Quality of life can spur a community’s growth

By Tim Engstrom, Pothole Prairie

Published Tuesday, May 26, 2009

I entered into a conversation over the Memorial Day weekend with Lenore Fries. I’ll share with you what I told her about Ellensburg, Wash.

But first, I don’t want to make it sound like Ellensburg was the best thing since sliced bread, but I do want to tell you that Ellensburg, a city I lived in for five years, experienced growth without much job growth. In the 1990s, it went from a city of 12,000 to 15,000. The 2007 census estimate was 17,304.

Some of the growth came from expansion at Central Washington University, the largest employer and in sports an NCAA Division II competitor. (Jon Kitna went there.) More students. More staff. More professors. It equals more people.

But that expansion could not account for all the growth. People would often ask, “Where are these people coming from?” There were not many new jobs. The city wasn’t very good at economic development. It didn’t hardly try, in comparison to the efforts made here in Albert Lea. Plus, it didn’t have a port district; years ago, voters got rid of it.

Tim Engstrom

It was an agricultural town, too. Top-quality hay was the main product. Most of it went to Japan. So even though the folks knew international trade, it’s not as though they were able to turn that into additional jobs.

So what I told Lenore were some anecdotes about who was coming to live in Ellensburg and its scenic valley, which was the Kittitas Valley.

One fellow had made his fortune in the dot-com bubble before it burst, so he became a grass farmer. What’s that? Well, he raised grass for the seeds. When he picked a place to live, he looked for the right farmland and near a place with a quality of life he wanted. Ellensburg fit.

A man and his wife made their money in Texas and searched the entire United States for a place where he could become a farmer and live near a town that cherishes quality of life. They picked Ellensburg. He became an apple orchardist.

I actually met the man who invented the F keys on the computer keyboard. He built a nice place in the woods and spent his days fighting for conservation of the environment.

I knew a former Catholic priest who had risked life and limb fighting Neo-Nazis in northern Idaho. His wife painted a portrait of my dog that now hangs over my fireplace. She led the expansion of the community art gallery. I knew another former Catholic priest who married a journalist friend of mine.

I knew scores of teachers who taught in other school districts but chose to live in Ellensburg and pool rides to where they taught. I knew many people who worked in Yakima or Wenatchee but wanted to live in Ellensburg regardless of the commute. I even knew people who drove the two hours over hazardous-weather-prone Snoqualmie Pass to Seattle just because they would rather live in Ellensburg.

And there were all the retirees. Many people retire and want to live in a nice, safe, clean city with fresh air and sunshine and, most of all, friendly folks.

The valley was littered with people who picked it — because of quality of life. Then they figured out a way to handle income and other factors. All these people create additional jobs because of their spending, their entrepreneurship and their talents. Plus, Ellensburg seemed to have extraordinarily high number of real-estate agents, ready and eager to bring the next family to the valley.

And there were artists of various ages, too. They just liked the place, liked the progressive arts community or the Western art community — it had both — and opted to live there.

Ellensburg had a nightlife that the downtown merchants valued (there was even a nighttime hot-dog stand), preserved downtown buildings (the landmark Davidson Building even was on the police patch), an ingrained emphasis on tourism (they weren’t afraid to close streets and it seemed there was always something going on downtown), means to get around other than by automobile (bike lanes are one example), public art or flora all over town (stop sign posts were in flower pots) and a variety of restaurants and menu choices.

My point to Lenore was that an emphasis on quality of life can indeed grow your community. Midwest cities often are so focused on jobs they don’t grasp other ways to grow. It’s like the only bet they know how to play.

Jobs are key, yes. Jobs are the best way to grow, yes. But smart cities don’t make jobs the only bet. Smart cities offer a diversified portfolio, and quality of life ought to be on the front cover of that portfolio.

Tribune Managing Editor Tim Engstrom’s column appears every Tuesday.

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