Voices from the field
What do local leaders say about small town needs?
As the Rural Center began to examine the issues confronting small towns, it turned for insight to the people who live with the realities every day. In the summer of 2004, it held a series of focus groups with elected officials and appointed staff of small towns, and with leaders of nonprofits and other community organizations in and around small towns. The conversations were open-ended to provide an understanding of the challenges involved in leading a small town, including views of community assets and needs.
Altogether, 125 people took part in 21 focus groups at eight locations around the state. The communities they represented ranged from incorporated towns with fewer than 1,000 residents to those with more than 10,000, along with some unincorporated areas. The majority, however, came from towns with populations of 1,000 to 5,000.
The discussions were wide-ranging and enthusiastic. Most participants felt the circumstances facing small-town leaders are distinctively different from those of larger municipalities, yet they had had few opportunities to explore their particular challenges with state leaders.
Despite any challenges, these participants clearly felt pride and affection for their home communities. This was consistent across towns of all size and in all regions of the state. Participants shared anecdotes of communities coming together to support a neighbor and of citizen cooperation on critical projects. They praised the overall quality of life associated with small-town life and recounted rich histories. They spoke with appreciation of the need to protect natural resources. People, place and natural environment all defined their towns and represented their greatest assets for moving forward.
Several themes also wove throughout the discussions, across the state and among groups of participants. They included:
- physical infrastructure. Although water and sewer systems took top billing among infrastructure needs, participants also cited transportation, housing, telecommunications and community facilities, which included places to meet, celebrate and provide services.
- civic capacity. This topic encompassed two types of capacity. On the one hand was a basic need for expertise in planning and growth management. On the other were broader requirements related to the health of the civic community, from increasing citizen involvement in town affairs to enhancing collaborations across local groups. There also was a frequent call for increased leadership development, particularly with a view toward creating a common understanding of town issues and potential solutions.
- the challenge of change. Small town leaders first face the challenge of finding the time and resources to examine new approaches to their problems or new ways to enhance their assets. Even more difficult is overcoming inherent resistance to change. Change involves risks and challenges assumptions. In small towns, longstanding power structures and traditions prove to be especially difficult obstacles.
- the need for balance. Town leaders listed natural resources and small-town quality of life among their top assets. They felt that development, however desirable, needed to recognize and protect those assets. Some saw their town's identity as inextricably tied to its environment. To lose one, they said, is to lose both. At the same time, they felt an urgent need for economic growth to bring jobs and essential services to their towns. They walked a tightrope between the two poles.
Focus group discussions also crystallized the day-to-day realities of leadership in a small town.
For town officials, challenges test the joy of service.
Small-town mayors and managers all talked about the desire to see improvements in their town, to interact with community members and to meet the needs of their citizens. Some who had previously served in large communities spoke of feeling more connected to the community, people and life of the town. They also acknowledged frustrations and hardships.
The challenges these towns faced were considerable. Many towns have seen their economic base shrink in recent years, decreasing revenue for essential services. Resources that were thin to begin with have now nearly vanished. Water and sewer capacity is either too small to support growth or, for those experiencing significant industrial plant closings, too big to be supported by the population. Taking on new, needed projects is prohibitive. Despite these limited resources, town leaders seek to meet increasing state and federal regulations that often place the same burden on small towns as on municipalities many times their size and wealth. Stormwater management was an oft-cited example.
Elected officials and town managers cited the need to plan strategically for the future but said they already felt overloaded dealing with immediate needs and emergency fixes. They can't even carve out the time to research and write the grant proposals that might provide much-needed resources. Few small towns had adequate professional staff to deal with issues such as growth management, long-range planning or transportation.
In the smallest towns, leadership most often comes from part-time, unpaid elected officials without a manager to back them up. They are called on to be jacks-of-all-trades, addressing everything from budgets to environmental regulations and building codes. And the calls may come anytime, anywhere: at home late at night, while eating dinner at the neighborhood diner, on the street or in the middle of a work day at their paying job.
