Suspend disbelief for a moment and picture this scenario: Marquette Country adopts a global focus and becomes an official "outpost" of Finland. It seems a logical pairing, given the area's proud Scandinav-ian heritage. High schools teach the Fin-nish language and students from both regions participate in year-long academic exchanges. Marquette sets up a Finnish consulate in a vacant building. Im-pressed with the gesture and enthusiastic welcome, wireless communications giant Nokia decides to make some investments. The Fin-nish corporation sends entrepreneurs to the Lake Superior shore armed with high-tech employment opportunities. Nokia also works with Northern Michigan University to design a curriculum that will prepare a qualified workforce. You might call it Sister Cities on steroids. This is a strategic relationship offering substantive benefits to both parties—a relationship that goes far beyond goodwill delegation visits and trophy trinkets for public display cases.
    Here's another possibility: Marquette leads an effort to forge a new regional partnership. Players include the entire Upper Peninsula and select portions of Wisconsin, Minnesota and Canada. What brings them together? All share common values, interests, goals, climates, recreational opportunities and pristine environments. All border a vibrant natural resource—Lake Superior. This great body of water becomes the unifying symbol of the partnership and maybe even inspires its identifiable, marketable name. This new region could be called The Superior State, or perhaps Superior Circle. Its residents are entitled to all of the affinity card-carrying benefits afforded Superior Citizens.
  Radical ideas? You betcha. But according to Partners for Livable Communities (PLC), this out-of-the-box way of thinking is precisely what's needed to promote meaningful change. The scenarios outlined above are courtesy of Robert McNulty, president of PLC and an expert in regional planning. He arrived in Marquette February 18 and spent two full days making presentations and facilitating focus group discussions. McNulty's specialty is getting local units of government to work together in developing a long-term community plan.
  "In order to succeed in making communities more livable, you can't be limited by the traditional boundaries of politics and geography," he said. "It takes regions to have the economic clout to concentrate resources. But while most people recognize the value of this strategy, it's hard to execute. Public officials find it especially tough to break from petty parochial attitudes in order to get results because they are elected to represent specific interests."
  The regional concept of governing and marketing piqued the interest of Marquette Mayor Stu Bradley, who heard McNulty speak at a conference in Grand Rapids. Bradley was instrumental in securing financial support to bring McNulty to Marquette.
   "Let's put it this way: I've heard plenty of speakers before, but I've never been motivated enough to buy their books," Bradley said. "I bought Mc-Nulty's book because his ideas fascinated me. I wanted others to be able to hear what he has to say."
  Partners for Livable Communities is a non-profit organization based in Washing-ton, D.C. It was established twenty-five years ago with the goal of improving community well-being through advocacy, technical assistance and shared information.
  Governments and foundations contract with PLC to identify and magnify a community's competitive edge. PLC identifies possibilities, stimulates ideas, creates solutions and mobilizes support. The name of the organization begs a question: Just how does one define a livable community?
  Partners grew out of the National Endowment for the Arts. McNulty said it originally focused on creating a strong sense of place through planning and design, architecture and historical preservation.
  "It's pretty well supported that people work harder for a place they feel good about," he added. "But the definition doesn't stop there; it has evolved over the years. Livability is measured in part by economic development. If people can't find employment, that sense of place doesn't mean a hoot. Communities need to attract new investments and new kinds of jobs. Livability is social equity for people who are disadvantaged, from troubled youth through the elderly. It's using the region as the playing field and adopting a strategic approach to change. The most important element of livability is leadership—recruiting people who have something to offer and training them to be effective leaders in community affairs."
  McNulty said 200 communities have developed livability benchmarks. These vary according to their respective needs and values. For example, Portland, Ore., has what McNulty considers the two best indices for livability. The first is, "Can you see Mt. Hood every clear day?" This brings in issues of air quality, sprawl and the environment. The other asks, "Can every child in the region walk safely to a public library from their home?"
  Communities must target what they deem most important, he said, and then set indices to gauge progress. Based on the information gleaned from his brief visit to the Marquette area, McNulty said economic development appears to be a top priority. One concern that surfaced repeatedly in his discussions with residents and leaders is that there is not enough diversified employment to keep young people from leaving, or to convince them to return after they venture away from the area for college.
  Josh Ziel, a high school senior and member of the Lake Superior Leadership Academy, agreed with McNulty's assessment.
  "Of the people in the top five or ten percent of my graduating class, I don't know of anyone besides myself who plans to or would like to come back here after college," he said. "While some of that feeling of wanting to get away and experience something new is understandable, it's also cause for concern. I think Mr. McNulty is right in that we need some radical change to turn around the trends that have begun to develop: declining population, aging population, closing schools. These are big problems. I just hope we can get out of the talking phase and into the doing phase."
  McNulty is a proponent of engaging young people in the community dialogue. One of his presentations addressed NMU students participating in the Student Leader Fellowship Program. McNulty told the group that his organization offers internships to undergraduates and trains them to "change the world one community at a time."
  Lisa Coombs-Gerou, a focus group participant, agreed that a community's vitality is directly related to the level of youth involvement. "Young people offer a fresh and different perspective. Besides, they're the ones who are going to live with the changes years from now. I grew up here, but I know that in order to sustain our community, we have to do something to encourage young people to want to live here."
  In order to attract new employers in this post-industrialized and global economy, could the Marquette area create its own competitive niche in an area related to technology, then develop corresponding educational programs to meet the preparation and training needs of that niche?
