Marion and surrounding Grant County have a solid base to work from, but more collaborative work will have to be done to improve the overall quality of life.
That was the message Drew Klacik, senior policy analyst for the Indiana University Public Policy Institute, had for a couple dozen of local business and nonprofit leaders Wednesday morning at Indiana Wesleyan University’s Citizens Advisory Council Breakfast.
Klacik is one of the authors of “Thriving Communities, Thriving State – Recommendations for Thriving Mid-Size Communities.” Mid-sized communities, which Marion falls into, are cities with 15,000 or more in population but less than 50,000, as defined by the report. Other nearby mid-sized communities include Huntington and Logansport.
In his report and presentation, Klacik noted that many important metrics, such as wages and percentage of Hoosier residents with Associate Degrees, are increasing but not as quickly as the country as a whole. More importantly, Indiana is losing in the domestic migration category with most counties seeing a net decrease in population and an aging workforce.
Grant County is no different. Residents of Grant County ages zero to 64 are expected to decrease by 15 to 29.9 percent in the next coming decades.
“We are competing for talent and the data suggests we’re not winning most of the time,” Klacik said.
For Klacik, the data clearly shows that the status quo is not acceptable.
“In Indiana, we believe in tradition, stability and family, and in many ways, we resist and want to ignore change, and as a result of that change occurs that we don’t have any control over,” Klacik said. “I believe change is inevitable, and I think that if we understand the changes that are occurring, then we can have the power to intervene and try to keep the things we don’t want to go away.”
For Marion specifically, it’s not all bad news, Klacik made sure to point out. He said the city, with its arts, The Splash House and strong nonprofits, has a strong base to build off of.
To win the domestic migration game, however, basics, such as good schools, infrastructure and making sure the city is safe, need to be top priorities, Klacik said.
David Wright, president of IWU, said he believes Marion can become one of the thriving mid-size communities and that IWU is looking to help make that happen.
“Our job is to make Marion one of the thriving and wonderful cities, and I absolutely have a lot of confidence we can do that,” Wright said. “Social scientists like to talk in aggregate, and it’s easy for that to become fate, but, actually, we’re the masters of our own fate.”