I visited Uniontown, Washington, in 2024, touring with Paul Kimmel and the Inland Northwest Partners. Uniontown’s population is 300 in town and 1,200 in the surrounding area. That’s definitely a small town. But that doesn’t mean it’s a unified town with a uniform sense of place and connection. Uniontown added a housing addition in the…
Exactly how to “Idea Friendly” your big challenge The Greater Salina Community Foundation invited me to a presentation of their community-wide needs assessment survey. I shared the Idea Friendly Method and told the story of how a store owner named Willow started a downtown cleanup movement by sweeping her own sidewalk in Pullman, Washington. After…
We aren’t slow. We’re busy doing all the roles. Why does everything seem to take so long in small towns? Why are so many rural projects weeks or even years late? It’s complicated and it’s also just real life. Real life like the new mural painted by students for Windom, Kansas, population 90, funded by…
What your stuck project needs more than money is activity When Tina Wolak shared a half-finished childcare center that got stuck, the whole room pitched in with ideas to help finish it. With the current crisis in childcare availability, no place can afford to let a half-finished center just sit there. This was at the…
When I spoke to the League of Oregon Cities, Councilor David Cunningham walked up to me and dropped a sheet of paper on the table in front of me. I have been dying to share this with you! David represents the City of Winston, population 5400. They had been having some problems in town. People…
How do you keep long-time community events and festivals alive? So many of you tell us how challenging it is finding and keeping volunteers, as well as keeping long time events alive with fewer people who want to do everything. Like the Watermelon Festival at Cave City, Arkansas. It started in 1980 with a one-day…
Being Idea Friendly, Taking Small Steps means you don’t have to do big projects all at once. Like that falling-down building in your town. You don’t have to raise the million-plus dollars to do a full rehab. In fact, you can start before you start, with a small step that feels so small it might…
If it doesn’t work, we can try something else I was in Walla Walla, Washington, population 34,000, on the rainiest day. Kathryn Witherington was showing me around downtown. What stood out was the difference between the perfectly planned park and the messy plaza experiment. The plaza started as an experiment. It was during COVID. Restaurants couldn’t…
A ‘cock and bull’ story At the League of Oregon Cities conference, I led an interactive workshop for city council members. One council member asked for help with a fight going on in their town about a bull, and I knew you’d want to hear about it. Their town has two major roundabouts. At the…
What’s oobleck? I had to ask too. It’s made of cornstarch and water, but it’s weird. At rest, it behaves like a liquid. Apply pressure, and it behaves like a solid. So if you hit it, it’s hard and your hand bounces off. Rest your hand on top, and you can sink in slowly. Obviously…
What makes you come alive? It’s not the committee list Everyone knows everyone in small towns, right? Well… I live in a place with about 30 people, and I don’t even know everyone. Next time you’re at an event in your town, look around. How many people could you name? A lot, I’m sure, but…
After my talk at the Canadian Beef Industry Conference, a couple came up to show me what they’d done with the Idea Friendly Method. On the postcards I hand out, they’d written their idea: “If our town had a small restaurant or cafe.” They live in a place with just a few hundred people, so…
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