  "You've got places like Silicon Valley attracting these young entrepreneurs; there's no reason we couldn't do the same thing here," Coombs-Gerou said. "We could convince corporate leaders to come to a place that not only has power (a tongue-in-cheek jab at the California electrical outages), but a high quality of life and numerous recreational opportunities. Why not capitalize on the assets we have and market them in the name of economic development?"
  McNulty said some cities might follow the lead of Louisville, Ky. Faced with the visible problem of vacant downtown buildings, city leaders worked with the major employer, an educational institution, to create a thriving new district of combined functions and services.
  "You can take any dormant building and combine uses to establish your own creative industries district," he said. "With the recreation and leisure available in Marquette, it's not like you would have to build an extreme sports park to attract business interests; it's all here, right outside your door."
  On the first full day of his visit, McNulty facilitated dialogue among three separate focus groups, each composed of about twenty-five community representatives. Discussion revolved around such topics as formulating a long-range regional plan that incorporates cultural values and environmental quality with the economic realities of the area; and developing a US-41/M-28 community corridor plan.
  Coombs-Gerou sat in on the corridor discussion. "There's already an organization working on this issue, but McNulty had some interesting suggestions," she said. "He promoted the idea of using the arts council. He recommended some innovative and uniform signage that would make this an area you don't just drive through, but are compelled to stop and visit. He even offered alternative methods to alleviate congestion in Marquette Township where all of the new retail stores have located."
  A third session focused on getting cities and townships to look forward and work together. According to Marquette Mayor Bradley, this issue was the major catalyst in organizing the group discussions.
  "When you drive through the area, it's not always easy to tell where a city ends and a township begins," he said. "There are lines out there somewhere, but governmental lines aren't necessarily efficiency lines. We're not proposing that we annex anything—just that we work together more on things like police and fire service, roads and parks and recreation. Then we can cooperate on long-range plans related to economics and the environment. We've already started the wheel moving slowly in that direction."
  McNulty told the Economic Club of Marquette County that fiscal pressures on local governments have forced them to pursue more joint ventures, alli-ances and cost-sharing initiatives with regional partners. Sometimes these partnerships even extend across state and national borders. He said three cities in Italy, France and Switzerland created a unified economy in an effort to streamline transportation, along with other common services and interests.
  According to McNulty, the success of strategic planning is all in the timing. If communities wait until a crisis occurs to start developing a vision, this reactionary measure is not likely to be very effective. He said it is best to assemble a team when the climate is "business as usual." The team should include representatives from the non-profit and philanthropy sectors, the faith community, university and community organizations and the media. Members would begin the process by discussing what the community could be if it lived up to its potential, then plot a course for getting there.
  This type of participatory planning, in a non-crisis atmosphere, is most effective, said McNulty. But business as usual isn't always a strong motivator. When things are going well, it is more challenging to build a consensus for radical change and reinvention.
  "Then again, may-be Marquette isn't ready for radical change; maybe you don't think it's needed," McNulty told the Economic Club. "You've got a great natural environment that offers a lot of outdoor recreation opportunities, and you've got friendly people with strong, independent spirits. You can either elevate that image and market the heck out of it, or you can hide under your 200-plus inches of snow each year and remain a best-kept secret. It's a choice you have to make; no one from outside your community can make it for you."
  The Rev. Law-rence Jones of Mar-quette said change is inevitable. He can accept that, as long as the change doesn't come about haphazardly.
  "Let's not be another Traverse City, with uncontrolled growth that turns nice areas into blighted areas," he explained. "Perhaps that's not fair to Traverse City, but that's an example used around here to illustrate what we don't want to have happen. We need to maintain the small-town atmosphere and all of its benefits while recognizing the fact we're moving in a different direction."
  Like Jones, Judy Allen, conservation chair of the Central U.P. Sierra Club, participated in one of the focus group discussions. She agreed that Marquette will not remain static, adding that it can't afford to, either.
  "Most people concede that Marquette is going to grow," Allen said. "The question is whether or not communities have any say in how it's going to grow. People look away from the issue because they think they can put their heads in the sand. I think, without some kind of consensus building and discussion about what's going to happen here, it will change without anyone having a say. I want to figure out how to keep what's extraordinarily valuable here, recognizing that things are going to change and people need jobs. But we need to maintain a balance; I can't think of anything worse than turning into a retirement village."
  It is safe to conclude that McNulty's ideas generated some conversation and interest. Now that he is gone, no doubt advising other communities how to make the most of their cultural assets or develop an innovative public-private partnership, what is next for Marquette?
  Bradley said the city, Community Foundation and Lake Superior Community Partnership are looking at contracting with McNulty for some services. "He seemed pretty impressed with our area," Bradley added. "I think we are going to gain some valuable publicity at the very least by virtue of the fact he came here and liked what he saw."
  Allen said the visit should be a springboard to some serious dialogue and action regarding a strategic vision for the region and methods to achieve that vision. "You only get one or two shots to involve the community in a broad-based strategic ef-fort of some sort," she said. "If you do that, you better be prepared to follow through or you won't get another shot for a long time. People like to mull things over. They might carry forward one or two ideas that really grab them. Looking back after it's all done, the overall change might seem radical, but the way it came about will probably be more gradual. The point is that people have to get used to working together."

MM

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