If you’re a regular reader of the Connersville News-Examiner, you know many things here are improving. Maybe it’s gradual enough that you aren’t seeing it, but outsiders notice and we try to report it.
Two recent visitors made the observation of good things happening. A third one, the former mayor of a nearby small city, says a community improvement process like Blue Zones that we are exploring here, is working there.
Margaret Brown spent Thursday here, conducting a meeting in the morning for people who expect to be involved in a community improvement movement called Blue Zones and then a public meeting in the evening. In between, she spent time looking around the city and speaking one on one with community leaders.
Two weeks earlier, Miah Michaelsen, executive director of the Indiana Arts Commission, told an assemblage of local arts organizations that the city is “hitting above your weight,” using an expression from the sport of boxing to tell us that Connersville is doing more than many places of the same size.
Brown and Michaelsen both came at the urging of Healthy Fayette County; more specifically, at the request of Linda Fitzgerald, who has spent years working in a variety of venues to bring about positive local change.
The third visitor is Tom DeBaun, former mayor of Shelbyville. Before serving as that city’s chief executive, he was a city planner there. DeBaun now works in economic development for Duke Energy and visited here for Brown’s presentation.
Michaelsen visited from her hometown of Bloomington, a town with a lot of cultural offerings. Bloomington, of course, is home to Indiana University, and that makes it an urbane island in largely rural south central Indiana. In her job with the state, Michaelsen sees the work of many local arts organizations.
After discussing local arts efforts for almost two hours, she took additional time to have Mayor Chad Frank show her around Market Street Plaza. They spoke about how the arts are helping re-establish Connersville as a place where people want to visit, or maybe even come and live.
Brown came here to help convince the community to become one of the world’s Blue Zones where people live happier, healthier and longer.
She started her presentation Thursday by introducing herself. She is vice president of business development for Blue Zones and has been involved in community-building for 25 years.
“When you have a city that doesn’t thrive, there are people in it that are not thriving,” she said at breakfast.
Interestingly, the Blue Zones approach does not concentrate just on reducing the poverty level.
Of the five places in the world where people live the longest, healthiest lives, “Most are well below the poverty line in the United States.”
Brown spoke of “the ZIP Code effect,” that is, where people live has a great bearing on how long they live. Not because of an area’s physical properties but because of how people see themselves and the purpose-centered lives they create there.
She said Blue Zones grew out of research by National Geographic that identified places in the world where people live longest, and found they are the places where people are happiest. Blue Zones identifies what local people want for their city and helps them achieve sustainable ways to become that place.
After listening to her presentation, DeBaun observed that Shelbyville went through a similar community planning process a few years ago. And you know what, he said proudly, it’s working so well that the Indianapolis Business Journal just did a major story about Shelbyville’s growth since then. (Indianapolis Business Journal, Oct. 3, “Shelbyville residential construction skyrockets thanks to lower land costs and growing infrastructure”) In an online summary, the article says, “The city now has five developments under construction, in addition to new retail offerings and infrastructure improvements.
Good things already are happening. In an evening community meeting at Connersville Middle School, Brown seemed almost bowled over by the vision that is driving the park system.
(She’s right: I can’t think of another community this size that has invested time and money into renovating two small and long-neglected spaces like Offutt’s Park and the J. Long Memorial 2nd Street Park into beautiful, usable recreation areas, reopening both within a matter of months this year.)
I asked Brown to send me a few observations about the city after she got back to her home in a small South Carolina city.
“What strikes me about Connersville is the historic charm, beautifully laid out neighborhoods (even the ones that might need a little help), the already existing sidewalk infrastructure (many towns of equal size and larger do not have the number of sidewalks that Connersville has), and the clear dedication to preserving and expanding greenspace,” she responded. “Your city leadership, and citizens clearly value these aspects and your Mayor and Commission (city council) have accomplished quite a lot in recent years.”
While here, she had spoken of looking for simple things we can improve to make Connersville more of a place where people want to live. When people have a good time here, they will post about it on social media and talk to their friends. A good buzz will develop among people who might be thinking negatively now.
Sure, Visteon, the last of the local mega-factories, up and left. But the people of Connersville are resilient and will help each other, given the opportunity. Did you notice that 150 people came out for the Fayette Community Voices Day of Sharing a week before?
It starts with the idea, already growing again here for the past few years, that the community has many more good days ahead.
A Blue Zones program can help Connersville by continuing our move away from the culture of poverty that took over after Visteon left. Blue Zones can help by continuing our focus on building on the foundations of good that are already here.