No matter the size of their town, officials recounted picking their way through the minefields of local politics: old powerful families and long-time feuds, clashes between traditional and new ideas, strained relationships between elected officials and staff or between town and county, and tension between town government and informal leadership groups.
Support system often falls short.
When they have questions, officials said they turn most often to other local government officials or the town manager e-mail list serve hosted by the UNC-Chapel Hill School of Government. The school and its Institute of Government, the League of Municipalities and regional councils of government also were cited as sources of information, training and support.
But mayors and managers also reported shortcomings in the rest of network that's supposed to help them. Some state offices, for example, are charged both with providing technical assistance and with regulating the communities they assist. Towns were reluctant to ask the state for help with a problem if it might lead to mandatory changes or fines, stressing their communities even further.
With other service providers, they said, the challenge is just getting noticed. With 547 municipalities, all dealing with their own problems, small town leaders feel hard pressed to compete for attention against a Winston-Salem, Greensboro or Wilmington. And when they do get assistance, they don't necessarily feel well served.
Small towns struggle to visualize and achieve economic development that reaches beyond traditional definitions.
Economic development produced the most passion and the least consensus of any topic the focus groups addressed. The one thing most participants agreed on, was that whatever economic development is, very little is occurring in their communities.
Town officials said they mostly rely on the county, an economic development commission, their regional development agencies or the state to take the initiative for economic development. Local leaders help when and where they can, but move in whatever direction is set for them. This has left them with a model of economic development that focuses almost exclusively on manufacturing. The tools they cited most often were industrial recruitment, business incentives and highway construction.
A few towns, following the dictates of geography and other local characteristics, have shifted course toward more comprehensive strategies that include heritage tourism, cultural promotion, native crafts, agri-business and small business development. Others saw the value of this broader approach but could cite no plan of action at the state, regional, county or local level. This signaled a clear disconnect between recognizing alternative development strategies and implementing a plan of action either locally or in collaboration with others.
Many town leaders recognized the need to work more forcefully on their town's behalf. They wanted to think critically and creatively about economic development, but they felt limited by time and personnel. They also doubted the ability of small towns to make things happen on their own. Furthermore, they said they lack the flexibility and authority to be more creative in thinking about economic development. They felt constrained by unfunded mandates, a limited authority to raise revenues, an inability to influence state rule-making processes and the legislative agenda, and the cumbersome process of sorting through existing resources.
For some towns — perhaps the lucky ones — protecting quality of life has replaced growth at the top of the economic development agenda. Those cited growth management, strategic planning and better development controls among their most urgent needs. Feeling pressure from nearby urban sprawl, they wanted to plan for growth, rather than allowing it to happen in ways detrimental to their small-town character. But, like their growth-oriented peers, they were limited by the lack of professional staff. Without the expertise or time required, planning and protection got short-changed.
Divisions keep towns from reaching their potential.
In small towns even more than large cities, progress depends on people pulling together. They don't have to agree all the time; they don't even have to like each other; but they do need to work together for the common good. When strong relationships are built, focus groups indicated, they enable more effective use of resources. Participants also suggested that doesn't happen nearly enough.
Seldom, for example, did local governments and community organizations view the other as potential partners for progress. When partnerships did occur, the cooperation most often involved a community festival: The community organization oversaw the event, and the town provided clean up, security and some funding. Focus group discussions failed to identify formal processes for ongoing collaboration or consultation between town governments and community groups.
The two groups tended not even to recognize one another's strengths. Asked to list assets, local government participants mentioned roads, water and sewer systems, and recreational facilities. Nonprofit and community leaders more often pointed to churches, community colleges, chambers of commerce and other non-profits. In other words, both groups looked inward. Conversely, in viewing challenges, government officials felt that most citizens lacked understanding of the responsibilities of local government and its obligations. Nonprofit leaders said local government failed to listen to those it was supposed to serve and that it ignored the resources and expertise offered by local organizations.
