Dem
47
GOP
53
On March 19, 2025 we published a letter from P.M. in Pensacola arguing that many people in dying small towns are sitting around waiting for some politician to swoop in and solve their problems. Since Donald Trump promised that, many of them voted for him. Of course, he will do nothing for them.
That isn't how it has to be. In one small town in upstate New York, Philmont, the people there got together and started revitalizing their town themselves. One of the leaders there, S.B. in Columbia County, NY, wrote this letter about what they have done:
Revitalization is a nonpartisan, community-based, activist initiative working in collaboration with locally elected officials, state government, and federal departments and agencies. It is an activity taking place across America, town by town. It is a civic activity spearheaded by regular people on a daily basis and isn't dependent on which party or president happens to be in power on a 4-year rotating basis. Anyone waiting for the white knight in shining armor to come in to save them doesn't understand what it takes to economically reinvent and revitalize a post-industrialist community. There's no magic bullet. It takes time, tolerance and persistence often outlasting the cycle of national politics. Its springboard is the people living and working in each small city, town or hamlet made up of community leaders, workers, immigrants, entrepreneurs, artists, business people, shop keepers, trades people, writers, environmentalists, farmers and librarians among many others coming together to make the difference.
At its best, it's a social activity that can take place in any town, public park, or someone's backyard to start the initiative. It's not the top-down driven policy wonk-based recipe put forward by P.M. in Pensacola to address what is characterized as an apparent bleak future outlook of small-town/county America.
Philmont Beautification, Inc. (PBInc), started 25 years ago by five working mothers, met every month, and after 12 months of sociability wrote a mission statement that still operates effectively as the guide to revitalize the village within the ground-up tradition of a rural barn raising where all members are welcome to participate no matter the skill level or age they bring to the table.
We followed that mission statement immediately by putting it into practice to form a reading group to read the definitive downtown cookbook for revitalization, Cities Back from the Edge: New Life for Downtown. The book has pages packed with examples of achievable, low cost, community-centric approaches to start the process and continue urban renewal step-by-step. Bolstered by the book, we organized several meetings in the Village Hall, and invited guest speakers, professionals in revitalization, to talk about their experiences. This led to the formation of community-based working groups committed to learning the ins-and-outs of revitalization, which eventually led to increased capacity and knowledge to take on creating a statewide competitive grant action plan. This led to meeting with state revitalization funding agencies, inviting them to the village, and to start and continue funding for the village. The more you learn, the more experience you gain, the more you demystify how to revitalize, the more empowered the community becomes.
What it requires, to start, is a handful of people willing to meet, talk or maybe hold a community potluck barbecue to hash out a community-based vision—where are we today and where do we want to go? Taking little steps using what's at hand can produce a turnaround hand-in-hand with your community, or in entrepreneurial partnership with your local businesses.
Just as one small example, when a local gas station and convenience store closed, we asked the corporate owner to donate the building to us (as a charitable donation and tax write-off). We cleaned it up and started an incubator there. We raised money to put in kitchen equipment and renovate the building. Now a local entrepreneur comes in at 5 a.m. and bakes organic bread from local ingredients and sells the bread to local stores and restaurants. Other local entrepreneurs use the facility to start little businesses, many involving local food (since the town is surrounded by farms), such as Farmer's Feast, Grimaldi Farm Meats, Light Force Bakery, and 20 other small local food producers. These create jobs and enrich nearby communities. We took the initiative. We didn't sit around waiting for someone else to save us. These are just a few of the many examples.
Other examples of not sitting around waiting for someone to save us, PBInc actively markets vacant storefronts and brownfield buildings looking for private investment and new businesses where we can often assist with revitalization grants to come into town, such as the now-famous Local 111 farm-to-table restaurant, opened in 2007, The Pub, on Main Street, opened in 2009, the first phase of revitalization of the historic Vanderbilt, now a weekend event space with an 8-bedroom capacity. Recently, the Philmont Planning Board gave approval for brownfield redevelopment of the historic 40,000 sq. ft. Summit Mill to become The Philmont Mill scheduled to start rehabilitation work later this year. All of these projects not only improve the quality of life in the town and surrounding area, but they all create new jobs and make the town more attractive for other people and businesses that might be considering moving to a town with a slower pace than the big city (e.g., people who can work remotely online).
Having practiced revitalization daily in the belly of the beast, as one of PBInc's Co-founders and its Executive Director for over 25 years, in a former mill town in upstate New York, shows a community can turn around. We started out small, with a manageable project, by planting 15 large flower barrels on Main Street. That led to over 40 revitalization projects from simple streetscape enhancements such as refurbishing a small pocket park, to major brownfield redevelopment. These projects include several storefront rehabilitations, creating a nationally designated village-wide historic district providing state and federal preservation tax credits, rehabilitating affordable housing units, marketing the downtown to private developers and investors, assisting several Main Street businesses to open and flourish, to working in partnership with our local government to develop and implement significant municipal planning and brownfield redevelopment projects.
Contrary to what P.M. in Pensacola writes, it didn't require a strong local land development code and local policies to start, or to be grants driven, or for the "private sector and adult education to train all local residents about financial fluency and responsibility." What it requires is for regular people to come together to create a community vision that has heart and empathy and joy in the doing. PBInc started out by planting flower barrels, gathering community members and producing dozens of projects where all could participate, resulting in the improvement of the town and the creation of new jobs.
For another thing, we created a modest and attractive website for our revitalization work, PBInc., both to give local residents pride in their community and show other small towns what we are doing as an example. If you are interested in helping to keep PBInc achieving alongside our fellow community members, and to be a part of Philmont's revitalization, please read more about us at the PBInc link above and maybe even use the Donate button there. What we did, you can do too, instead of waiting for some politician to save you.
So, quite a different message from P.M. The people in Philmont got together and decided they were the ones who had to bring the town back from the brink, so they rolled up their sleeves and got to work. That resulted in dozens of improvements and a number of new businesses that created new jobs. (V)