We don’t want to screw this up

This growing consensus among the citizenry that we might consider more Walk and less Talk with respect to additions and enhancements to our regional quality-of-place assets is both welcome and fragile.

It’s a fragility we might secure with plans that are practical and feasible. It’s a fragility beyond the efforts of all the King’s men if propaganda pushes the interests of a few over the best bang for the collective buck.

We don’t want to screw this up.

At long last, we possess a willingness by folks in the area to come together and make big things happen. A little more than a decade ago we voted to tax ourselves for the $200 million expansion of Lake Fort Smith — which also required a hefty payout for a very nice and new state park. Earlier this decade we said yes to converting our two-year college to a four-year university. There was the successful push to save the 188th. Ditto for landing the Marshals Museum. And from the Damn-Near-Impossible files, we get the political leadership in Crawford and Sebastian counties to agree to the creation of a regional intermodal authority. Even more recent was this remarkable effort to place 12,000 wreaths at the Fort Smith National Cemetery that went from idea to reality in less than 8 weeks.

We are in a transition. Economic reality has finally permeated the thickness of our conservative body politic. Many in the area now realize that economic development is about far more than access to big buildings, railroads and waterways, decent schools and cheap labor. We’ve discovered — or at least I’d like to believe it so — that if you sell your community as a cheap place to do business, then you get businesses that only see and treat your community as a cheap place.

Part of this transition includes the belief that economic development is external AND internal; it’s about including a societal element, which results in a socio-economic development mode that considers the value of life outside the workplace; and, therefore, it’s about creating a community just as eager to welcome and cater to the creative fury of non-conforming entrepreneurial talent as it is eager to pursue the traditional blue-collar job recruitment plan.

We don’t want to screw this up.

It may be that Fort Smith Mayor Ray Baker’s incessant and appealing chant that “Life is worth living in Fort Smith, Arkansas,” eventually forced us to think about what makes life worth living. And maybe somewhere amidst the white noise of superficial cheerleading we realized that what makes life worth living for Mayor Baker may not be what makes life worth living for that young entrepreneur who might be the next Gates, or Jobs or Walton or Hunt or Samuel McCloud or Robert A. Young Jr., or Collier Wenderoth or Kyle Parker or Chester Koprovic or any number of men and women who made their life worth living (and created jobs) in the area during economic realities of decades past.

The macro view is, arguably, that we have two basic long-term options. The first option is that in 20 years a majority of the jobs in our regional economy are beholden to the whims of folks in other states or countries. The second option is that in 20 years a majority of the jobs in our regional economy are controlled by people who live, work and play in this region. If you like best the second option, then you understand why we can’t screw this up.

So now we find our political leaders in Fort Smith and Sebastian County talking earnestly and collaboratively about possible quality-of-place projects — in the price range of $30 million to $40 million — designed to diversify what it is that makes life worth living in the Fort Smith region. Mentioned in this talk are various projects (a baseball stadium; new facilities for tennis, soccer, baseball and softball; park enhancements; indoor sports facility; etc.) to be located at Ben Geren Regional Park, the Riverfront in downtown Fort Smith and certain city parks. An effort to financially bolster the Fort Smith Convention Center will (should) be part of the mix.

The mix is important. We don’t want to screw this up.

At risk of oversimplification, our socio-economic development success depends on the following four broad categories (in no particular order):
• Education assets
We have a dynamic and responsive university new enough to not be too weighed down with academic bureaucracy. Also, we’ll need to continue our push for public schools that can be as good as the federal and state public school system rules allow.

• Arts and entertainment
The region is in need of a diverse range of arts and entertainment options. We’re not there yet, but it’s not from lack of trying. What constitutes such diversity? For the sake of discussion, let’s include gun ranges to ecotourism to regional art shows to big-name concerts and first-run off-Broadway theater. And then we need good restaurants (locally owned, preferably) and a good bar scene (respectable venues with popular regional music acts in town on a consistent basis). Art shows, good theater and a drink with a good meal and/or good music doesn’t sound much like economic development, but it most certainly is.

Also, we must continue to focus — through supportive/minimal regulation and/or oversight from local governments — on developing a “hip” urban core that appeals to the 20-40 age group who want to live, work and play in or near a downtown environment. Fort Smith, Ozark and Van Buren have much potential in this area. Greg Nabholz, a Conway businessman who also works as an advocate for non-traditional economic development, recently told The City Wire: “The bottom line is, if you don’t have that cool downtown, you’re out of the (high-wage economic development) game.”

• Infrastructure
High-wage and low-wage jobs all require a dependable water supply, quality road network (I-49), expandable landfill and electronic (broadband, wireless, etc.) connections. Failure in any one of the aforementioned is unacceptable.

• Connections
This is an area in which we suck. We must do more to build strong connections to business, cultural and government leaders in Little Rock, Northwest Arkansas and Washington. Yellow-dog Democrats and Right-wing Republicans are of no help in correcting our dysfunctional connections.

As you might note from the above list, quality of place is important because we score well in two (Education and Infrastructure) of the four categories. We can’t screw this up.

Which is to say, we have to be careful about what we believe from consultants, knowing that a consultant paid by a person(s) who seeks Result ABC will almost always deliver Result ABC. Excitement about possibilities is great, but it’s never a substitute for a rational dissection of hoped-for prognostications.

Which is to say we might consider forming a commission or task force of non-politicians to come up with a financially feasible quality-of-place investment plan. Our more successful efforts — the Lake Fort Smith expansion, for example — used such an approach.

Which is to say we shouldn’t fall into a trap of artificial deadlines. We need action, but if it takes 18 months to come up with a good plan, that’s much better than trying to push a bad plan in the next 6 months.

Which is to say we should not allow fear to dilute our resolve to think big in terms of pushing a quality of place plan. We didn’t back away from the big fights in expanding our water supply, keeping the 188th and landing the Marshals Museum. We are a great people in a great region, and we are capable of great progress.

Which is to say, we’ve proven we can avoid screwing up when not screwing up is important.

It’s important, again.