Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde on community development

Creative community development in practice is not easy. It takes a perfect balance of changing with the new while staying in touch with the authentic. Linda Krug, Dean of the College of Liberal Arts at the University of Minnesota Duluth and Creative Class Communities Catalyst, has a great op-ed today in the Duluth News-Tribune on her area's effort to strike that balance:

If you listen to all of the well-honed “truths” that whirl around us, you might draw the conclusion that Duluth is a dying city.

On a daily basis, it seems, I read about how we are old and aging, about how our tax base is eroding and the city’s share of retiree health costs is ballooning.

I hear about our shrinking school-age population, and I watch our young people move to the Twin Cities immediately after college graduation. Potential business interests seem to suggest that local costs of doing business are too high, and it’s a well-known fact that area manufacturing jobs are evaporating. Then there are our mayor and city councilors.

And yet, I just can’t accept that all is lost. I know for a fact....

Read the whole article here.
Learn more about our Creative Class Communities projects here.

Posted by Amanda