Humble Beginnings

What makes a strong community?” It’s a question I asked each of 11 key people within a large urban area in the Southeastern United States. As they took a moment to prepare their answers, some longer than others, I thought of the research I had done on each person and the answer I expected to receive from them. In a well-developed documentary, the research on the front end will save a lot of time (and sometimes embarrassment) on the back end when you are actually sitting across the camera from your interviewee.

I expected quite a bit of self-acclamation from each interviewee. After all, if you’ve ever held a camera in a crowd, have you noticed how many people will walk by just to throw up some fingers or wave or in some way try to steal the show? I expected each interviewee to state the merits of his or her office, and perhaps to even discredit other parties in the community as not reflecting the core values that he or she did in their role as so-and-so.

What I did not expect was humility.

To my surprise, every one of the 11 interviewees deferred credit for what makes a strong community to another leader in the community. For instance, the mayor deferred to the Chamber of Commerce for bringing in businesses that provided jobs and supported a strong tax-base for growth. The Chamber of Commerce credited the public school system for providing the quality education that attracted businesses not only to educate the families of their employees, but also the future employees themselves. The school superintendent praised the leaders of the diverse, smaller communities for promoting the importance of education. And so forth.

If I could put down on paper what these responses looked like, with very little exception, every community leader would have a line drawn to another one, and no two would be the same. To find the ONE characteristic of a successful community, according to these leaders, I would have to chase my tail back and forth endlessly among them.

And this was not scripted. None of the other interviewees knew who else had been contacted for our documentary. This was simply how business was done in a community that valued shared success over individual praise.

The nature of the documentary is to look at a city that had experienced explosive growth over the last half-century but which had, through various efforts, managed the growth and avoided many of the negative effects of uncontrollable growth.

But this was a proactive, rather than reactive municipality. This was a city that looked to the year 2050 instead of the year 2012. This was a collection of individuals with a common interest connected together in a way to ensure mutual success. This was, collectively defined, a community.

And the insight I have gained in the process has been one in which I am very tempted to move to raise my family there, if I cannot somehow become involved in the change that is needed to improve my own community here in Jacksonville.

I am certainly not as active in Jacksonville as I should be. In fact, for one person to be as involved as necessary in order to “fix” a city like Jacksonville, one would never have enough time or resources. So I will not assess particular blame to the functioning of our community. Some of these things may be happening, to some degree, within our city and I am just not aware of it. I would like to highlight several observations I made concerning what seems to work in a city even more culturally diverse than our own.

1. Leaders accept responsibility for shortcomings, and pass along the praise.

For instance, a follow-up question I always asked was, “So if things seem to be so great, what are some issues you see facing [the city] and what role do you as [job title] have in ensuring that this doesn’t become a bigger issue?”

Each leader provided such a thorough report card of himself or herself that I almost felt bad for asking the question. I knew that what they were doing was working. Everyone in the community was talking about their greatness, except for them. They were aware of and talking about their need for improvement, and they sought it honestly (and even admitted on camera).

2. Leaders meet on a regular basis, in small groups or large, and are almost always cross-referenced as members of each other’s decision-making boards.

For instance, this particular community had several colleges and universities and technical schools in which the presidents of each would meet on no less than a monthly basis with the superintendent to discuss how the school system could better prepare its students for the college courses. Further, these college and university presidents would meet at least monthly with the Chamber of Commerce and other significant businesses in the area to determine what needs the businesses foresaw in a workforce, to be able to adjust and tweak their programs to keep a steady flow of workers into the workforce.

Connecting the dots, essentially a kindergarten student in the public school system was already being groomed for the ability to attend post-secondary education and/or directly enter the workforce and remain in the community as a productive citizen. As a former educator, that one knocked my socks off!

3. Leaders see their city in the year 2050, not in the year 2012, and make decisions that reflect forward-thinking, not responsive damage control.

For instance, leaders knew the demographics of their city down to which neighborhoods were more heavily inclined to particular socioeconomic and cultural influences. But instead of accepting that certain parts of the city would remain socially and geographically isolated, leaders within each community formed their own “Chambers” of sorts to promote cross-cultural diversity and exchange of best practices.

In essence, the leaders knew that America was going to be even more culturally diverse in the year 2050 and they weren’t going to allow their community to struggle to meet the changing diversity, but rather to lead the way to effectively managing change.

4. Leaders didn’t want the citizens to leave, but remain and grow with the community.

Instead of watching parts of the community degenerate and have its citizens cross county or state borders, business leaders formed “Community Improvement Districts” (CID) in regional areas in which they self-imposed higher taxes to provide for the specific needs of that particular region. Whether it was repairing roads and providing better lighting, increasing security or restoring storefronts, the CID operated within the larger community in a way to provide incentive and value to its residents to stay.

Further, an emphasis was placed on the community’s parks and recreational services to ensure people were not just moving into a house and going to work. There was great pride in the way each community leader spoke of the city as being a place where people come to “live, work and play.”

5. Leaders are committed to his or her community according to Biblical principles that are most often associated with love (such as patience, unselfishness, not being easily provoked, not acting unbecomingly, not boasting, etc.) because leaders truly love their communities.

For instance, many Chamber of Commerce members had been raised in the community and rather than seek cheaper labor, distribution, and so forth for their businesses, they looked at the entire range of what was working well within the community and chose to stay.

And because members communicated voluntarily on such a frequent basis (as with the chain of educational leaders) miscommunication was limited, humility was second nature and decisions were made jointly in the best interest of the community.

I realize it sounds like I’m idealizing a community in which there were faults, such as a struggle to meet many of the same issues every community faces in tough times (urban sprawl, high foreclosures, traffic congestion, budget cuts). In reality, I was fortunate enough to see a community in which the faults were not emphasized as much as the successes, where the challenges were met as cooperative teams, and where anyone would have a sense of feeling at home. And, were it not for the fact that there is no ocean backed up next to the city, I could very easily find myself leaving Jacksonville.

But I don’t want to leave my hometown. I do not want to accept that the problems facing Jacksonville are unique and can’t be resolved through a little creativity, cooperation and sense of what’s in the best interest of the community.

So while every community leader gave me a different answer, I realized that perhaps the most important characteristic of a strong community is simply humility.

Christopher Harvey

Harvey is a former teacher of the year and retired educator who now makes documentary films.