Some communities are not surviving, let alone finding ways to thrive

We are facing some uphill battles in the Hartsville, S. C. area as we work to grow our community but as this article on Yahoo emphasizes, things could be a great deal worse, as they are for the communities cited.http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif

One thing that should become apparent from an article like this is that we cannot lose focus on our need to grow and our need to continue investing in our community. We can become the preferred community of the Pee Dee Region. It will take looking beyond how we do things now to how we might approach these things tomorrow. It will take a vision that community appearance does matter. It will take realization that all of us, those with children and those whose children have grown must ensure we have the educational system that we want for our kids available to all the children. We must realize thajavascript:void(0)t sometimes it takes investment to get a return on investment. None of these ideas come easily when the economy is shaky, when headlines -by their very nature - must point to the problems.

Yet, we have to focus day after day after on building a stronger, even better community because it is that kind of laser intensity that can make surviving become thriving. Lots of people drive into Hartsville every day to work. The ideal would be that lots more people drive home to Hartsville every day after work.

Community building is about consensus building and consensus is in generally short supply in the current environment at nearly every level of government. On Sunday THE STATE newspaper of Columbia had two articles that I noticed discussing the need for coming together. The first was an editorial by Cindy Ross Scoppe about the candidacy of Vincent Sheheen for governor of South Carolina. The other article was by David Gergen,called HOW MUCH GOVERNMENT. The article was a back-page column in PARADE magazine. He discussed the metaphorical daggers that everyone seems to be bringing to political and problem-solving discussions. He made a good point about not being able to solve problems when facing daggers. While I am on the other side when it comes to government, Gergen had important things to say about the discussion process. Just thought it would be good to note some of this very important food for thought.

http://www.thestate.com/2010/05/09/1277538/scoppe-tackling-big-issues-seeking.html#RSS=Cindi%20Scoppe