So What Kind of Small Town Do We Live In?
Just think about it for a second… If a stranger sitting next to you on a plane asked you to describe the town you are from, what would you say? What terms would you use and what characteristics would you highlight? This is a good exercise to make you think about what gives our town Cadiz, Kentucky its personality.
Today, many of the successful small towns have cultivated their own niche when it comes to their economic wants and needs. There are towns that survive because they are bedroom communities for larger cities, towns that focus on manufacturing
as their economic base, towns with affluent universities and even towns that are successful because of a military base nearby. Towns exist for all sorts of reasons, we all have our own idea what makes a town worth coming back to. Sometimes a towns charm centers on factors such as its recreational opportunities, like being near beaches, 
lakes and rivers. Maybe it’s full of cultural offerings like museums, theatre and art galleries or even town is known for a famous person, special events or festivals, specialty shops or just the natural scenic beauty.
Small towns have become competitive in economic development because small towns have now jumped into the business or recruiting companies. Small towns are turning tobacco fields into industrial parks and extending utilities into rural areas in hopes that a company may decide to do business there. Times have changed and small towns are not just competing with communities around them, we are competing with communities in other states.
If you rank towns on a success level, those with
economy and population on the rise, they have one thing in common. They have a vision of what they want their town to become and are headed in that direction. Some towns aspire to become a tourism destination, so they invest in new attractions; some hope to grow their industrial base, so they spend time recruiting and growing what they already have in place; and others are putting plans in place for the next great “green community” and are investing in a new, efficient state-of –the art infrastructure.
So where is Cadiz, Kentucky in all of this? The Author of “Small Town Sexy”, Kim Huston and a professional associate of the Cadiz Economic Development would say: Cadiz, Kentucky is YES to all the above attributes of a small successful town! Kim Huston will be our guest speaker at our Cadiz Chamber Annual Dinner on June 28th @ 6:00 p.m. at Lake Barkley Lodge Convention Center. We hope you can come out hear her talk about the allure of living in a small town America.
Let me leave you with some thoughts:
In a small town we:
Today, many of the successful small towns have cultivated their own niche when it comes to their economic wants and needs. There are towns that survive because they are bedroom communities for larger cities, towns that focus on manufacturing as their economic base, towns with affluent universities and even towns that are successful because of a military base nearby. Towns exist for all sorts of reasons, we all have our own idea what makes a town worth coming back to. Sometimes a towns charm centers on factors such as its recreational opportunities, like being near beaches, lakes and rivers. Maybe it’s full of cultural offerings like museums, theatre and art galleries or even town is known for a famous person, special events or festivals, specialty shops or just the natural scenic beauty.Small towns have become competitive in economic development because small towns have now jumped into the business or recruiting companies. Small towns are turning tobacco fields into industrial parks and extending utilities into rural areas in hopes that a company may decide to do business there. Times have changed and small towns are not just competing with communities around them, we are competing with communities in other states.
If you rank towns on a success level, those with
economy and population on the rise, they have one thing in common. They have a vision of what they want their town to become and are headed in that direction. Some towns aspire to become a tourism destination, so they invest in new attractions; some hope to grow their industrial base, so they spend time recruiting and growing what they already have in place; and others are putting plans in place for the next great “green community” and are investing in a new, efficient state-of –the art infrastructure.So where is Cadiz, Kentucky in all of this? The Author of “Small Town Sexy”, Kim Huston and a professional associate of the Cadiz Economic Development would say: Cadiz, Kentucky is YES to all the above attributes of a small successful town! Kim Huston will be our guest speaker at our Cadiz Chamber Annual Dinner on June 28th @ 6:00 p.m. at Lake Barkley Lodge Convention Center. We hope you can come out hear her talk about the allure of living in a small town America. Let me leave you with some thoughts:
In a small town we:
- Walk with a smile for no apparent reason
- Give directions by landmarks rather than mileage or street names
- Still sell Girl Scout cookies door to door
- Still believe that county fairs and festivals are the highlight of the year
- Mourn the loss of a company or industry
- Keep our doors unlocked so our repairmen can come and fix things
- Enjoy chili suppers at the hospital auxiliary, fish fries, pancake breakfast at the American Legion, bake sales at the church and lemonade stands line our streets in the summer
- Have generations of families in leadership positions
- Have those generations of families living in the same houses
- Can still order a cherry Coke from a downtown soda fountain
- Pull over when a funeral procession goes by
- Can still charge things at the local hardware store
- Can buy produce straight from the farm at the farmers market
- Are taught by teachers who taught our parents
- Dial a wrong number and know the person on the misdialed call
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Can entertain ourselves on our front porches rather than in front of our TVs
**excerptions from book “Small Town Sexy”, Author: Kim Huston
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