Our Sunday editorial noted how the Soul of the Community study by Gallup and the Knight Foundation found that Wichita stands out for the high percentage of area residents – 43 percent, compared with an average 34 percent in 25 other surveyed cities across the nation – who are neutral about the community. The Wichita area also lagged its peer cities in overall citizen engagement, community loyalty and community passion.
We suggested that “no city should be satisfied with a civic self-esteem that amounts to a shrug” and pondered how to get Wichitans fired up and better engaged. As the Gallup-Knight study puts it, “Engaged citizens within a community are inspired by the community around them.” Hey, WE Bloggers, have you been inspired by Wichita lately? Or are “Wichita” and “community passion” concepts that don’t and simply won’t go together?
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23 Comments
Follow Obama’s lead and offer free stuff the city can’t afford.
Tell them how much Phoenix sucks.
Step 1: Focus efforts and spending on making Wichita a great place to live for Wichitans. Efforts to increase tourism, draw in conventions and tournaments (including construction of the arena) should come only after the City’s infrastructure, schools, public spaces, local cultural centers, etc are as good as they can realistically be.
The focus of City government for too long has been outward – i.e. how do we attract tourists, conventioners, companies, etc. To make Wichita a great place to live and to get Wichitans excited about the city, the local government needs to focus inward – how do we make the current Wichita the best place to live it can be.
Each decision the local government makes should be measured in light of that goal.
“How do we get Wichitans fired up about Wichita?”
Burn it to the ground?
‘Fired up and better engaged’ for exactly what?
Most people are busy raising families, conducting business and generally being responsible citizens.
When the casino was voted down, that should give those planners an education that Wichita citizens don’t need fluff and circuses to stay entertained.
Maybe give them a ticket out?
Keep voting out enterprises that stand to make money and provide entertainment (like the casino).
Wichitans are not as dumb as the crowd pleasers would have you to think.
As the Gallup-Knight study puts it, “Engaged citizens within a community are inspired by the community around them.”
Which really means the community is minority Seperate and Non-Engaging majority with its citizens.
There are two Wichitas–one for the rich and priveleged, and one for the rest of us.
There can be only one.
We must unite, young and old, black, brown, yellow and white, middle class and underclass, and in the next two city elections, vow to take our city from the GOBN.
And never give it back.
We will never get Wichita excited about anything that costs more than the River Festival.
This town is crammed full (75%) of redneck, redneck sympathizers, and rich redneck culture. We cannot support on independent/art house movie theatre. We cannot support high-end dining establishments. We cannot support Rock-N-Roll concerts.
This town is slow, old, and boring. I don’t mind it, but occasionaly the right-wing redneck aura begins to make me vomit(zado).
How to get Wichitans fired up about Wichita?
Move it to Miami . . .
This was a weak survey. There are probably some confounding factors within the survey.
It would have been better if they had asked the participants if they are originally from Kansas, or the mid-west. People who grew up and moved here from large, expensive cities are probably very content with Wichita. I think people who grew up here, and have no idea how tough it can be in, let say, southern California, have a ‘grass is greener’ complex.
What to do with the Coliseum. Why only one Epic Tower curiosity. The freaking Boathouse dead and closed but won’t die.
Lawrence-Dumont baseball is a gimmick in that ancient stadium. It needs more modern amenities or a new one built.
City should find a way to finance a 10,000 seat “dirt” stadium. That’s the answer what to do with the Coliseum. Build it inside city limits.
County is responsible for Intrust Arena, downtown.
City has to improve Century II.
Someone has to come up with a plan, Boathouse that rents small boats on the river. A functional dock. Space for meetings and parties. It won’t be in that location where the Boathouse is.
Improvement of high school and middle school sports/events facilities with the school bond was a good thing. Pride in new schools built.
Places we can be proud of when gathering together is key to improving Wichitans outlook on this community.
Outsiders say, why doesn’t Wichita help WSU bring back some kind of college football.
We need a modern stadium for today’s college football. It will take time to build, a modern stadium for future college football. When we have a place for 30,000 or more people to gather 6 times a year, then Wichita will be grown up.
