When taking road trips, one often drives through states and counties abundant with sheer beauty, beautiful lakes or rivers, and places calling your name.
Often on these drives, one enters the city limits of a community located amongst this beauty. Unfortunately, at times one may feel they have entered a war zone. Homes and lots that look more like the local landfill. Yards that haven’t been mowed in months (or years), rusted vehicles, houses with garbage piled to the roof, downtown buildings that haven’t seen a paintbrush or upkeep in a generation or two.
My heart sinks for these communities as they have no future without change.
In talking with leaders in some of these communities, while not visionary leaders, they are good people. When asked about the blight they oversee as leaders, they quickly say, "Oh, we value our freedom around here; we don’t tell people how to live their lives."
Not to sound harsh, but these are code words for, apathy, leadership malpractice, and above all, they are entrenched in the poverty mindset that has overtaken the community. Another sign this community won’t prosper again until the mindset changes.
These leaders have a warped sense of what real freedom is. They are in bondage to misplaced freedom and have no idea of the responsibilities that come with true freedom. I am as big a fan of freedom as one will find, but I also understand my freedom can’t encroach upon other’s freedoms. I can’t drive my car into other cars, I can’t light my neighbor’s house on fire, I can’t endanger others in the name of my freedom.
Shamefully, communities will allow trash to accumulate attracting rats, animals and diseases that spill over onto nearby properties. What about the rights of those nearby property owners? They will allow fire hazards that can impact entire neighborhoods. What about the rights of the others in the neighborhood? They allow yards to be unkept attracting snakes, rodents and so forth that will move to nearby properties. Don’t the nearby owners have any freedom or rights to live in a clean area? They in fact are allowing blight, decay, and uncaring to have greater freedoms than those that want to live in a community that is a desirable place to work, live and play. The minority is being allowed to hold the community hostage and draining whatever future that community might have.
Many of these communities wonder why their children go off to college, never to return. The answer is simple, what have you provided them to return to? Many of these communities have the illusion of attracting manufacturing and jobs. Stop thinking about that nonsense now, you are wasting your time.
You reap what you sow. You allow blight and decay, you get what accompanies blight and decay, not what accompanies a great quality of life. Once you have lived in a community that has pride and residents and leaders that care about everyone’s freedom, you don’t want to revisit blight again even if others are comfortable with it.
Thankfully, there is a solution to this entire mess; it is called true leadership. When you pass through a community that is clean, and well kept, you are passing through a community that has pride. This pride is developed through a common belief that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. They have ordinances assuring blight doesn’t rule the day. They strictly enforce those ordinances knowing that it is critical to the long-term survival of their entire community. They understand, if you want children to take pride in their hometown and if they want to recruit businesses and jobs that matter, they must have pride in their appearance and attitudes.
It may seem I am being harsh towards communities that don’t have the resources of bigger communities. Yes, I have been harsh because this is one problem that doesn’t cost much more than great leadership to correct, leaders that care about future generations. You will always have a few residents that will yell and scream they have rights to live as they wish; you must push ahead and think of the good of the community as a whole.
If you want to build a vibrant community that everyone can be proud of, one that people want to move to, one that your children will return to, one that businesses will flock to, and the next generation will be happy with, you must start instilling that pride today. Don’t let the few dictate your future – plan now for a better tomorrow!
John Newby is a nationally recognized consultant and speaker whose “Building Main Street, not Wall Street” column appears in 60-plus communities around the country. He can be reached at info@Truly-Localllc.com.
"freedom" - Google News
November 09, 2022 at 11:32AM
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With freedom comes responsibility - Alton Telegraph
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