18
Generating Community Change
Cornelia Butler Flora and Jan L. Flora
When Sue James and her husband Bart moved with their two teenage children to
New Richland, Minnesota, from St. Louis, Missouri, they eagerly anticipated the
prospect of the clean air and neighbourliness found in rural America. Big-city liv-
ing had lost its lustre, and they were excited to live in the ‘country’. However, a few
months after their move, they realized they missed certain elements of living in a
larger setting, particularly in terms of recreation. Furthermore, there were few
summer jobs for teenagers in a small, rural area.
Bart and Sue often went to a small, locally owned diner for breakfast and cof-
fee on Saturday mornings, and they met many farmers and businesspeople who
lived in the town. Bart, being the new school superintendent, was a familiar face
already. Bart mentioned his family’s love of golf, and several other community
members agreed that they wished there was a course in town. Word spread, and
soon Bart and Sue decided to open the idea up for town consideration.
First, they placed a notice in the local paper announcing an open meeting to
discuss construction of a community golf course; 40 people attended. Committees
were set up to consider possible sites and organizational structures. At the next
meeting, more than 100 people were present. Interest in the project proliferated,
and it helped that all of the meetings were well covered in the local paper.
The site committee presented four potential sites, which in the following weeks
were visited by most of the members of the town, even those who did not play golf.
At the next community meeting, with several hundred people in attendance, the
pros and cons of each site were presented. With all of this information in mind, the
assembly voted on the site they wanted. The site that was chosen would be pur-
chased from its owner, a farmer who agreed to sell at the market price for agricul-
tural land. The local community development corporation, established in the early
1970s, was utilized to raise money for the project, and in just two months the
purchase price was raised through donations and by selling local shares in the golf
course to community members.
Reprinted from Rural Communities by Cornelia Flora and Jan Flora. Copyright © 2004 by Westview
Press, a member of Perseus Books Group. Reprinted by permission of Westview Press, a member of
Perseus Books Group.