Gee, why would Wichitans seem a bit subdued about their identity? If we’re hardworking, patriotic middle Americans, that’s spun as “redneck red-staters” in the media. If we’re thoughtful, intelligent people who believe in God, we’re “anti-science yokels”. If we’d rather our city not be known as the late-term abortion capitol, we’re “anti-choice fascists”. Imagine someone from Wichita not wanting to draw more fire from the media!
There is nothing wrong with Wichita. There is plenty to do here, it’s the perfect size, and people aren’t living on top of each other like in bigger cities. We don’t have the crazy traffic. We have theatre, concerts, and even opera. We have plenty of good restaurants and clubs. We have nice museums, 3 universities, great shopping, every movie you could want to see, good libraries, and lots of community events. There is art and music everywhere.
What would improve what we already have is more bike trails and having the trains run again from Wichita to the bigger cities. That would make it perfect.
When they wanted to build the Ark Valley flood control project (Big ditch) people whined.
They made sport of the art object “Tripodal” for years.
Wichita will NEVER be an attractive city because it has too many tight fisted, close minded, Republican voting, idiots.
I think Wichita is an attractive city. We have everything we need here. The fact that we’re not like bigger cities is what I like most about Wichita.
Whenever I’m in DC, Dallas, San Francisco, wherever…after a couple of days I can’t wait to get home. The only places I like to stay for extended periods are the places outside the USA.
Mary,
“There is plenty to do here”
Yeah, but it all happens on the same weekend, once a year!
Your community will never get past it’s bible thumping american taliban image. As long as spirit one, terry fox and joe wright are the face of your community, you will never attract or keep creative young people.
How’s all that bible thumpin’ working for you?
#
BlueJay
Posted December 15, 2008 at 9:38 pm | Permalink
When they wanted to build the Ark Valley flood control project (Big ditch) people whined.
They made sport of the art object “Tripodal” for years.
Wichita will NEVER be an attractive city because it has too many tight fisted, close minded, Republican voting, idiots.
#
ksfarmgrrl
Posted December 16, 2008 at 9:05 am | Permalink
Your community will never get past it’s bible thumping american taliban image. As long as spirit one, terry fox and joe wright are the face of your community, you will never attract or keep creative young people.
How’s all that bible thumpin’ working for you?
___________________________________________________
Don’t let the door hit ya in the a$$ on the way out.
“How’s all that bible thumpin’ working for you?”
You been celebrating the church burning?
I will try to make a list of Wichita needs in no particular order as they say. In other words, these points are not necessarily ranked by importance.
#1 Real participation in the big decisions by Citizens.
#2 Get real buy-in by Wichita citizens on projects
#3 When elections on spending of taxes come out about even, remember half the citizens are opposed to the spending of their money. No matter how this is spinned, citizens are not going to buy-in to it. A real leader is needed to step up and bring the two sides together. Never do a project when half the citizens are opposed.
#4 Wichita needs real leadership. Personally I don’t think Wichita has had a real out-front leader in years. I can’t think of any current or past elected councilman, county commissioner, hired administrator who really could do this.
#4.5 You can’t buy leadership. Hired gun leaders have only one goal, that is, spend the taxpayers’ money as quickly as possible before they leave town again.
#5 Former School Superintendent Winston Brooks had some potential along this line in that he had the ability to stand up before a crowd of citizens and tax payers and discuss issues with them. On the other hand, Brooks was heavily influenced by several small clusters of insiders who heavily influenced his thinking to short cut the decision making process. Not good Winston.
#6 Of course, no senators, congressman, governor, state legislators that I know of offer any real direct to the people leadership in southern Kansas.
#7 Remember that as large as Wichita appears with some 450,000 people in Sedgwick County, by the time the young people, family members, non working elderly, college students, homeless, infirm, etc. …. only about 80,000 wage earners will pay the significant amount of local taxes.
Dividing this into the “billion dollar level expenditures” puts a huge mortgage on the actual wage earners to pay these taxes.
#8 Remember taxpayers can always spend their own money better than politicians. Only when a need is truly a need should taxpayers be asked to pay for the project.
# 9 and #10: I will save for later.