The Small Town Project

Jewels of Eastern Iowa
We must protect these jewels of eastern Iowa. These towns. Mount Vernon and Lisbon are near perfect examples of classic American small towns. We residents cherish their small town character. Indeed, many of us live here in large part because Lisbon and MV are great small towns in a lovely rural setting. These are towns where our children can walk to school, where half the town shows up to cheer on the high school football team, towns surrounded by farmland and open spaces, where neighborly values lost in larger cities remain — towns, in short, with true small town character.

But today that character is at risk. Current residential development threatens to erode it. New subdivisions are appearing at an alarming pace, and continued development is planned with no clear end in sight.

The largest development currently under construction is the near 300 home Stonebrook subdivision under way in Southwest MV. That’s easily 1,000 new residents. This town of 4,000 will go to 5,000, a 25% jump in population as a result of this single development!

When is enough enough? Just how big do MV and Lisbon have to be? How much more open land must we destroy? Many of us believe these are wonderful towns as they are. With continued growth that will inevitably change.

Who Says Growth is Necessarily Good?
Supporters of unceasing residential development frequently offer economic arguments to justify their agendas, even insisting that such development is necessary for the health of our towns’ economies. Yet their arguments are fundamentally flawed, as we will see in future installments on this site.

But here’s the kicker: Even if their economic assertions were valid, there is a larger problem. Even if residential growth were an effective route to a healthy economy, it is a completely unsustainable strategy. By the logic of such economic theory we would have to keep growing forever to avoid an economic downfall. If you talk with some of the central figures in local government, that seems vaguely to be the plan. Just keep growing and we’ll be okay. It’s a strategy fraught with serious problems.

We’ll examine this issue in detail. Suffice it for now to point out that if you believe, as many do, that if MV and Lisbon were to grow too large, the victims of suburban sprawl, they would lose much that makes them appealing, then you can see one problem. Even if it were economically valid, the “unlimited growth” strategy says, in effect, “To support our economy, we need to ruin our town!” As Michael Kinsley at the Rocky Mountain Institute points out, growth beyond maturity is a cancer.

Community Relations
On viewing the content on this site, some members of our communities will, no doubt, take offense. And this concerns me. My aim is not to offend those who profit from residential expansion. Nor do I wish to insult owners of homes in newer developments. These are good people, and some are my friends. I believe, in fact, that some will be open minded enough to take a new look at development issues, in part by way of the information here. In any case, the concern is less with existing developments and more with plans for further residential construction. And I would never have built this site had I expected no one but “the choir” to listen with open minds. For more on this point see the page, This Site and Community Relations.

We Have Alternatives
The Small Town Project will examine the flawed, “unlimited growth” strategy, and will offer sustainable, tested alternatives which can help nourish our towns’ economies while allowing them to retain the small town character which drew so many of us here in the first place. When it comes to residential development, we do not need to grow to thrive!

- John

(Don’t stop there! See the recent articles and the archives, post a comment on an article, or just poke around and learn more about the Small Town Project.)