Author: Becky McCray

Mandan, North Dakota, has this great downtown. There’s all kinds of housing right downtown, so that’s a big asset keeping people spending time downtown. There’s a mix of new and old retail space downtown, so there is room to expand on what they already have. And that’s a problem: the new retail space is sitting…

With a statewide population of 740,000 people, spread across 69,000 square miles, North Dakota is spread out. That’s a statewide average of 9.7 people per square mile, or 4.1 people per square kilometer. Since more than half of the people live in urban areas, that leaves a lot of empty territory.  Except it’s not empty….

“We tried that once.” It’s like the ultimate small town insult to your big ideas.  My friend Deb Brown has the best comeback. She always answers with, “Great! What did you learn?”  “We already tried that” often comes off as a personal attack. “You’re too stupid to realize we already tried that.”  The reality is…

A downtown retail store owner told me she closes at 5 pm because she hates to stay later. She gets to work at 8 am most days, and so at 5 pm she’s ready to go home. She doesn’t like to delegate at all, she told me, and she wouldn’t ask anyone to do anything…

Last weekend I got see an idea made real. Jeanne Cole and the Waynoka Chamber of Commerce took the ideas from our Pop-Up Mini Course and brought them to life in their downtown. It was only 18 miles from my house, so of course I had to be there. And I thoroughly enjoyed seeing all…

In a small town, you aren’t supposed to brag about yourself, whether personally, at work or in business. One of the unofficial small town rules. Take you for example. You’re probably uncomfortable talking about your accomplishments. When you have a project or business to get out the word about, you try to walk the fine line of…

The only way to go is forward. Build the town you want to live in.  As a kid, my friend Sheila hated going to the small town Winnsboro, Texas, with her mom in the summers. It was hot, miserable, and there were no other kids. (Or that’s the way she remembers it.) It was not the…

I sat at one of those planning meetings, where we all sit at tables and brainstorm about our region’s direction for the next decade or so. I looked around. Nearly everyone in the room fit a pattern: professional middle class, in their 30s to 60s, and white. A few people fell outside the pattern, but…

Us vs. Them is a myth. There is no them. There is only us. I’ve been saying that for a while. I think I first heard a version of it from Jon Swanson, who works at a small town church in Indiana. I even put it on my business card backs. I like how it sums…

What can businesses do when big events come downtown that require the streets to be closed? Webster City, Iowa, is on the route of a cross-state bicycle ride. Maybe 8,000 people will get off their bikes and eat and enjoy entertainment. Because they are traveling on bikes, they probably won’t do much shopping. The number…

Years ago, I helped organize a Trash-Off Day for a small town. The mayor and lots of local volunteers helped pick up trash and clean up the town for just one day. I helped. You bet I did. But one person made a specific point of telling me he was not going to participate because…

I’m not an expert in every facet of rural life. I can’t solve every problem or answer every question. Often, you’ll ask me about an issue I don’t know much about. How do we cope with losing our school? What should we do about parking meters? Why won’t our town board approve more apartment buildings?…