Your Community's Essence is More than Bike Lanes and Edison Bulbs

Want to better your community but don’t know where to start? Enter It’s the Little Things: a weekly Strong Towns podcast that gives you the wisdom and encouragement you need to take the small yet powerful actions that can make your city or town stronger.

It’s the Little Things features Strong Towns Community Builder Jacob Moses in conversation with various guests who have taken action in their own places and in their own ways.

Jacob Moses

Ryan Short

Take a moment to think about what you love about your community. Maybe it’s the historic downtown, where you meet with friends after work; maybe it’s the local theater, where you watch your neighbors perform in plays.

You love these places not because of the structures themselves—no matter how interesting the architecture—instead, you love them because of their essence: that feeling of community and familiarity you get with every visit.

Your community’s true essence reminds you why you love where you live; however, it also helps both yourself and your community leaders create a brand.

Not a brand of Edison bulbs and bike lanes that dominate the imagery of cities across the US. Not a brand that includes another use of the phrase “live, work, play.” Not a brand that focuses on attracting new residents without regard for current residents.

Instead, a brand that supports the strong citizens who’ve made your community special and puts it on display for the rest of the world.

In this episode, I chat with Ryan Short, CEO at CivicBrand: a branding and marketing agency that focuses exclusively on civic projects—including boosting community engagement, creating city websites, and, as we’ll discuss in this episode, creating comprehensive brand identities for communities.

Ryan and his team understand the power of branding: as a team well-versed in design, web development, and strategy, CivicBrand translates the vision of communities’ stakeholders into a clear message that all residents can support.

In this episode, you’ll learn how you can find your community’s true essence, including how to engage with your community to ensure the creation of your brand is a grassroots effort, how to ensure your brand actually aligns with what your community offers, and—most important—how finding your community’s true essence makes your city or town stronger.

CivicBrand is also a sponsor of our 4th annual Strongest Town Contest! Follow that link to learn about the contest and enter your town in the running. Our readers will vote on the strongest town in 4 bracket-based rounds, and the winner will receive a profile for our audience of millions of readers worldwide, as well as a special visit from Strong Towns founder and president Chuck Marohn.