Harrisonburg is competing in the FINAL round of the Strongest Town Contest
The Friendly City goes head-to-head with Marion, Ohio in the championship round.
Harrisonburg made it to the final championship round of the Strongest Town Contest. Voting is open now, and closes this Thursday at noon. I’ll be
It’s been a wild few weeks. I’ll admit we’ve already made it much further than I originally anticipated (I almost didn’t even fill out the application). The local community has been showing up to support the Friendly City in ways I never imagined. We somehow beat Calgary, for Pete’s sake.
For me, this has all felt a little surreal. I first heard about Strong Towns around 2017, about a year after I joined the Harrisonburg Planning Commission, when I was looking for resources to help me understand how various land use decisions and patterns of development impacted the way cities looked, felt, and operated. After reading the book Strong Towns in 2020, I bought additional copies to give to members of Harrisonburg City Council.
In 2022 I met KC Kettler, who together with Isaac Witmer started Livable Harrisonburg, a Strong Towns local conversation group focused on land use reform in Harrisonburg. KC and I filled out the application at the eleventh hour on February 22, and the three of us have been scrambling ever since to highlight the things that make Harrisonburg a strong town. You can see examples of this on the Livable Harrisonburg Instagram account.
In addition to the reasons I’ve stated here and here, the Strongest Town Contest has made me realize there are aspects of incremental improvements all around us.
The Harrisonburg Farmers Market. There are few places in the world that have access to the variety of high-quality, locally-grown food we have here in the Valley. What started in 1979 (in what is arguably the ugliest parking lot in Harrisonburg) is now a thriving year-round market at the Turner Pavilion that has become a must-visit for tourists.
The Friendly City Food Co-op. I watched this community-owned grocery store go from an idea in 2006 to a reality in 2011. I was one of the original member-owners, and served on the volunteer marketing committee when they opened. Harrisonburg is fortunate to have a community-owned grocery store. We shouldn’t take this for granted.
Small businesses like Broad Porch Coffee and Sage Bird Ciderworks are great examples of businesses that started small and have grown and redeveloped older buildings downtown.
I’ve enjoyed getting the opportunity to tell the stories of these local organizations and businesses. Regardless of how the outcome this week, it’s been great to see our community come together to support this city we love, and want to be better. I believe the six guiding principles can help point us in the right direction.
Thanks for helping to celebrate our successes, Brent. Even if the work is never done, it is great to be able to recognize where that good work has already been done. In addition to the ones you've listed here, I think The Golden Pony and Mashita are also great examples of small business expanding on and revitalizing the lively culture of downtown. They—along with many of the First Friday participating venues (https://valleyarts.org/first-fridays-of-the-valley-venues/)—deserve a shoutout for their support of the local arts scenes.