Becky’s email newsletter

Main Street America invited me to write about the future of retail in their annual report, State of Main. Of course I said yes, because I knew I could talk all about small towns.   There are a lot of experts on the retail industry. Many talk about the wave of retail closures. Most are focused…

“It’s not about bringing your town back. It’s about bringing your town forward.”  Last week I promised we would talk about what that looks like.   Imagine you had to start a town from scratch on the same piece of land where your town sits now. The catch is, you don’t get to keep anything. You…

I get a little frustrated when people tell me their town is dying. That’s because from my outside point of view, your town is not dying. It’s just exactly what it is now, no more or less.   To some extent, your generation determines what you think about your town and whether it’s dying. It’s not…

It’s one of our shared challenges: How can we get more people to the table?  Don’t have a table. Don’t have a meeting. Go do something. More people will turn out to do something small but meaningful than will turn out for something relatively difficult and not apparently meaningful. Most meetings, including those “participatory” community…

Dear Small Towns,  Stop reading the economic development RFP list of businesses asking you to compete with incentives to lure them in.  Love, Your entire town HowdyYou have more than enough to do to build local opportunity. You have plenty of potential business right here.  You could be focusing on supporting what Mark Riffey calls “Two…

How many variations of this have you heard:  We’re a small town; we can’t afford to let people duplicate efforts  It would be so much more efficient if we didn’t have so many overlapping projects  If we just knew what everyone was doing, we could streamline and eliminate all the conflicting events We already do something like…

I’m not a big fan of business plan or startup competitions. I especially don’t like shark-style pitch competitions. I do love that you’re taking action to support more startups and entrepreneurs. I like that you’re including training and support for everyone who participates. I can even live with the package of services you’re awarding as…

I heard from a reader who, along with some others, wanted to promote her community online. We talked a bit, and I said to test their ideas online right away.  Start by taking a photo that shows the way you want people to see your town, maybe dress it up in your favorite graphics program,…

Everyone has their own view of your town. And that’s fine.  You think your town should be promoted as an adventure base. Someone else wants to be old-timey hometown.  You want your town to have a microbrewery. Someone else doesn’t condone drinking beer.  You want a greenspace downtown. Someone else wants a farmers market to…

You’ve probably heard me say this one before: The best way to save your town is to start your own small business.  I have four reasons that back that up:  You’ll decide what values to put first More small businesses means more jobs* Locally-owned businesses are the key to local prosperity* You’ll return more of what…

In 2019, Kristina Vonberge’s town is going to face bridge construction and a major traffic detour. Yesterday she asked for ideas during the discussion session of our flipped webinar on the arts. People coming to town are going to have to detour 17 miles out of the way to get to town. How can she…

“When you get a mural, that’s it for your town. It’s going to die.”  I heard that a long time ago, but I don’t know how that got started. Maybe if your town has been struggling, someone will want to turn things around, and at some point someone is going to suggest painting a mural….