Tallahassee can be the BEST Small City in America

As a follow-up to my previous post, Unpacking Three Days in Nashville I wanted to share some thoughts on a question, which was asked several times in Nashville, “What makes a small city a great place to live?” And to expand that question, how could Tallahassee become the best small city in America?

Now, I know some people will shake their heads and say, “Best!? Really!? Tallahassee!?” Why not Tallahassee? And why wouldn’t you want to live in the best small city in America? There is no reason we can’t, so we should set the goal to be the best.

I would like to offer up the acronym, BEST as the four things Tallahassee needs to commit to in order to become the best. When I say, commit, I mean the whole city: residents, politicians, educators, commerce, civil servants, faith-based organizations, and non-profits.  The acronym BEST stands for:

B-beauty

E-education-entrepreneurship-enterprise

S-safety

T-transit

The following is a quick explanation of each letter in the BEST acronym.

Beauty is more than trees, although our natural landscape is beautiful. Beauty is also art, culture, access, and diversity, the things that create a sense of place and inspires community. For example, every day when I drive home near Bannerman Crossings via Thomasville Rd., I think to myself the medium would be an amazing art gallery that could tell the story of our city. Culture also adds to the beauty of a city, it brings people together, not only for ballet, but for farmers’ markets, concerts in the park, and community events. Beauty is also access, access to healthy food, good schools, and safe neighborhoods. Finally, diversity is also a beautiful thing when there is a common culture that is inclusive. We don’t all have to agree on everything, but can we agree that we want to live, work, and play in a beautiful city.

What makes a city beautiful for all?

Education Leon County k-12 is 36^th out of 69 Florida Counties, and Florida is 28^th in the country. Unfortunately, I could not find a ranking of nation k-12 academic standings, but the very fact that Tallahassee is 36^th out of 69 in Florida and Florida is 28^th in the country indicates to me that there is a lot of room for improvement. I am not a policy maker or a k-12 educator, but I think the goal of education is to prepare children to be productive community members and to achieve economic success. Our children, the children of Tallahassee, deserve an education system the will prepare them to succeed in the 21^st-century economy.

Does our current education system serve the children we have been entrusted to prepare?

Entrepreneurship is the key to economic growth, diversification, and talent retention. Tallahassee has taken great strides in creating an entrepreneurial engine with DOMI, The Jim Moran Institute and School, the coming Innovation Hub at FSU and I/O Ave powered by FAMU and DOMI. These initiatives are an investment to diversify our economy, transforming us from a “government town” to an entrepreneurial economy supported by being the Capital City.

What industry would we like to see grow and flourish in Leon County?

Enterprise while entrepreneurship is exciting, it is existing enterprise that pays taxes, good salaries and makes our economy work. While it is true, most of Tallahassee is directly or indirectly here to support State government and higher education we do have other amazing companies and industry happening here. Large companies like ACS, A Xerox Company, St. Mark Powder, a General Dynamics Company, and Danfoss Turbocor all who choose to be in Tallahassee and are integral to our economy.

What are some other companies that have made the choice to live, work, and play in Tallahassee?

Safety Before I moved to Tallahassee fourteen years ago, I asked the only person I knew in Tallahassee why the crime rate was higher than where I was from, Los Angeles? He said, “That’s crazy, crime is not that bad in Tallahassee.” The reality is that I enjoy a low crime rate in my neighborhood, but as reported in The Democrat and Tallahassee Reports our city is the worst or one of the worst places in the state when it comes to violent crime. The South of town, particularly around the campuses are dangerous for our communities, businesses, families and our sons and daughters for violent crime, especially sexual assault. I applaud Mayor Andrew Gillum on his efforts to include the faith community into the conversation how to make our city safe. I think it is no coincidence that violent crime and sexual assault has risen alongside the narrative we teach our students that there is not God and they are soulless animals here by chance. Faith is a powerful and beautiful thing. Sure people have abused religion, but eradicating it from the public sector and creating a secular state has not yielded stellar results.

Is there an alternative to the current system that will allow for all points of view?

Transit A friend once told me, “A city cannot be great without great public transit.” I don’t know if that is true, but I do love visiting cities with great public transit, so it might be. Like my home city, LA, Tallahassee is pretty much impossible to get around without a car. Transitioning a city built on a “car culture” is hard to do, LA has been trying to do it for decades, with little success. Can Tallahassee do it? Of course, we can, but like Beauty, Education, and Safety, Tallahassee will need to commit to a public transportation system. Ultimately, transit is about access and as previously stated access is the precursor an inclusive culture and city.

How can Tallahassee create access through transit for all our citizens?

I’m not an artist, school administrator, police officer, or civil engineer. I also know the “how” behind BEST is a daunting task and I do not want to take away from all the great women and men who have dedicated to making our city beautiful, educated, safe, and accessible through transit. We live in a very good city, but if we want to live in the best city, we need to have an honest conversation and a compelling vision.

I for one would love Tallahassee to be the BEST. 

Unpacking Three Days in Nashville (TLH Delegation)

5:30a Monday morning, sitting on the plane as it was getting ready to take off, I looked around, seeing Tallahassee’s leaders from every sector on board and thought to myself, “If this plane goes down Tallahassee is in deep trouble.” Fortunately, all our travels went off without a hitch, and we all made it back safely.

Keeping with the plane theme, my 30,000ft take away is this, Tallahassee has amazing people who care deeply about our city. The very fact that eighty community leaders, at their expense, would travel to another city to learn how we can make our city even better is a testament to the deep commitment they have to make Tallahassee the best it can be.

On the ground, I was very impressed with the vision and unity of Nashville’s public and private sectors to maximize their cities quality of life. I read in the Tallahassee Democrat’s Zing section that “Tallahassee would never become Nashville” and if that is why you think we went, you missed the point. The point is to learn, engage, discuss, and experience new ideas for inclusion, empowerment, and equity in our local economy and society.

During our time there we met with public and private leaders who shared their experience discussing the benefits and challenges of creative collaboration across all sectors. The collective chorus was that it was/is hard, but it IS worth it.

My personal takeaways are:

Tallahassee has an identity crisis. In 2006, there was a line in the hit show, LOST, “All Tallahassee is, is strip malls and Waffle Houses.” A lot has changed in eleven years; we now have amazing local restaurants like The Blu Halo, Backwoods Crossing, and Fat Noodle, we also have cool organizations like INNE, DOMI, and the Jim Moran Institute that create amazing value for our community. State Government and Higher Ed are the foundation of our community, a firm foundation for us to build the best small town in America.

Tallahassee has amazing leadership across all sectors. As stated above, the fact that eighty people would spend their money and their precious time to help improve our city is a testament to the depth of commitment and love they have for Tallahassee. Every person there could have used a three-day vacation to relax and unwind, but they chose to leave their friends, family, businesses, customers, and boards for one reason, to make Tallahassee the best it can be.

Unity of purpose can solve a lot of problems. I have a firm belief that termites, not woodpeckers are your biggest threat to your home. The same is true with our city home, there is not a big enough woodpecker that can destroy our city home, but we need to deal with the termites, people who want to damage our structure. The best remedy for termites is clarity of vision that we as a community can unite around.

The value of the Tallahassee/Nashville Delegation is what lives beyond it. The Democrat wrote an article titled, Is Tallahassee Better after Boulder? So, what will the headline be in a couple of years when Tallahassee leader go to another city, or better yet, what will the headline read when another city comes to Tallahassee?