Mission: clarified.

I have been working away at realsmalltowns.com for more than a year now --mostly in isolation, as it is, at this point, just me. So it caught me off-guard last week when an old friend of mine asked for some clarification on my mission, parameters, and business model. Because all of these things are so formed and clear in my own mind, it caught me by surprise that a good old friend might have some questions! But questions help clarify, and I took the opportunity to articulate the concept in writing for others who might be interested:

1) In the big picture, I am trying to promote local economies and strong communities. There seems to be a small but growing movement in this direction, and I would like to help bring attention to those communities that are embracing the values of local economy and having some success with it.

2) The towns that seem to be embracing these values tend to be progressive/forward thinking -though each in their own individual way.

3) The towns that I am looking for are vibrant. They have a very strong sense of self that often revolves around some shared values and vision. So far, most of the towns embrace a respect and reverence for the outdoors and some form of environmentalism, though I can see that as the site grows, there might be other binding community tenets as well. In general, the communities that interest me are both creative and committed to sustainability --economic, environmental, and collective.

4) The towns that I profile generally have populations between 200 and 10,000, but most are 7,500 or fewer. There are a couple that fall a bit outside of this parameter (Truckee, CA is the only one posted so far) and I am open to larger towns (up to 25,000) that share the qualities I am committed to, once the core of the site is built up a bit more.

5) The towns need to have some basic amenities: at least a couple of decent places to stay and eat, and things to do --outdoors (As a rule, I try to promote "silent sports" such as biking, hiking, bird-watching, fishing, snow-shoeing, skiing and the like), arts, music, workshops etc. I usually try to consider whether or not I would enjoy spending at least two full days in a place.

6) The people that I see using this site are typically curious, open and adventurous.

7) Site use/purpose:

I envision the site being used by those who want to plan a vacation that is an alternative to what they may already have on their radar. For instance, let's say someone from the E. coast wants to go mountain biking for vacation. They would most likely have heard of Moab, but would find a great alternative to Moab in Torrey, Utah, and might just prefer the less-touristy option.

As the site develops, I also see it being used by people who are traveling across the country and looking for places to stay that depart from the typical highway-exit-offerings.

Furthermore, people who are looking for inspiration and ways to re-vitalize their own communities, could use the towns featured on the site as a resource.

Finally, most of the towns that I have featured so far seem to have pretty strong artists communities, and I am realizing that those artisans who choose to advertise on the site could use it as a way to present their work to a larger audience by linking to their websites.

8) I am hoping to fund this project by selling ad spaces to local businesses. In my town write-up I might write about certain businesses that stand out to me in one way or another but those write-ups will be totally independent of who chooses to advertise on the site. I'm fairly sure that I could get bigger, national brand advertisers on the site in the way that many bloggers do, but I really want to stay committed to my mission of supporting local businesses, and feel that my current formula is the best strategy in this regard. Corporate ads would not only take away from the aesthetic of the site, but would also diminish the strictly local feel of it. Obviously, if I cannot get enough support from local people I might have to reconsider this plan. (In keeping with my mission, I am trying to keep the cost of my ad spots very low in price ---$99/YEAR (< $9/month) for a listing in the town directory, and $299/YEAR ($25/month) for one of the "featured sponsor" spots running down the side of the page. These spots will be limited to 8/town and if folks click on a "featured sponsor" logo it will take them to that business's website.)

As far as the final assessment of whether a town qualifies or not, I must admit that much of it is intuitive, and I have to stand by that. I know this may be a difficult for some business-minded people to wrap their minds around, but in the end, that's what it boils down to. There are certain guidelines in place, but a place just has to feel right. Towns can be similar to people in this regard...you know how sometimes you meet a person and immediately there is a spark of interest and delight? That's what I like to feel when I am visiting a real, small town!