"Isms" drive a wedge into those divisions.
Many people see their small towns as friendly and welcoming, but small towns also can be clannish and closed. Worse yet are the "isms" that drive wedges between people, such as racism, sexism, localism and turfism. Whatever name is assigned, clashes erupt between the people who are accustomed to holding power and the "outsiders" who wish to share it.
The wedge between town officials and community groups serves as an example. In discussing why they seldom work with town government, nonprofit leaders talked about the challenges of working against “the good old boy network” and issues of race and class.
In the west, another wall appeared in the tensions between natives and newcomers. Both groups expressed resentment at stereotypes and their implications. One participant noted the need for a town meeting where "natives could prove their abilities and newcomers could prove their intentions." It was clear across groups, however, that resolving differences, earning trust and embracing cooperation would require far more than a single meeting.
These types of issues were found throughout the state and noted by local officials and community leaders alike. They were recognized, not as diversions, but as obstacles the towns had to overcome to make full use of their assets and achieve significant progress.
Leaders look to replace competition with collaboration.
Improving the lines of communication was seen as a critical element in healing the divisions in small towns. It is essential, focus groups said, to building trust and working more collaboratively within communities.
Communication, however, is more than talking. At its heart lies a common language. Focus groups suggested this common language is often lacking in small-town discussions. They spoke of the frustration of working with and alongside community members and elected officials who did not understand the "big picture" or see beyond traditional approaches. One solution offered was to increase participation in leadership development programs that create a shared understanding of issues and tools for town development.
As they try to make partners out of competitors in their own towns, leaders also saw the need for more collaboration across geographic boundaries. Limited resources demand that communities and regions find ways to work more collaboratively, focus groups said. At the same time, they also acknowledged that overcoming turf battles may be their most difficult challenge.
Unique needs require flexible assistance.
As they considered the types of assistance they sought from outside agencies, focus group participants said the first requirement is recognition of the unique needs of each small town. A town of 10,000 is different from a town of 5,000, which in turn is different from a town of 1,500. Similarly, a town in a remote rural area faces a different set of challenges from the pressures of growth on a small town adjacent to an urban community. The services that fit one, they said, may not fit in another.
Rather than a standard program of assistance, they wanted a toolbox of options from which to choose. The wish list for that toolbox included:
- Technical assistance. They sought a systematic approach to providing small towns with help in such areas as finding and leveraging resources; dealing with state and federal regulations, especially on water, sewer and stormwater; and growth management and planning.
- Increased authority and flexibility. The shrinking and changing nature of the small town tax base along with unfunded mandates and other regulatory obligations have limited the ability of small towns to allocate resources and make budgetary decisions. Leaders would like the state to grant them more authority to raise funds and allocate resources to meet those needs most critical to each individual community.
- Expansion of infrastructure grants and programs. While water and sewer infrastructure top the needs of small towns, many towns also are dealing with transportation and telecommunications needs. The latter were particularly acute in communities adjacent to urban areas.
- New approaches to commercial and industrial recruitment. Many small town leaders talked about the need for commercial and retail business development in their community and the lack of incentives or other funding to help secure these types of business investments. Many also sought resources they could use to recruit small companies and industries that will help to create a more diverse and balanced employment sector.
- Continued support for community colleges and universities. When asked about assets and resources in the communities, many small town leaders specifically mentioned their community college or university, not only for the educational opportunities they afford community members, but for the resources they provide small towns. Small towns work with these institutions around issues such as business development and retention, education and re-training, and cultural and recreational activities.
Hearing their voices, loud and clear.
The Rural Center's focus groups were designed to provide in-depth discussion of the realities of living and working in small towns across North Carolina. With 125 participants, the groups could not represent the voices of all those in positions of leadership. Nonetheless, participants provided rich information about common areas of needs, the challenges faced by local governments and community leaders, the pride these leaders have in their community and their desire to ensure a vibrant future.
