Downtown Revitalization in Small Western Communities: Strengthened by Relationships

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By Brittany Skelton

Across the nation, including in small towns through the West, downtown revitalization is often thought of in terms of economic development. Benefits of revitalization are traditionally viewed through this lens: more businesses, more jobs, more goods sold, more sales tax collected, and improved buildings will augment the tax rolls, which in turn will benefit the local community. Downtown revitalization also usually implies downtown, in its current state, is years or decades removed from a heyday the community remembers fondly. A community may also heartily believe revitalization will reinvigorate its sense of pride, with the improved aesthetics and a buzz of activity creating a sense of place that says, “Our town is a place with something going on, a place where people want to be.” And sometime, but not always, communities focus so intently on what is missing that it leads to the belief that all of the answers are located outside of the community: “We need more tourists to visit us and shop here,” “We need outside investment,” and “We need businesses to relocate here and bring good jobs to us.” 

When an outward-looking lens frames a community’s way of thinking about economic development and revitalization, it obscures the ability to consider unintended consequences that may emerge if outside-driven solutions come to fruition. In light of the “Zoom town” phenomenon (1) already affecting a diverse smattering of communities across the West (which in some localities preceded the Covid-19 Pandemic) there are multiple reasons why Western communities should frame their plans for economic development through a lens that draws on the strengths of rural, and suburban, small communities: Asset Based Community Development.

Asset Based Community Development (ABCD) catalogs a community’s assets into six categories: individuals and their unique gifts, associations led by volunteers, formal institutions with staff, physical space/land, exchanges (such as giving, sharing, and buying and selling), and local culture/stories/history. ABCD is framed by a glass half-full mindset, where the focus is on what is present in a community (which are its assets) rather than what is lacking. The main tenants of ABCD are that in each and every community residents are aware of local assets, successful action is made possible by linking together and connecting assets that were not previously connected, and that every community has trusted, inclusivity-minded people or associations/institutions who fulfil the connector role. With ABCD a community leads with the questions, “What strengths does our community have already? What do our current residents need most, and how can we strategize and pool resources to meet our needs?” and ends with the question “What can’t we do with our assets that must be done by outsiders?” 

Buffalo, Wyoming

Buffalo, Wyoming

By taking an ABCD-minded, bottom-up approach to economic development and downtown revitalization, communities channel their efforts into plans and actions that serve the people who are the community. Benefits of ABCD include more equitable and just revitalization and development, strengthened fabric of community, and the ability to weave diverse stakeholders’ interests more seamlessly into the community’s path forward.

When leading revitalization efforts with ABCD, a community also poises itself to evaluate economic development proposals with respect to questions like:

  • “How will the results of downtown revitalization affect our existing community members? Will revitalization be equitable and inclusive? Will the new types of goods sold and services provided cater to the community’s needs?” 

  • “What if we are more successful in attracting visitors than we could have imaged, and our community becomes unrecognizable?” 

  •  “How much change is too much change? What is the appropriate rate of change?”


Several months ago, I heard a quote on the radio from the Rev. Jennifer Bailey of the Faith Matters Network: “Relationships are built at the speed of trust, and social change happens at the speed of relationships.” Some of the tried-and-true strengths of small towns are relationships—trust forged over generations, or melded quickly. Remote locations or small populations often lead to meaningful interactions when everyone in town shops at the one and only grocery, interacts with the same postal clerk, relies on the same plumber, and so forth. While downtown revitalization isn’t often thought of as social change per se, when revitalization is influenced by forces that aren’t steeped in local traditions and values, such as a wave of new residents, new business interests, or development pressure, downtown revitalization and social change can be synonymous. Under any circumstances, but especially in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic’s impact on local economies (whether devastating because jobs and tax revenue have dried up, or overwhelming because tourism and remote-work have fueled crowded shops, campsites, and scarcity in the housing market), Asset Based Community Development offers an alternative to outward-focused models of revitalization.

Deadwood, South Dakota

Deadwood, South Dakota

Elected officials, public sector Planning and Community Development staff, and locally-focused non-profit organizations interested in charting their community’s destiny can find resources, and potentially partners, in the following organizations. The resources found in the list below include tool kits, case studies, grants for technical assistance, podcasts and newsletters. The list is by no mean exhaustive and represents a sampling of organizations the author has awareness of or has personally interacted with in the past:


Footnotes

Utah State University’s Gateway and Natural Amenity Region (GNAR) Initiative, and the recently concluded Amenity Migration webinar series, provide a wealth of in-depth analysis on amenity migration and the Zoom town phenomenon.



About the Author

Brittany Skelton is Senior Planner and Floodplain Manager for the City of Ketchum in Idaho’s Wood River Valley but a large part of her heart will always be in the Tetons, where she lived and worked as the City of Victor’s Planning Administrator from 2013-2016. Learn more at her website www.communityandplace.com.

Paul Moberly