Mini-Makeovers: Book Describes Innovative Small-Town Survival Stories

March 10, 2003

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — If social historians are right and small towns are dying, some civic leaders apparently haven’t gotten the word.

A select few of those hamlets – 28, to be exact – have decided to buck the trend and are doing so in spectacularly successful fashion, says Rhonda Phillips, a University of Florida urban and regional planning professor and author of “Concept Marketing for Communities.”

Phillips’ book documents her two years of research into the towns scattered across America that made their own destinies by re-inventing themselves and their images.

“It’s a new way of looking at economic survival,” Phillips said. “It’s about what small and mid-size communities had to do when they lost their industrial or agricultural bases.”

Among the more memorable spots in Phillips’ book:

• Helen, Ga. – Concept: Alpine village. A rural agricultural town in the northeast part of the state that was on the verge of disappearing until leaders there decided in the late 1960s to transform it into a replica of a German mountain village. Millions of visitors come annually to enjoy the scenery and celebrations such as Oktoberfest. “It probably takes the prize for just being totally out there,” Phillips said. “A Bavarian mountain village in Georgia? But it works. They’re tremendously successful.”
  
  
• Roswell, N.M. – Concept: Roswell’s Out of This World. Roswell was virtually unknown until stories began circulating about the alleged U.S. Air Force cover-up of a crashed flying saucer there in 1947. Walker Air Force Base in Roswell closed in 1967, setting off the town’s decline. But in the early 1990s, the town decided to cash in on the nation’s growing interest in aliens and extraterrestrials. The International UFO Museum and Research Center opened in 1992, and three years later the town created an annual UFO festival. “One of the amazing things is, some of the people (who live in Roswell) believe in it,” Phillips said. “They say it’s valid. It’s a wonderful concept marketing tool.”
  
  
• Branson, Mo. – Concept: The Live Entertainment Capital of America. For years, Branson enjoyed a modest reputation as a pretty place to visit, but when country music legend Roy Clark opened a show there in the mid-1980s, the Branson known today truly took off. Numerous other music stars soon followed with their own theaters and restaurants, including Glenn Campbell, Andy Williams and Charley Pride. Branson now hosts more than 7 million tourists annually.
  
  

Another one of Phillips’ happy endings was in Bellows Falls, Vt., which converted itself in the late 1990s from a dying mill town into a vibrant arts community. New York artist Robert McBride helped lead the rebirth by founding the Rockingham Art and Museum Project, which in turn prompted the revival of Bellows Falls.

The key, McBride said, “is the ability to creatively combine vision and collaboration. This form of incremental development leads to powerful and long-lasting positive outcomes that broaden our horizons.”

Not every idea is a hit, though.

“These are communities that survived, but there are some that failed dismally,” Phillips said.

For instance, one Idaho burg of about 250 people tried several years ago to take advantage of its natural landscape: an ancient lava flow that left the surrounding countryside with a cratered moonscape appearance. Town leaders managed to collect some cast-off NASA space equipment, but the plan stalled when they were unable to land a federal grant needed to complete the project.

Then there was the Kansas town that attempted to go with a Polynesian theme. Money wasn’t the issue, Phillips said. The idea was, well, just plain bad, she said: Cornfields and luaus just don’t mix.

While the places cited in “Concept Marketing” have enjoyed their own brand of success, world events may bring them even more. Phillips said the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, have prompted many vacationers to shun air travel and opt instead for re-discovering America.

That, in turn, may lead other little-city leaders to try their own versions of one-of-a-kind makeovers.

“I think it’s still going strong,” she said. “What I’ve seen since collecting this data is more and more communities trying to distinguish themselves from the rest.”

Though it may be tempting for folks in larger metropolitan areas to dismiss their smaller counterparts as quaint oddities, Phillips believes they’re worthy of admiration.

“I don’t want to paint these communities as weird little places,” Phillips said. “I think they’re great. That’s a wonderful characteristic of this country: We don’t accept fate, we make our own fate.”