The Tipping Point

Last spring, I set out on a nine-week journey to scout out interesting small towns in the western United States. I was looking for towns to post on my small-town travel site, and had a specific set of criteria in mind: the towns needed to be of a certain size, had to have good recreational opportunities, had to have at least a couple of places to stay, and non-fast-food eating establishments. Interesting festivals, strong arts, and a community interest in good food were pluses, but not essential.
 

While most of the criteria remained relevant over the course of the trip , I quickly came to see that there were more important, less visible (to the outsider) components that made some small towns alive and vibrant, while others were drying up. The underlying story of these towns mirrored that of my own over and over again.
 

Most small towns were founded on a particular livelihood or asset -fishing, agriculture, mining, logging, and later, manufacturing. As natural resources have depleted, the jobs around them have also dried up, and many of the towns that were built around these occupations have faded along with their industries. It is difficult to raise a family where there is no source of income, and as fewer people settle in small-town America, there are fewer reasons for young people to stay.
 

Despite this downward trend however, some small towns have bucked the odds -reinventing themselves to create thriving communities that are attracting newcomers rather than witnessing mass exodus. Of course attraction raises some issues as well. Many small towns were also established around shared ancestry, religion and values. Making decisions about how things should run is much easier when a community is more homogeneous. Newcomers bring new ideas and new ways of doing things, which sometimes are at odds with long-established traditions, and can seem threatening, peculiar, or downright deviant to the accepted way of life. This tension between new and old frequently causes friction, as often times there is little trust between the two, fomenting fear and precipitating resistance to change. When tradition holds so strongly to the notion of stability that new ideas cannot take root, a town is often dying by the time people recognize what is happening. Young people move away and stay away, local businesses fail, and the town loses its spirit and soul.
 

I see it in many of the areas surrounding my own small town. Places that were prospering in the 1950s and 60s are now skeletons of their former selves and losing population every year. The most successful business is, more often than not, the local watering hole. What I may have, at one time, thought of as a phenomenon unique to my particular place was repeated over and over again on my trip: there were many towns that met the fundamental criteria I had established, but were definitely not places most people would want to travel to. The towns that were thriving had something more. They were the ones who had worked to create community, considered new ideas, used their resources of their town to create something fresh, and re-invented themselves while there was still young, creative energy in place to bring new ideas to life.
 

In the case of my particular small town, 30 years ago young, idealistic people moved out here because they wanted to live off the land, and there was still affordable, beautiful land to be found here. As they grew older, they had children and wanted to educate them in ways that were different from the traditional offerings, so a small Waldorf School was founded. Next came the small farmer's cooperative that over time morphed into the large farmer's cooperative known as Organic Valley. Things continued to build from there, and now there is a thriving arts community, theatre, music, a booming food co-op, many small retail stores, healthy, independent book, grocery and hardware stores (despite the fact that we also have a Walmart,) two local newspapers, and most recently, a listener-supported radio station. In short, Viroqua has all of the things that signify a flourishing small town. At some point the scales tipped, and creative energy built and intensified, until the town became something new and different from the traditional farming town that it once was.
 

These changes are not easy. They take hard work, and open-minded communication and coalition-building. They take vision and leadership, coupled with support and service. They take a willingness to consider differing opinions as valid. And even when these obstacles are by and large surmounted, there will always be people who are entrenched. Accordingly, there are unspoken codes of civility. People must try to be polite in small towns, but in the best of circumstances, this civility is accompanied by an effort to reserve judgment; an effort to try to talk and listen and work through differences with respect. In my mind this is the first critical step in being able to revitalize a town that may be on its way out.
 

While I am a champion of small town living, I cannot say that it doesn't come without some major challenges and drawbacks. Some of these are obvious; primarily the lack of diversity, and the lack of privacy. Upon closer look however, it is easy to see that while there may not be diversity on the surface, there is plenty of less visible diversity. There is economic diversity. There is educational diversity, there is political, ideological, and religious diversity. And the lack of privacy compels us to work out these differences in community. Working to find common ground with open-mindedness and civility is the first step towards fostering a fellowship that can live and thrive and prosper into the future.