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Sumners, Arthur, Garland Attend
Your Town, Alabama Workshop

AUBURN — Joe Sumners, Jeremy Arthur and Gard Garland of the Economic Development Institute at Auburn University completed the Your Town, Alabama, Designing Our Future workshop held at Camp McDowell near Nauvoo, Alabama, June 16-18, 2004. Sumners, Arthur and Garland attended two days of interactive presentations and worked with a team to plan a hypothetical town. After attending this intensive three-day workshop, many participants have returned to their communities to emphasize the importance of planning to long-term economic viability.

With presentations by Thomas Hylton, Puliziter Prize winning author, Pat Byington, Commissioner on the Alabama Environmental Management Commission, Katherine Back, Mainstreet Gadsden, Martha Cato, city clerk of Valley, and a host of others, Sumners, Arthur, Garland and more than 50 other civic and community leaders found plenty of technical advice, inspiration and hands-on training.

Your Town Alabama is a direct response to the uncertain future of Alabama's small towns - a future increasingly threatened by large scale changes in our economy, population shifts, the impact of telecommunications and mass merchandising, and changes in land policy. In the face of these forces, communities have found themselves struggling to maintain their vitality and even their sense of identity. Whether the threat is sudden growth or stagnation, planning and design decisions can often make the difference between survival and decay, between healthy prosperity and decline.

The Your Town Alabama workshop format is an intensive engagement of citizen leaders and professionals and focuses on these critical planning and design decisions. The workshop is highly participatory, with lectures, case-study presentations and interactive group problem solving, including working on realistic issues in a hypothetical small town.

The Your Town Alabama workshop offers real hope to real communities. People like Sumners, Arthur and Garland who care about their community's appearance can begin learning more about how to protect it through these workshops. For more information about Your Town Alabama, please contact Suzanne Davidson, 205.251.8139 x 114.

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