June 2, 2005

EDITORIAL

Creating a vision for the village

The progress that’s been made to organize a visioning process should be welcome news to those who are interested in encouraging a public dialogue about development in Yellow Springs and the future of this community. The organizers of this effort, who have formed the Steering Committee of the Yellow Springs/Miami Township Visioning process, strike the right tone when they say they want to create a process that represents all segments of the Yellow Springs community.

Organizing a broad-based dialogue ensures community buy-in of the visioning process and the strategies, actions and vision that this effort ultimately will produce. Having a community dialogue will also help residents of Yellow Springs and Miami Township come to an understanding, or even a consensus, on how much and in what ways the village should grow.

Reaching a consensus about development was one of the messages that emerged from the Community Forum, held in March at Wright State. The forum group that focused on economic issues agreed that the community needs to reach a consensus about development and that conflicts should be handled in productive ways.

The current visioning process evolved from another community dialogue, the Smart Growth Weekend held in April, and over the last few months, the visioning Steering Committee has been holding meetings around the village in an effort to get more and more Yellow Springers involved in the project.

The most important work in the visioning process may come in the fall when the Steering Committee organizes a series of neighborhood study groups in which villagers can discuss their ideas for Yellow Springs and understand what others want for the community. This approach seems to resemble the neighborhood forums that were held in the early 1990s, a process that many people still see as vital for establishing goals that the community worked on during that decade.

It will be quite an accomplishment if the current visioning process has a similar effect on Yellow Springs. The key is getting enough people from as many parts of the community to participate, and then getting them to believe in and embrace the process. With enough participation, the community could establish goals and plans based on the values that villagers say are most important. This could lead, for instance, to fresh approaches to some of Yellow Springs’ most vexing challenges; plans that emphasize the village’s strengths; the creation of new public policies; and a renewed sense of community pride.

It is a good idea for a community to come together every few years, to take stock of its strengths and challenges, to discuss its future. That’s how a community defines what it is and how it can evolve in a way that builds on its past successes without ignoring its values.

Recently, the idea of having a community dialogue has attracted many people, as was made clear by the interest shown in the Community Forums of 2004 and this year, the Smart Growth Weekend and other forums organized by such groups as Village Council and Community Resources. The visioning process can be successful if it taps into this enthusiasm and links these other conversations together, giving Yellow Springers an inclusive forum through which they can plan the village’s future.

—Robert Mihalek