A recent report, "Putting Smart Growth to Work in Rural Communities," put out by the International City/County Management Association under an agreement with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency highlights what they feel are the key steps rural communities need to take to ensure a thriving future. The suggestions will come as no surprise to readers of the RIPPLE blog and those who work in community development generally.

According to the report, rural communities should:

1. Support the rural landscape by creating an economic climate that enhances the viability of working lands and conserves natural lands;
   
2. Help existing places thrive by taking care of assets and investments such as downtowns, Main Streets, existing infrastructure, and places that the community values; and
   
3. Create great new places by building vibrant, enduring neighborhoods and communities that people, especially young people, don’t want to leave.

The report goes on to describe strategies towns should implement to address these three goals, none of which I found to be particularly ground breaking, but good all around advice none the less. They included: 'buy local' campaigns, conservation easements, downtown revitalization, community goal setting, revolving loan funds, historic preservation, and well designed 'walkable communities.'

The question I would like to see addressed is, in the face of countless articles, reports, findings, and 'poster child' communities promoting the adoption of these practices, why don't more rural communities follow suit?

Neal Pierce from the Denver Post states the situation nicely:

The sad truth is that much rural development steers straight away from those directions. Instead of conserving working lands, it lets many be chopped up for exurban sprawl housing. Rather than undergirding Main Streets, towns and counties have welcomed - under pressure from national chains and tax-hungry local officials - collections of WalMarts and auto parks, hamburger and fried chicken joints, usually spread along sign-glutted roadways through once-placid farm and forestland.

Concurrently, the decades-long decline of small family farms and the rise of corporate farms have cost jobs and threatened the very existence of many small towns. Yet as the stores and services once focused on Main Streets spread out across the landscape, the costs for roads and utilities escalate, town treasuries get pinched, and resources for long-term planning run thin.

Would I love to see rural communities where "Local businesses are encouraged to flourish, particularly those that support the community’s rural identity" (to quote the report)? Absolutely! What's not clear is the way by which a community should engage in the long and arduous process of getting the many moving pieces in place to make that and all the other aspects of their proposed 'smart community' a reality.

The fact is, unless we as rural residents start engaging in activities and making choices in our day to day lives that directly reflect and support such a vision, none of these great things the report proposes will come to pass. The example communities that have succeeded in smart growth that relied heavily on volunteer support and courageous leadership to reach their goals, and recognize that a thriving community, like a good hearth fire, takes constant tending and fuel to maintain itself.

We can't have thriving downtowns without good working partnerships between business owners, government officials, community leaders, and citizens. You can't have local businesses if you don't patronize them, and you can't have local farms and working landscapes if you're never to be seen at the local farmers market or CSA pickup spot. Most importantly, we can't have prospering local independent businesses if we spend all our money at national and international corporations that systematically turn once unique communities into collections of carbon copy strip centers.

Taking a step back, I will say that the report can and should serve as a great tool for starting a larger conversation and, more importantly, plan of action for communities who need a good kick start in their development efforts. The suggested community visioning process is, in fact, a great idea for communities who need to identify a common direction.

I don't mean to be the curmudgeon in the dark corner of the internet grumbling away, but I do feel it's time to stop wishing for better communities, and time to start 'Walking the Talk.' I know many of you dear readers are also out there 'in the trenches' and feeling my frustration, and perhaps it's just the summer heat getting to me. I'd just like to have a consultant tell me less about what we should be doing (since many of us already have a pretty clear idea) and more about how to get it done.

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