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The very first time I ran the Survey of Rural Challenges, I was only asking people what topics they wanted me to write about on my site Small Biz Survival. I never expected to share the results as a public report. Once I read what people told me about their towns, the challenges they were…
Each town I visit that has had any success with housing has it’s own special way they did it. Some places have special resources. South Dakota has a governor’s houses program. Kansas just changed their state housing bond initiative to make second story lofts eligible. But that doesn’t help you if you’re not in those states. Tionesta,…
Whether your town is growing fast or in a decline, keep renewing your core. No one likes a mushy core, in an apple or a small town. Make the most of your existing water and sewer and street. Build more in the center, less on the outside. Draw your community closer together. People who live…
When I spoke to the Oklahoma State University’s rural economic development course again this year, the students had great questions as usual. One student asked how the small town they were studying could stop people from going to the nearby big city to spend money at stores and restaurants. It’s a question I think many…
When the next crisis hits, where will your community turn for food? It doesn’t matter if it’s a disaster, a pandemic, an economic crunch, or some other variation of catastrophe. We all have been reminded that there will be a next one. Right now, a lot of work is going into being better prepared and…
Just a few months ago, some anonymous good neighbors noticed a dangerously dilapidated footbridge on a city park walking trail, so they replaced it with a new safe footbridge. The city didn’t take it well. The city posted on Facebook asking people to turn in the bridge builders, as though they had committed a crime. Of…
At the end of 2020, Deb and I talked about what is going on in the world. We wondered what we could do to make a difference in the face of so much division and hatred. Here’s what we decided. Throughout 2021, our commitment to you is to help you build community and unify diverse…
Scott Clark travelled #EverySingleStreet of Cornwall, Canada, and shared his thoughts on Twitter. “You can observe so much more on foot or by bike,” he said. As soon as I saw it, my brain lit up! What could we–all of us in small towns–do with an “every single street” project? You could walk (or bike…
What brings your community together? What gets people to rally around your town? What if it was as simple as paint by numbers? In Webster City, Iowa, four groups (government, business, education and a nonprofit) created a creative placemaking art project that everyone in town could be involved in. They picked a downtown building with…
Here’s how we picked our name. Deb and I had decided to do a project together to work with small towns. We were trying to decide on a name. Deb was searching for domain names, and found out .town was a thing now. Almost immediately, she came up with SaveYour.Town, and it was available. So…
Small towns run on volunteer energy. In the new Idea Friendly way of volunteering, not everyone has to volunteer in the same way. Even clicking ‘like’ can count as a small but meaningful part of a project. But how do you get people to even click ‘Like’?That was the question in the chat at one…
You’re at a gathering with a group of people. You’re coming up with ideas for things that you could do. Someone is writing them all down. What happens next? In the Old Way, the next step is to vote on the ideas everyone will work on together. Maybe even voting with sticky dots. In the…
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