Goal IV: Build Community Capacity, Engagement, and Image

Objective 5: Learn from other communities and embrace their best practices. 

While many communities can assume a defensive posture when presented with another community’s successes, the team of Montgomery metro representatives that went on the inter-city visit t0 Austin in December, 2010 came back full of ideas and
invigorated by some of the major successes experienced in that region. The reality is that communities that do not make themselves aware of best practices in economic and community development are less likely to risk upsetting the status quo. Inter-city community visits are one of the most effective ways to understand your own community better and to develop new ideas about how to improve it.

The leadership team that visited Austin should endeavor to conduct such a trip every year and to steadily build an arsenal of best practices expected to translate well to the Montgomery region. In Market Street’s experience, community visits can be an extraordinarily effective means of modeling economic development programming. Those communities that never conduct such trips are often among the most siloed and gridlocked in their inabilities to seek solutions outside of their local problems.

Actions:

• Continue annual inter-city leadership visits to best practice regions dealing with similar community issues and competitive challenges as the Montgomery area.
• Identify a short list of best practices from each visit to be considered for implementation in Greater Montgomery.