Proactive Approach Is Key to Small Town Progress
Program Draws 100+ to St. Ignace, Shares Progressive Town Ideas
By Amy Polk

At right: Dave Ivan describes to more than 100 listeners in St. Ignace, Tuesday, January 9, how progressive small towns are open to new zoning regulations and are willing to adopt land use methods that benefit the community.

The motto on Cedarburg, Wisconsin's Web site is "preserving yesterday's heritage today." The town has a main street bordered on each side by limestone buildings, and it proudly declares the street has not changed much since the early 1900s. Community appreciation for the town's old buildings led to preservation and the street's eventual placement on the National Register of Historic Places.

Dave Ivan, a community and economic development expert with Michigan State University Extension, called Cedarburg a town that "shines," and told 111 people at the "Can Small Towns Be Cool?" presentation in St. Ignace of the community's fight to become prosperous by using culture to its advantage. The town formed an artist guild 25 years ago and developed a cultural center and theater.

Cedarburg drew inspiration from another community when its planning director read that Internet sales could hurt the community's antique shops. Planners traveled to Kentucky to see what residents there were doing to save antique markets, and implemented an idea to bring local artists to antique shops for live demonstrations to attract customers.

"I think the lesson here is the proactive approach they took to improving their community by getting ahead of the trends and applying them to their own communities," Mr. Ivan said.

Taking lessons from other communities was the thrust of Mr. Ivan's Tuesday, January 9, presentation at Little Bear East Arena. Cedarburg is one of the nearly 300 villages and small communities Mr. Ivan and assistants profiled as part of a study to determine some of the traits successful small towns share. Success is demonstrated by appeal to young people, prosperity, and ability to attract entrepreneurs, new business, and more residents. Mr. Ivan shared growth in a time when they are fighting to retain residents lured by city amenities.

"The only way we collectively raise our communities is by sharing our successes," Mr. Ivan said.

Progressive communities that want to prosper and grow work hard to attract and retain young people, he said. They also strive to enhance communication between government and residents, and they look for ways to create better quality of life for residents.

Cedarburg's government, for instance, has a friendly Web site loaded with information, from permits to city grants for businesses. The Festivals of Cedarburg committee has been so successful with its own events that it now offers grants for other organizations that want to host events that benefit the community through culture and education.

Cedarburg had 2,245 residents in 1940 and has nearly 12,000 today.

Mr. Ivan said successful small communities realize that economic opportunity lies in culture like art, music, history, and theater, and many have taken advantage of local artists to help promote those towns. Petoskey is using its Crooked Tree Arts Center to bring people to its downtown. St. Joseph has an arts incubator, a place that provides inexpensive space for people to create without the overhead of buying a building. In Fergus Falls, Minnesota, one determined woman developed an art center and gallery for live performances and demonstrations in a vacant downtown hotel. Fort Atkinson, Wisconsin, recognized the importance of its Fireside Theater, which enjoys almost 100,000 patrons a year and worked to provide housing for performers who were having trouble finding inexpensive housing during the show season.

"Other places wouldn't do that. They would say it's a private sector problem," Mr. Ivan said. "But Fort Atkinson said, 'This is too important,' and they decided to help."

Another innovative approach to community development is working harder to find out what people are looking for in a place to live. The State of Michigan asked 13,500 college students and recent graduates what they are seeking when considering where they will live next as part of its Cool Cities project to make Michigan towns more attractive to job seekers and people seeking to return or relocate to the state. The survey revealed that these people are looking for diversity, art and culture, gathering places, a four-season climate, walkable streets, a music scene, historic architectural character, many different jobs, outdoor activities in natural settings, safety and security, close proximity to family and friends, a night life, people their own age, affordable housing and low taxes, low traffic congestion, and convenient transportation options.

"Frankly, [a lot of] people are at a place in their career where they could live anywhere because of technology, and communities need to reach out to them," Mr. Ivan said.

Some of the communities he investigated are actively pursuing their young population, heading into the high schools and middle schools to find what young people like about those towns. Jonesville built a rock wall at the request of a group of third grade students. When they were interviewed three years later, the students gave the town high marks, in part, because of the rock wall.

"Those kids remember that the community listened to them, and they engaged them in a community decision," he said.

National studies show that people who had good experiences in towns as youth often want to return to those towns, Mr. Ivan said. When older Jonesville residents were asked why they remained in the town, they frequently said "childhood memories."

"What we see repeatedly is, if individuals had a good experience growing up, they want to come back," he said.

Pictures are one proactive tool employed by another community to learn what young people think of the town, so they can make things better now before waiting to see who returns and why. Town leaders sent a group of high school students out with disposable cameras and asked them to photograph what they liked and disliked about their community. One girl returned, with tears in her eyes, Mr. Ivan said, showing picture after picture of vacant buildings she had photographed downtown.

"She said she was going to have to move because there is no economic opportunity in her town," he said.

In that instance, the local government was able to determine what the community could improve to make it more appealing to future and current residents. The town allowed students to paint and create displays to fill some of the vacancies and brighten the spaces, so the downtown would not look so desolate. Mr. Ivan told The St. Ignace News that such action is sometimes necessary to raise esteem or instill community pride.

"Often times when the downtown is the face of the community, the wrong message is being sent not only to outsiders, but also to the local residents," he said.

Listening to residents is another favorable characteristic of successful small towns, Mr. Ivan said, and some of those towns used creative methods to reach out to their constituents. St. Joseph holds "precinct meetings," which serve as neighborhood town hall sessions and attract 75 to 120 people. Mr. Ivan reported that the city manager there believes it is "critical to continually examine your connection to residents." In Marshall, Mr. Ivan said city leaders wanted to hear more from people who do not typically participate in government. They introduced "meetings in a box," which were kits that included surveys for residents to fill out and return to encourage participation.

The January 9 small towns presentation may be the springboard for similar discussion and initiatives in towns all over northern Michigan. Attendance was nearly triple what Michigan State University Extension expected for attendance. Most of the participants were from Mackinac County, but about one third were from Sault Ste. Marie, Pickford, DeTour, Newberry, Cheboygan, Mackinaw City, Rogers City, Emmet County, and Powers.

"For me, it was exciting, not just because of the numbers of people there, but because of the variety of people there," said Michelle Walk, MSUE director for Mackinac County.

The event also provided a great opportunity for local communities to share ideas and learn more about each other, said Cheryl Schlehuber of the St. Ignace Chamber of Commerce, which co-hosted the event and a follow-up reception at Colonial House Inn.

Since the meeting, at least three local communities are planning to discuss and possibly use Mr. Ivan's suggestions in the future. St. Ignace Chamber of Commerce has scheduled Mr. Ivan as its feature speaker for the May 17 Chamber of Commerce dinner. St. Ignace City Council and Clark Township Board have both scheduled discussion about the program at their next meetings. Clark Township is considering scheduling a meeting among all residents who attended the program to discuss future action.

Ms. Walk said as a follow-up to last week's presentation, she will send information to participants about upcoming workshops and grants, and updates from communities that want to share their own success and progress. To get on the e-mail list, call her at 643-7307.