Building Great Rural Places

Who builds…and maintains…great rural places…and how do they do it? 

There are builders who see opportunities and seize them.  We call them entrepreneurs.
There are builders who manage already built good things and keep them viable and ever renewed.  We call

them stewards. There are entrepreneurs and stewards who not only build and maintain for themselves and their organizations, but, with great passion for place also build for their communities.  We call them place builders. 

For the past three years, the WAEM Regional Initiative has been seeking out rural place builders to build more great rural places and, thereby, a globally competitive region.  WAEM place building outreach has taken two tracks:

1. Enhancing the capacity of existing place building programs to do more; and
2. Building the capacity of community and junior colleges to foment place building activities in their communities.

ENHANCING CAPACITY
“Communities today face challenges in workforce, transportation, housing, open space, and social inclusion,” writes the Alliance for Regional Stewardship. 

Looking at all this from the “glass half empty” perspective can be overwhelming.  Many, if not most, rural places are challenged on a daily basis to do what they do now.  Or, as Cheryl Morgan, one of Alabama’s great rural place builders, says “We are not always used to seeing our assets, but we are quick to see and acknowledge our problems.” 

Dr. Morgan, director of Auburn University’s Urban Studio, operates Alabama’s Small Town Design Initiative (STDI), one of the existing programs WAEM has adopted.  STDI helps struggling communities turn from the glass-half-empty approach.  Dr. Morgan sees, and helps others see, magic in the most rural of places.  “It’s time we began to see, acknowledge, and celebrate just how special we are,” she tells citizen leaders.

WAEM worked with Mississippi MainStreet to adopt the STDI charrette-based planning approach for Mississippi communities.  At the same time, WAEM is working with Alabama to enhance its MainStreet program.  STDI helps communities envision and develop place building strategies.  MainStreet helps communities implement their plans and sustain their efforts.

Alabama couples another design-oriented program with STDI called YourTown Alabama.  Each year five dozen or so community leaders gather at Camp McDowell near tiny Nauvoo, Alabama, to learn how to build better rural places. For 10 years, YourTown Alabama has been developing rural place builders by immersing them in asset-based planning and small town design, with skills taught by an amalgam of artists, foresters, architects, developers, planners, and others committed to rural advocacy and development.  Dr. Morgan and Nisa Miranda, director of the University of Alabama Center for Economic Development, lead a team of professionals that put on the annual program.

WAEM worked with Morgan and Miranda to develop a special version of the program for its community leaders.  WAEMTown held its first retreat in October 2008 at Lake Tiak O’Khata in Louisville, Mississippi. 
“This process is one of the best I’ve seen,” said long-time planning consultant John McClure of Meridian.  Columbus Mayor Robert Smith echoed those remarks. “Most of the time, we attend workshops where all we do is sit around listening to presenters,” said the mayor. “But this was hands on, and required teamwork, and I enjoyed it.” Mayor Smith also recom­mended that government officials from all levels attend future workshops.

Another program adopted by WAEM is the First Impressions program delivered by the Mississippi State Community Action Team (MSCAT). 

"First Impressions is just what the name implies,” explains Virgil Culver, director of MSCAT.  “It captures the thoughts and observations of visitors on their first visit to a community. These observations, both positive and negative, are then used to raise issues that the community can evaluate and prioritize for in-depth study or immediate action.”

BUILDING CAPACITY
The transformative capacity WAEM has begun building at each of its eight community and junior colleges is rural place coaching.  Katherine McLennan in “The Neuroscience of Leadership and Culture” provides this observation. 
“A stand alone training program is not sufficient to create significant behavior. One study, for example, showed that a training program for the public sector increased productivity by 28%. However, if you added follow-up coaching, which acts to sustain attention on the behavior change and allow the individual to build on their own insights, the productivity rose to 88%.

All WAEM colleges added staff to work with their communities. The WAEM Rural Place Building Guide and regular training sessions were developed to teach staff the basics of rural place coaches. Through December 31, 2008, these coaches had made 3,857 direct contacts with community leaders and helped 77 communities initiate place building planning activities.

All eight WAEM colleges have committed to sustain place building activities beyond the time period of the WIRED grant.