Iowa Great Places
Great Places: An Invitation to Iowa’s Future
They came by email and fax, typed on official stationary, engraved on wedding
stock and handwritten on the back of a spare piece of paper. They were short and
sweet, and packed to the margins. And they all put to rest any notion that Iowans
aren’t bursting with pride in all that is Iowa.
This spring, the Iowa Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with 18
state agencies, issued a call for invitations to participate in a brand new initiative
called Iowa Great Places.
We received 145 invitations from 91 counties. If you want to take a trip to
every corner of Iowa and all that’s in between, past, present and future,
take a reading tour of our Great Places invitations available on this Web site.
Iowans were challenged to think about what is genuine and authentic about the
place where they live, and what it would take to make that a great place. Great
places have a special identity, and come in all sizes, urban and rural. So did
our invitations.
They were as big as the 10-county Great River Road along the Mississippi, the
length of the Loess Hills from Plymouth to Fremont Counties along the Missouri,
and captured two tiers of counties on our southern border in the Historic Hills
Corridor, from Clarke and Decatur to Van Buren. They envisioned the revitalization
of historic corridors, like the White Pole Road, a historic trail marked by white
poles, connecting Adair, Casey, Menlo, Stuart and Dexter.
They were compact, well-defined sections of our cities that see themselves
as cultural magnets or shopping districts, like Beaverdale, East Village and Ingersoll
in Des Moines, and Sioux City’s Floyd Boulevard market that wants to attract
people with authentic, locally-grown organic food.
Some invitations came from small towns that have experienced rebirth before
and are confident they can do it again. Pomeroy was “nearly wiped off the
face of the earth by a devastating tornado in 1893,”writes Denita Luke.
“The spirit of the people prevailed,” she continues. And now the community
has a new vision to attract artisans to live and work in Pomeroy making it a cultural
destination. Riceville survived a fire that destroyed the town in 1901. It wants
to reclaim its place as “Gateway to Mitchell County.”
Olin would like a town square, instead of the vacant lot in the middle of town.
City Clerk Jean McPherson envisions benches, bike racks, picnic tables and a fountain
as an inviting resting spot for hikers and cyclists who travel a nearby trail.
Albia, which has one of the few town squares on the National Register of Historic
Places, wants to focus now on Buxton and its mining history, recreating an authentic
experience, with train rides and a trip down a coal shaft.
Lake City has “everything but a lake,” but knows how to “dream
big and deliver on those dreams,” writes Paul Iverson.
Iowans seem perfectly content without the proverbial “mountains
and oceans.” They write of the vineyards and wine country in Avoca, musical
heritage in Mason City and Clear Lake, an equestrian paradise in Warren County
and the “golfing, camping, picnicking, paddling, shooting, birding, hiking,
hunting, biking…” in the “Outdoor Family Zone” in Northwest
Polk County.
Iowans know that a great quality of life is essential if we are going to keep
or lure back our talented young people. And our young people must think so too.
They are behind a number of our Great Places invitations. U of I Student Body
President Mark Kresowik is the primary contact for the Creative Corridor invitation.
The Young Professionals group authored the invitation from Ft. Dodge. And the
ISU Greek Community wants to build a better relationship with Ames and Campustown
as a Great Place.
What’s next? Coaches are being dispatched to every place that submitted
a Great Places invitation. They will work with the local teams to move the vision
forward. In October, the Great Places Citizens Advisory Board will select three
pilot places to be part of our learning laboratory, in which the state will discover
coordinated, focused ways to deliver technical and financial assistance to deliver
powerful results. Every one of the 145 places that extended an invitation to Great
Places will benefit from this initiative, through the coaching process, new training
opportunities and the chance to come together as a community and focus on the
future.
That’s happening already. In Davenport, which calls itself Iowa’s
front porch. In Council Bluffs, where Donna Kinney writes, “Here I am, just
another Iowan who loves to brag about the beautiful hills, trails and of course
the friendly people who live here in Council Bluffs, Iowa.” Iowans have
set aside their signature modesty, thought about what’s good and great about
our state, and with the brass of 76 trombones, blown their own horns. That takes
confidence, creativity and vision. And that is the first step toward transforming
what’s good to Great Places in Iowa.
Anita Walker
Director of the Iowa Department of Cultural Affairs
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