The Small Town Project

“Why don’t we levy a tax on earth moving? Why don’t we have landscape protection laws—like water and air laws—for our children’s sake?”

Writing for the Salina Kansas based Land Institute’s Prairie Writers Circle, Janet Kauffman cuts through the irrelevancies with a heartfelt essay on what’s lost in our determination to “develop” land.

Here’s a nice little holiday gift for that logical, truth loving person on your list. Only $1.00!

The following is a response to Don Cell’s letter in the current issue of the Sun

Hi Don — Thanks for your letter in the current Sun encouraging more discussion and evaluation of growth issues. It was constructive, and I was glad to see it. It seemed, though, to dance around a certain “elephant in the room.” You provided a thorough letter encouraging more discussion and facts, mentioning that it’s good to see letters discussing the issues, pointing as moderator to the upcoming League of Women Voters debate on the Comprehensive Plan, referring to Stan Crocker’s recent letter on the topic, and itemizing three issues you feel need more attention — all, somehow, without mentioning that we have a local website devoted to discussion of just such issues, and encouraging constructive debate.
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Wow. I want to post this tonight to thank everyone who attended the The WalMart movie tonight. It brought in way more people than expected! That was great, but we found we’d printed up about 15 tickets too many, and ended up overselling the 100 seat theater! Fortunately those extra people sat or stood in the isles, making the best of our little mistake with no complaints. I sincerely apologize for the error, and will try do something to make up for it with the next film we bring to town.
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This weblog is a little more than a month old. For those of you just tuning in, I thought it would be a good time to recap the highlights so far. For those who have been reading all along, I hope this post helps consolidate the picture of all we’ve covered. We don’t want to get lost in the minutia of individual articles. Effecting change requires a constant grasp on the big picture.
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Growth is good, they say, reciting like an incantation the prime article of faith of the official American religion: Bigger is better and best is biggest. Growth, they
tell us, means more jobs, more bank accounts, more cars, more people, leading
in turn to the demand for more jobs, more economic expansion, more industrial
development. Where, when, and how is this spiraling process supposed to reach
a rational end — a state of stability, sanity, and equilibrium?

Edward Abbey, One Life At A Time, Please

Abbey made those comments in about 1984, in part in response to growth projections he’d heard for Phoenix and Tucson. I grew up in Phoenix. Scottsdale, really, but it’s all the same now. One day soon I’ll share some stories of growth from a town that, in 1950, was about the same size as Lisbon.

I’ve touched on this elsewhere, and a version of the question came up in discussion under the first article on the site. But that’s probably too buried for a lot of people to have seen it. So because I know this will keep coming up, especially if I haven’t thoroughly dispensed with it, I’ll devote this post to it, using a slightly edited version of the same comments I made in discussion:

So you wanna keep people out, eh?
Somehow a “no residential growth” stance is sometimes confused with a “we don’t want anyone moving here” stance. One has little to do with the other.
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The Small Town Project is pleased to announce we’ve arranged to bring to Mount Vernon the upcoming film, WAL-MART: The High Cost of Low Price. It’s produced and directed by Robert Greenwald, whose past credits include Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch’s War on Journalism.

The movie will show at the Bijou on Monday, November 14, at 7:00 p.m. Tickets are priced at $1 to help cover the cost of the theatre. The concession stand will be open, so ready yourself for popcorn, Milk-Duds, and Grape Nehi! (Just kiddin’ about the Nehi :cry:)

For advance tickets either call John or Nanci Feeney in MV, or contact us through the “Questions? Email the Host” link on the movie website to find out where to pick up your tickets. For anyone living outside MV and Lisbon, we will have a small “will call” list to enable you to pick up your tickets at show time.

UPDATE: I’m pleased to let you know I’ve just learned there will be another local showing of the film. It will be shown at Cornell College, in the movie theatre section of the Ratt in the Commons building, on Tuesday, November 15 at 7:00 pm. And this showing is free. You now have no excuse for not seeing this important film!

By the way, WalMart is taking this film very seriously. They’ve even created their own “war room” in large part in response to this movie!

UPDATE #2:Mary Vermillion, author of Death by Discount, a mystery novel about the impact of WalMart on a small town in Iowa, had hoped to be at the showing. Unfortunately she has had to cancel, but she has sent information on her book, and we’ll make it available!

See you there!

Jewels of Eastern Iowa
We must protect these jewels of eastern Iowa. These towns. Mount Vernon and Lisbon are near perfect examples of classic American small towns. We residents cherish their small town character. Indeed, many of us live here in large part because Lisbon and MV are such lovely small towns. These are towns where our children can walk to school, where half the town shows up to cheer on the high school football team, towns surrounded by farmland and open spaces, where neighborly values lost in larger cities remain — towns, in short, with true small town character.

But today that character is at risk. Current residential development threatens to erode it. New subdivisions are appearing at an alarming pace, and continued development is planned with no clear end in sight.

The largest development currently under construction is the near 300 home Stonebrook subdivision under way in Southwest MV. That’s easily 1,000 new residents. This town of 4,000 will go to 5,000, a 25% jump in population as a result of this single development!
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