Essays from West of 98: We All Wanna Be Fredericksburg
Today, we continue our series on creating good jobs in rural communities. If it was not already apparent, I’m using this series to construct a framework for our communities to use—Stamford and beyond—in creating jobs, growing our economies, and growing our communities.
I’ve used this quote before and I have no doubt that I’ll use it again, but baseball Hall of Famer and famous philosopher Yogi Berra once said, “if you don’t know where you are going, you might wind up someplace else.” When we attempt to bring jobs to our community without a cohesive plan, we run the risk of doing just that, ending up in a whole different place than we intended and maybe not a very good place at that. As rural communities have faced steep economic decline, many community leaders have attempted to stave off catastrophe by casting a wide net to attract any possible new businesses to town. It is an understandable reaction. To draw a blunt analogy, a drowning man casts about for any sort of flotation device that will save him, without stopping to consider if a more desirable flotation device might appear later. We do what we have to do in order to survive, both individually and on a community level.
Past decline aside, rural America now stands at a unique point in history. For various reasons, both related to the pandemic and otherwise, rural communities are in demand. People *want* to move to the right rural community that provides opportunity and quality of life that they have not found elsewhere. Our rural communities are in demand more today than at any point since rural populations began their decline a half-century ago. We do not get many opportunities like this. As such, we need to handle them wisely and with a plan to maximize our opportunities for sustained success, in a way that will bring us to our intended community goals.
In one of my earliest weekly essays, I wrote of the oft-admired community of Fredericksburg, Texas. Fredericksburg is the standard-bearer for a rural community that absolutely boomed over recent decades. I have heard many communities aspiring to “be like Fredericksburg,” but Fredericksburg didn’t accidentally start booming. It capitalized on its unique qualities as a historic German community with one-of-a-kind history and architecture. Its leaders created an entire economy around just that. The best way to learn from the Fredericksburg example is not to do the same thing that they did, but apply a similar plan to our own communities. It is not easy. It is not accidental. It requires deliberate planning and execution of that plan, without being distracted by the shiny objects that can and will appear on the horizon.
One of my favorite bands of the last 25 years is the Turnpike Troubadours. I have a special admiration for the depth of their songwriting. In the song “Long Drive Home,” there’s a line that sticks with me on the deep questions and aspirations of life. It is one of my favorite song lyrics ever written. It goes, “they all wanna be Hank Williams, they don’t wanna have to die.” It is easy to admire someone else’s glory and aspire to it yourself without considering what it took to achieve that glory and whether you’re willing to undertake a similar amount of effort or cost. Hank achieved everlasting fame as one of America’s greatest songwriters and country singers, but he was also dead in the back seat of a Cadillac at age 29.
Not all glory requires such a macabre ending, but it absolutely requires effort, cost, and hard decisions. Fredericksburg population did not double over the last 30 years by the town simply announcing they wanted to grow. They are not the only example, either. There are numerous success stories across rural America in which glory and prosperity have been achieved, but only with the careful execution of a deliberate plan.
Rural economic development doesn’t come with an easy button, a magic bullet, or a get-rich-quick scheme. It comes by identifying your community’s unique qualities, building a plan around those qualities, and sticking to that plan even when the shortcuts beckon. To paraphrase the Turnpike Troubadours, we all wanna be Fredericksburg, do we wanna do what it takes to get there?
James Decker is the Mayor of Stamford, Texas and the creator of the West of 98 website and podcast. Contact James and subscribe to these essays at westof98.substack.com and subscribe to West of 98 wherever podcasts are found.