 |
| |
 |
|
|
|
|
|
PERSPECTIVE
- March 2005 by Sylvia L. Lovely Bloom Where You Are Planted Drive into a small town on any evening and stop by the local pizza parlor. Or go to a park on a summer afternoon. If you are lucky, you will see young families enjoying a bit of time out having fun. And when we enjoy the park and see families together having fun, what goes unnoticed is that so many of us benefit from the work of leaders who remain anonymous. A city park tells us there are people who care to become involved and help not only those closest to them, but also everyone who forms the fabric of our communities. All this brings to mind a recent convening of great minds in Denmark. While that meeting wasn’t designed to ponder the lives of young families in parks or local pizza parlors, perhaps it should have been. Not that their agenda wasn’t important, mind you. They sought to develop consensus on the top 10 issues the world could and should solve, and in which order they should be addressed. Those issues included climate change, communicable disease, conflict, education, financial instability, governance and corruption, malnutrition and hunger, population/migration, sanitation and water, and subsidies and trade barriers. You could hardly find justification in arguing against solving any of those. Prioritizing them, meanwhile, proves to be so difficult that I wonder if all those great minds considered the idea of packaging all those issues into a larger, more holistic solution. Why not focus the world’s energy and those great minds on building the one thing that could fix all the above: local communities. Lest the idea presented here be dismissed too quickly, let me add that some other great minds have observed that building local community is the most important thing that can be done to fix the world. Theologian Larry Rasmussen notes that as the larger world grows more accessible to all, local community becomes more important than ever. While national elections get the most attention, it is instructive to note that Jimmy Carter and other leaders have traveled the world overseeing local mayoral elections. That’s because real change that plants firm roots often begins at ground level. This idea of ground level is found in other areas. There is growing recognition, for instance, that educational success is dependent upon parent involvement. And their involvement is improved if parents attain higher levels of educational attainment and are happier by holding decent jobs. All of this can happen – but only when cities and towns offer affordable and accessible housing, and only when citizens are comfortable enough in their lives to devote the necessary energy and time to their children. It all adds up to community. Effective local community-building is, of course, difficult in its own right. Those most fortunate can live and work anywhere they wish. If a certain locale is difficult, they often are mobile enough and job-skilled enough to simply move away from the problem. It takes people who are willing. And it also requires the will of nations and states to commit to three key principles: (1) inform citizens of ways to build local community; (2) restore belief that positive change can happen and that better lives will result; and (3) that leadership is about reaching those goals and inspiring others to join in the effort. There is an old saying worth dredging up in these fast and furious times and it still works in spite of the fast pace of our lives: “Bloom where you’re planted.” You just might help create a beautiful fragrance that others can enjoy as well. Sylvia L. Lovely
is executive director and CEO of the Kentucky League of Cities. |
|
|
|
|
Copyright 1996-2005, by Kentucky Business Online. All rights reserved. Editorial content
is copyright 2005, Lane Communications Group The Lane Report is a trademark of Lane Communications Group. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. |
