Please note…
The series, “13 Things You Can do to Kill Your Community,”
is a set of satirical open letters by
Doug Griffiths
which appeared as individual weekly contributions to
The Wainwright EDGE
during the spring and summer of 2005.
The series is not intended to be taken as instruction
for actually harming your community; rather its critical aim is to
increase awareness of everyday things we may not
recognize as being detrimental to our community.
13 Things You Can Do to Kill Your Community
by Doug Griffiths, MLA Battle River - Wainwright
Needs and Opportunities
The fourth in the list of thirteen things that you can do, if your ultimate intent is to ensure that your community fails, is to ensure that you don't assess your community’s needs or opportunities. Every community lacks something. Whether it is a small town that lacks daycare services or a hardware store, or a large city that lacks community spirit or has traffic issues, every community lacks something. Improving a community is never over because problems and challenges will always arise, and addressing those problems will lead to new opportunities for improvement.
I have not been in a community that does not have some competitive advantage over other communities that would make people want to move/live there. Every community has something unique to offer. Sometimes it is the people in the community that make it so wonderful, sometimes it is the service clubs, sometimes it is the businesses, and in others it is the school or hospital quality. Every one of those communities, however, also has disadvantages that deter people from locating there.
Assessing what a community has-both its strengths and weaknesses-allows that community to fully realize what great things it has going for it, things it can brag about in attracting new people. But this also increases the awareness of what might be missing so that those problems can be fixed or addressed in some way, thereby removing the reason for people to leave or choose not to locate there.
Communities that have assessed their strengths and weaknesses often act quickly to address them. What they find is that the community itself seems to thrive for two reasons. First, community members themselves seem to have more energy and desire to ’help out’ because the community acts when it needs to and seems to be a place with a future. Second, others choose to locate there because they recognize it as a community where people’s needs are met it is a progressive place that addresses the future and refuses to be stagnant.
Communities that do this find creative ways to improve or add service clubs, more cultural activities, new businesses, better programs for young families, or even just plants and flowers to beautify the town, and it works because those communities are growing. So, if the failure and death of your town your ultimate goal, don’t look around and assess your community needs and opportunities or you just may feel compelled to do something about them. You may realize that it is not that daunting a task and actually move on to improve other things, and your community may just become one that meets its challenges head on, and that is a sure sign of success, something you don’t ever want if failure is your ultimate goal.
