Report from Chicago

City of Columbia staff joined more than 1600 other economic development professionals this week in participating in the 2009 National Main Street Conference at the historic Palmer House hotel in Chicago. This year's event focused on the emerging role of social media in supporting revitalization efforts across the country.

One highlight of the event was a rousing address by Illinois Governor Pat Quinn, who affirmed the vital role that Main Street programs play in stimulating his state's economy. Other highlights included:

• A "nuts and bolts" presentation on how best to plan, fund, facilitate and evaluate a successful streetscape project, offered by Donna Dow, manager for the Main Street program in Durant, Oklahoma;
• Advice from Tom McGilloway, a landscape architect, on how to make the best use of open spaces like parks and trails;
• A new approach to facade renovation that restores whole blocks at one time, presented by Randy Wilson, director of design services for the Mississippi Main Street Association;
• "Every Business Has a Billboard," a session led by Main Street Arkansas Small Business Consultant Mark Miller, that tied signage and advertising, and social media into a strategic bundle;
• Great new ideas for promoting restaurants, boutiques and antique shops presented by Blagica Bottigliero, a social media consultant.

Columbia's Civic Progress Committee will enjoy an overview of these presentations and more at their next meeting.

In the Company of Bloggers

This weekend, Columbia's Director of Community & Economic Development, Paul Ellis, will be travelling to Chicago for the 2009 National Main Street Conference, where he'll be part of a group presentation entitled: "Blogging, Multi-media & Bunnies: Three Things You Need Not Fear."

His co-presenters are Rob Voigt, author of Civic Blogger, and Cac Kamak, a planner with the City of Oak Harbor. The National Main Street Center is making a big push this year to demonstrate the value of social media as marketing and communications venues for revitalization efforts in smaller communities. As the practitioner in the group (although Columbia's Main Street program is only Introductory as yet), Paul will relate experience with blogging in Tacoma, Washington and, subsequently, deploying three blogs in Columbia.

This is not his first experience covering this ground at a national conference. In 2007, Paul presented at the annual conference for the International Downtown Association (IDA). That group is where the larger metropolitan districts get together to compare notes, while the current conference is the national gathering for smaller cities, towns and villages.

One very cool element of this conference is the live conference blog that Rob and Cac have set up. Main Street participants from around the country can catch the conference via this venue from the comfort of their storefronts--even their homes!

Businesses: Help Customers 'Think Monroe County First!'

Local businesses support the community through employment, sales and property taxes, community service contributions, donations, and more, so spending money close to home benefits consumers as well as business owners and managers. The "Think Monroe County First!' campaign, sponsored by the Monroe County Economic Development Council and supported by the City of Columbia, seeks to help local residents realize--and act upon--that fact. Every dollar that Monroe County consumers spend locally casts a vote in favor of the future of this local community.

Local merchants are conducting an information blitz through point-of-sale contact as well as visibility in local media. In addition, the campaign has its own website, a blog that can help direct consumers to businesses they haven't yet found, and even a LinkedIn group to help coordinate efforts. Columbia merchants and agencies already involved in the program currently include the following:

• Action Graphics
• Agnes Ross
• City of Columbia
• Columbia Market
• Commercial State Bank of Waterloo
• First National Bank of Waterloo
• Dr. Anil Gupta
• Harres Furniture & Appliance
• Harrisonville Telephone Company
• MarketPlace Foods
• Mokka Kaffeehaus
• Tiny's Restaurant
• The Training Room & Monroe Physical Fitness
• Wagner Photography

Business owners in Columbia that do not yet appear on this list can get involved by signing up on the campaign website--the more the merrier!

Why City Planners Blog

"Blogs are emerging as important information sources in the contemporary discourse on cities and city planning," observes Michael Dudley, Research Associate and Librarian for the Institute of Urban Studies at the University of Winnipeg in a recent post on Planetizen.

Dudley cites several ways in which blogs can help professional planners develop better processes and products, including:

1. Allowing planners to contribute to community debate in a very timely way;
2. Initiating dialogue--postings are always subject to commentary and refutation;
3. Helping planners to keep track of, understand and--more importantly--mentally integrate perspectives from multiple sources to combine them with their own thoughts and observations.

As a form of communication with colleagues and the public, an attractive environment for citizen engagement, a way to track trends and issues, and as a resource for the planning educator--"the blog can become an important and exciting part of the planner’s professional toolkit."

It is becoming relatively common for cities to use blogs for general communication, venues that Oak Harbor planner Rob Voight describes as "a kind of voice mail on growth hormone." By developing project-specific blogs for the issues related to subdivision regulations (as in his site, http://www.cohsubdivisions.blogspot.com/), Voight has pioneered use of these online tools in ways that are innovative for municipalities.

Voight contends that blogging "is not only a tool but an entirely new platform for community engagement."