In the market place, for practical reasons, innumerable qualitative distinctions which are of vital importance for man and society are suppressed; they are not allowed to surface. Thus the reign of quantity celebrates its greatest triumphs in “The Market.” Everything is equated with everything else. To equate things means to give them a price and thus to make them exchangeable. To the extent that economic thinking is based on the market, it takes the sacredness out of life, because there can be nothing sacred in something that has a price. Not surprisingly, therefore, if economic thinking pervades the whole of society, even simple non-economic values like beauty, healthy, or cleanliness can survive only if they prove to be “economic.” – E.F. Schumacher, Small is Beautiful, 1973

If there is an increase in economic impact in a local economy, it is probable that there also will be an increase in costs associated with it. ... [E]conomic impact studies report only economic benefits, and monetary costs and nonmonetary negative impact inflicted on a community are not considered. Clearly, if these costs exceed the benefits, then even if there is relatively high gross economic impact, the investment in tourism may be counterproductive to the economic well-being of the community.” – John Crompton, “Economic Impact Studies: Instruments for Political Shenanigans?” in Journal of Travel Research, Aug. 2006

There are many examples from around the world of good environmental practice allied with profitability; there are examples of unquestionable altruism on the part of profit-maximizing companies… But the profit maximisation motive does have a tendency to subvert and subjugate other considerations, ethical and environmental. It is essential to keep this in mind in any analysis of the tourism industry.” – Martin Mowforth & Ian Munt, Tourism and Sustainability: New Tourism in the Third World

“Economic development strategy shifts dramatically when regional competitiveness is the goal. The very root of competitiveness is a region understanding its inherent economic strengths – and the markets available to exploit them. Accordingly, development strategy is moving away from industrial recruitment and being a low-cost competitor to strategies that help regions identify and exploit their distinct assets – things like human capital and scenic amenities.” – Mark Drabenshott, “Rethinking Federal Policy for Regional Economic Development,” Economic Review

“Movement toward corporate concern for the ‘triple bottom line’ – financial, social, and environmental performance – requires radical change throughout the corporation. It is not ‘either/or’. The new paradigm is ‘and also’. A sustainable business excels on the traditional scorecard of return on financial assets and shareholder and customer value creation. It also embraces community and stakeholder success. It holds its natural and cultural environments to be as precious as its technological portfolio and its employees’ skills.” – Charles Holliday, Stephan Schmidheiny and Philip Watts, Walking the Talk: The Business Case for Sustainable Development

The PBS website has one of the nicer tributes to Jane Jacobs, who passed away this week. Jane’s work, particularly her first book, Death and Life of Great American Cities, written in 1961, is central to the kind of healthy place-making that underpins Civic Tourism. Beyond community design, she wrote extensively about economics. The PBS story is at: http://www.pps.org/info/bulletin/jane_jacobs

“Urbanism must be understood as more than urbane amenities scattered between and within self-contained projects, more than cultural institutions, public parks, sports stadiums, attractive street furnishings, clean streets, and public art. Those are critical urbane embellishments, not the urban essence. The basics run deeper and are more complex than such surface attractions. Diverse economic functions evolve naturally in proximity to each other, giving strength to a whole that would not survive if distance separated the parts. Infrastructure costs are contained, lessening the unacceptable strains on public budgets of the smallest town and largest city. Cultural and leisure time amenities draw local and distant audiences sufficient to support them and add immeasurably to the locale’s importance and quality of life. The public realm is fostered in a manner consistent with the democratic principles to which so much lip service is paid.” – Roberta Grandez Gratz

To understand cities, we have to deal outright with combinations or mixtures of uses, not separate uses, as the essential phenomenon. We have already seen the importance of this in the case of neighborhood parks. Parks can easily – too easily – be thought as phenomena in their own right and described as adequate or inadequate in terms, say, of acreage ratios to thousands of population. Such an approach tells us something about the methods of planners, but it tells us nothing useful about the behavior or value of neighborhood parks.

A mixture of uses, if it is to be sufficiently complex to sustain city safety, public contact and cross-use, needs an enormous diversity of ingredients. So the first question – and I think by far the most important question – about planning cities is this: How can cities generate enough mixture among uses – enough diversity – throughout enough of their territories, to sustain their own civilization?

Jane Jacobs, Death and Life of Great American Cities, 1961

It stands to reason that people will be more likely to invest and stay rooted in places that are worth caring about – places with a strong and appealing local identity, an ambiance of belonging, and a sense of place. Given this assumption, communities seeking to foster a sense of place or to nurture local identity might begin by identifying distinctive qualities of that place – its best natural, cultural, or physical assets – and endowing them with greater recognition. – Timothy Beatley & Kristy Manning (Dr. Beatley was one of the presenters at the March Civic Tourism conference)

Soon we’ll be posting comments and suggestions from the March conference in a new section titled “Review” that’s beneath the conference banner on the main Civic Tourism website. In the meantime, it’s clear from the evaluations that many people found the conference conversations enlightening and helpful – but now it’s time to turn “concept” to “practice.” As we said at the conference, this meeting was only a beginning – a chance to explore an idea – and because of that it was more academic than practical. Okay, so many people now buy into that idea, and we no longer have to sell them on the concept of Civic Tourism. So what do we do now?

For one, this blog can provide a forum to post success stories, challenges, and questions. Secondly, we hope to convene a meeting this summer to outline a plan for the next year – possibly including another national conference where we can focus on “how to.” With any luck, we’ll also have the Civic Tourism book available by next year’s meeting. Stay tuned, but let the network of people who came together in Prescott know what you’re up to.