Lessons From Community Conversation

By Brian Lam

Wonder what's on the minds of people around Southwestern Michigan during
these turbulent times?

I’ve had the opportunity to sit in on a dozen community conversations around Southwestern Michigan, and I'm finding people are concerned. Very concerned.

As they talk about the future of a state who's auto industry once "ruled the world
economy," one theme keeps re-occuring: change.

These Community Conversations are part of a state-wide effort to collect citizen strategies about the most pressing issues facing Michigan. Each meeting concludes with participants talking about "what's working" in their own local communities. The question remains: what will work in the state as a whole.

From a museum curator in St. Joe to a county commissioner in Allegan ; from a small business owner in Battle Creek to a first-grade teacher, we're hearing the concerns. The question, though, is "what's the best starting point."

Community Conversations, made possible through the Center for Michigan, a nonprofit organization based in Ann Arbor, is asking "what's the most urgent action needed" to address what citizens consider the most pressing issues.

Is it economic development and diversification? Education? Quality of place? At a Community Conversation convened by the arts community, participants lamented the funding cuts for the arts and suggested that investing in the arts benefits all aspects of community life . At a Community Conversation convened by one city’s Chamber of Commerce, business leaders focused on the Michigan Business Tax and offered their views on how tax cuts would benefit all aspects of a community.

The issues and concerns are many, and diverse.

So, where is the common ground? The Center for Michigan feels it can be created by hearing the voices of no less than 10,000 Michigan citizens this year. The stories are
starting to come out.

The stories involve people taking it upon themselves to improve the communities in which they live. They're stories of involvement. This involvement almost always entails communication and encouragement: service clubs sitting down with city leaders, school boards sitting down with parents, employers sitting down with employees, all encouraging their friends, families and co-workers to keep at it. These stories are my favorite part of the discussion, and I love to see the excitement bubble up in the voices of the people that tell them.

While there's some frustration and anger aimed at state government and legistators, people are sharing their views so that "local solutions" can become "Michigan solutions."

As one local government leader said, "we're all in this together. If we can do it as a community, we can do it as a state."

If you would like to know more about Community Conversations in southwest Michigan, please visit http://www.michigancommunityconversations.com. or to find out about the movement behind Community Conversations, vist http://www.thecenterformichigan.net