Category Archives: Growth

06.14.16
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Our Town – Join Us Online June 21 at 5 pm

Did you know that between 2010 and 2015, Columbia grew twice as fast as Springfield and three times as fast as Kansas City? That more than 50 languages are spoken in our public schools? That we have students from more than 77 different countries? Find out more about how growth brings both diversity and prosperity and much more in the Columbia Daily Tribune’s 2016 Our Town guide. Print copies were included in the Sunday paper June 12 and can be purchased at the Tribune’s offices.

Join us online for a Trib Talks forum June 21 at 5 pm to talk about Our Town and its future.

06.07.16
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Are We An Us? Part 2

For the last month we have been meeting with our community partners, finalizing our dialogue guide, and returning to the Kettering Foundation to discuss our learning exchange.  Later this month we will launch our guide, titled “Are We An Us? A Guide for Dialogue About Community” along with a schedule of activities. Look for that on this blog!  You are welcome to download the guide and host your own discussion with your friends, family, neighborhood association, service organization or other group.

Also last month Columbia was named the 4th largest city in Missouri, passing Independence.  This reflects rapid growth over the past decade, and that growth continues.  Columbia passed the 100,000 mark in 2008 and is projected to exceed 200,000 by 2030.  As our forum participants observed, that growth has stressed our community in many ways.

How do we create or maintain a sense of community as we grow? Talking with each other across lines of race, place, and income is one way to do that. We hope to foster that conversation here and in other forums. Join in the conversation and watch for the guide!

04.29.16
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Interested in Development? Town Hall Tomorrow!

Yesterday the City sent out a press release announcing there would be a town hall meeting on “the development code update project” tomorrow, Saturday morning, April 30 from 8 am to noon, at City Hall, 701 East Broadway, Conference rooms 1A-C.

Topics will include:

  • Proposed new parking requirements,
  • Development, redevelopment and sufficiency of services and
  • Form-based controls downtown.

The announced purpose for this event is to “assist interested persons with understanding the draft development code in preparation for the public hearing process which begins in May”.  While we commend the City for hosting this event we would also like your thoughts on how the process for informing and inviting the public on these key issues might be improved.

 

 

03.23.16
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Building Bridges – Healing Divides

Participants in our February 11 forum identified many ways in which Columbia is divided. These included divides between neighbors and neighborhoods that reflect differences in race, age, income, and political affiliation. These divides need more than a bridge to bring people together – underlying distrust, fear and anger need to be addressed as well.

An articulate and thoughtful group of students from Battle High School attended the forum.  These students have been working hard at creating programs to help students work through the community divisions that are reflected within their school.  We have invited them to tell us more on this blog, both through the comment section and in future posts.

There are other groups working in the community to build bridges or heal divides.  These include Race Matters, Friends and Diversity Awareness Partnership.  If you are involved in an effort to bring diverse groups together in dialogue let us know in the comment section below.

 

01.08.16
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Are We An Us?

The Trib Talks forums to date have made it clear that the citizens of Columbia are concerned about where we are going as a community.  The rapid growth over the last 10 years has resulted in tensions and stressed existing divides of place and race, town and gown, “old” and “new” Columbia.  How can we as citizens heal the divides?  Key approaches discussed during the forums were to use more “citizen centered” planning,  address existing inequities, and build bridges between groups. We will consider each of these further on this blog, and on our February 11 forum.  Add your thoughts below, or take our survey.