economy away from factory farming, the Cafe provided capital to help the suppliers distribute the good stuff to her competitors.  This grew into a non-profit, White Dog Community Enterprises, which receives 20% of their income from the for-profit restaurant.

Believe it or not, there is more.  Her life and work is a great example of the benefits of carefully building local living economies. Smallwander.com believes that towns that incorporate these principles are also great places to visit, since they are living and vibrant, take care of their people and animals, have unique activities going on, and celebrate the authentic.

Buy local podcast

Leon Tongret and Greta Lint discuss how buying locally helps small towns.

Download

Subscribe to podcast in Itunes.

NC Tourism matching grants

From the North Carolina Division of Tourism, Film and Sports Development…

DIVISION NOW ACCEPTING MATCHING FUNDS GRANTS APPLICATIONS

The Division of Tourism, Film and Sports Development is accepting applications for the Tourism Matching Grants program until 5 p.m. on August 22.  An important part of the state’s marketing efforts, the matching funds program assists local communities and non-profit tourism organizations with local and regional tourism marketing and development projects.  For guidelines, detailed information on the matching funds program and to download an application, visit http://www.nccommerce.com/en/TourismServices/PromoteTravelAndTourismIndustry/GrantProgramsAndResources

Buy local-online seminar scheduled

Photo by Keith Pomakis

This conference call is free and open to the public.  Please share your thoughts about buy-local campaigns.  Hear from experts.  Ask questions.  Smallwander.com offers free seminars about small town tourism and economic development.  Calls are held on the last Monday of every month at 10 am.  The seminars are later posted as podcasts.

Smallwander.com showcases locally-owned merchants, attractions, restaurants, and lodging to travelers seeking authentic small town experiences.

EVENT:  Buy local
DATE & TIME: Monday, July 28th at 10:00am Eastern
FORMAT: Simulcast! (Attend via Phone or Webcast — it’s your choice)
TO ATTEND THIS EVENT, CLICK THIS LINK NOW…
http://instantTeleseminar.com/?eventid=3630342

More about big companies in small towns

From Blogging Stocks…

Big company, small town: Corning Inc., Corning, New York

Posted Jun 30th 2008 5:05PM by Joseph Lazzaro
Filed under: Corning Inc (GLW)

This post is part of our Big Company, Small Town series, featuring large companies and the small towns in which they are headquartered.

Rest assured, the first decade of the 21st century is not likely to be remembered as a renaissance period in U.S. history. No one will confuse this decade with the Roaring ’20s or even the Wonderful ’90s.

Further, if the nation needs an example of rebirth and renewal — it would be hard to find a better one than the story of multinational corporation Corning (NYSE: GLW), nestled in the small town of Corning, New York.

Corning is your classic, feel-good American success story. And doesn’t the United States need a few of those today?

Moreover, Corning, arguably, represents one of the signature corporate transformation stories of the digital age.

[Read the whole post...]

Mainstreet podcast

Freddie Killough, Executive Director of the Marion Downtown Business Association and Bob Bamberg, Executive Director of the Alleghany County Chamber of Commerce, discussed the Main Street program of North Carolina in today’s monthly conference call.  Listen here: Main street managers.

Or, subscribe to the podcast.

NC STEP program training

I am presenting with Greta Lint at an NC Small Town Economic Prosperity (STEP) program training event.  Greta is giving a presentation titled “Using Tourism to Stimulate Your Town’s Economy,” including a marketing 101 segment.  My presentation, “Y-Web,” will touch on ways these communities can use technology to promote their towns.

The NC STEP program is sponsored by the North Carolina Rural Center to support small towns under 10,000 that are sturggling to overcome economic hardship through training, technological initiatives, and other strategies.

Why smaller is sometimes better

From Blogging Stocks

When the big company leaves the small town

Posted Jun 22nd 2008 5:10PM by Gary E. Sattler
Filed under: Employees

This post opens our Big Company, Small Town series, featuring large companies and the small towns in which they are headquartered. Watch for more Big Company, Small Town posts coming soon.

All across this great country of ours, small cities, towns, and villages have been built in the shadows of major companies that supply work for their local populations. It can be a wonderful situation that cultivates a special kind of community and a deep-seated local pride. However, it can also be a recipe for civic disaster, if the major supplier of a wage base in a locality goes out of business or leaves town. Such was the near disastrous fate of Park Falls, Wisconsin, not so long ago.

The city of Park Falls, which is Wisconsin’s most geographically isolated city, was built around its paper mill. At its height, the mill helped to bring the population of the city to nearly 4,000 inhabitants. However, in 2006 the paper mill, which was operating at reduced capacity under ownership from out of state, was shut down almost without any prior notice. The result was immediate and deeply wrenching turmoil. Not only had the paper mill workers lost an excellent source of income, but the collateral damage was jarringly significant also. Loggers had no local market for their pulp wood. Dozens of family-feeding log trucks were idled. Private contractors who did various types of work for the mill were left with thousands of dollars worth of unpaid invoices. Local vendors, retailers, and support businesses almost immediately went slack.

[Read the whole article...]

More on the collapse of suburbia

From Smash the Mirror

CNN: American dream has faded into suburban nightmare
Posted on June 17, 2008 by Brian Cesarotti

The collapse of the American dream or the beginning of a new one?

That’s the issue Lara Farrar explores in an article on CNN.com, relaying a story of how the once typical suburb of Elk Grove, California has turned into an abandoned, unkept, haven for young criminals. The foreclosures resulting from the sub-prime mortgage crisis and the increasing desire to live in a walkable community has one University of Michigan urban planning professor predicting a large shift toward “walkable urbanism” as already seen by Atlanta, Detroit and Dallas. Instead of labeling the American dream has “dying” he instead says it is “changing.” This view isn’t shared by everyone. The homeowner featured in the story says he would not want to move out of a suburban setting.

“”It’s the American dream, you know,” he said. “The American dream.”

Nevertheless, urban planning professor Christopher Leinberger predicts half of the urban development in 2025 will not have existed in 2000. In addition, about 22 million “McMansions” will be occupied by the several lower class families. This seems to be the only way to overcome the massive misallocation of resources that has been suburban development.

Thirty-five percent of the nation’s wealth, according to Leinberger, has been invested in constructing this drivable suburban landscape.

[Read the whole post...]