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Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION

Grand Forks a good example for us to follow

Community attachment ranks high

By: Martin Cash

Posted: 10/1/2009 1:00 AM | Comments: 0 (including replies)

Grand Forks got a huge boost in confidence and prestige this week by ranking second-highest out of a group of 26 U.S. cities in a large survey gauging community attachment.

The purpose of the study done by Gallup and the Knight Foundation was to show the correlation between communities with strong community attachment (CA) scores -- essentially loyalty and passion for the community -- and those with the highest economic growth.

More research is to follow that organizers hope will show even more conclusively such loyalty and passion will actually create stronger economic growth in a community.

The findings are interesting and probably surprising to some. Who knew the good people of Grand Forks were as engaged and committed to their community as they are?

But probably the best part for Grand Forks is the material it now has at its disposal to work with.

Coincidental to the release of the report, called Soul of the Community, Grand Forks Regional Economic Development Corp. is working on a strategy to attract and retain young people.

Grand Forks may be a prosperous, safe town with exceptional educational institutions, but any economic growth potential is constrained by population. It needs more people.

That sounds familiar.

"The perception of Grand Forks is similar to that of Winnipeg -- cold and isolated," said Klaus Thiessen, CEO of Grand Forks's economic development agency. "It's just not realistic to try to attract people from Southern California who have never been here before."

Grand Forks's best chance at growing the community is attracting back people who originally came from the region. That's not a secret solution.

It is exactly the same thing Winnipeg is trying to do.

At Travel Manitoba's annual general meeting in Winnipeg on Wednesday, industry officials keyed on the hope Homecoming 2010 promotions will provide a boost to the tourism sector next year.

But it is also a promotion designed to attract people back here to live.

Manitoba also has had some success in increasing its numbers by attracting international immigration, a mechanism for growth not available to North Dakota.

The province just recorded its strongest population growth in 38 years during the second quarter.

Part of that was attributable to immigration and part was a decline in out-migration.

Richard Florida, an urban theorist based at the University of Toronto, championed the importance of the creative class to a city's general well-being.

He contends there is an awful lot to be said about the three key factors in the CA index -- the way residents perceive the relative openness, social offerings and aesthetics of their communities.

He said it also reflects other factors like opportunity.

On a more pragmatic level, these key factors provide specific, actionable avenues to enhance that feeling of community attachment.

Katherine Loflin, a consultant to the Knight Foundation, a $1.8-billion Miami-based foundation formed by the Knight brothers, who owned the newspaper that became the Knight Ridder newspaper chain, said the point of the project was to help provide a road map on what to do next.

"You can see (by the results) what drives loyalty and passion," she said.

"Community leaders can look at this and see that better playgrounds and parks really do make a difference and they can do something about that."

Regardless of how a community scored in the survey, any community can benefit from the findings.

The fact that a community so close to Winnipeg showed so well is something that Winnipeg can profit from by association.

The findings in the Soul of the Community study provide scientific data for a slow growth region like the Red River Valley to believe it doesn't always have to be that way.

martin.cash@freepress.mb.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition October 1, 2009 B4

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