Articles

3 Ways to Make Small Towns Successful: Get the practical steps to Beautification, Good Leaders and Keeping Your Youth

We know that people who are open to new ideas and willing to let newcomers be involved in the decision making help create communities that will thrive. Iowa State University’s 30 year Sigma study conducted over 99 towns told us that. There are a few other things that can make your small town more successful.…

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Five Cheap Downtown Placemaking Ideas

It was my pleasure to present Cheap Downtown Placemaking Ideas for Iowa State University OLLI programming. It’s a topic that garners attention because it allows a small town the opportunity to get into action and help make their downtown more attractive, welcoming and inspires economic development. Here are five ideas from the 90 minute presentation…

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Christmas tree lights don’t always have to be matchy matchy in your downtown

 I received lots of ideas on how to make my town a better place when I was a chamber director. One was to put up holiday lights in the trees downtown. Putting lights in trees would encourage people to spend time downtown and would be a visible sign of improvement and pride in our community.…

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Do we rebuild?

In July of 2022 Letcher County, Kentucky had a 100 year flood, that left many businesses having to decide if they should rebuild or not. The devastation was beyond believe. The IGA Grocery store in the small town of Isom was one of the many businesses affected.  On a visit to the county one year…

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Thursday with Townsel in Letcher County, KY

Bad roads in Carcassonne, Kentucky I presented the Idea Friendly Method to several groups in Letcher County, KY. The group from Carcassonne talked about bad roads being a problem. By bad roads, I mean they have two lane traffic on a one lane road. In the mountains of Kentucky. There are places to pull over…

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Advice to those working in small towns

The International Economic Development Council published my article that includes advice too: Survey of Rural Challenges: Results Show Optimism and Big Disconnects, and what economic developers can do about it.   The article was about the results from the Survey of Rural Challenges, and some advice to economic developers and others working in rural communities. You…

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Small Towns or Big Cities?

Did you know more people are leaving big cities and moving to small towns? Why is that? There are several easy answers: Lower cost of living Recreational offerings like trails, beaches, and mountains Smaller and better schools Safer streets No traffic and shorter commutes to work What are some of the benefits of moving from…

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Our Young People are Leaving

In an email, the writer asked: Why are young people leaving their small towns?  What can rural communities do, or are doing, to compete?  Why are young people leaving?  Here’s just a few things people told us in The Survey of Rural Challenges about why youth are leaving:  This town experiences many of the same…

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Successful economic development involves the arts

The top conclusion of the survey was that rural people were twice as likely to say they were optimistic about their communities’ future as negative. Times they are a’changin. The old ways are no longer working, and new ways are being explored. People are realizing a community is made up of many people, and they…

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Folklife in the South Conference – The stories matter

I attended the Folklife in the South Conference in Lake Guntersville, Alabama in June 2023.  It was a gathering of community leaders, folklorists, traditional artists, educators, documentarians, and other cultural workers. We came together to hear the stories of work in the field, explore different avenues of folklife in the South and to meet and…

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