Vibrant Community

Establish and support gathering places that can adequately serve as a “third place” to residents in all communities.

The Brookings Institution lovingly refers to third places as the “living rooms of our communities.” These places offer space to gather, chat, share, and commune and can take a number of forms from coffee shops to cafes to recreation centers. Importantly, though, third places are considered the building blocks of great communities. They bring us together, create parity, and democratize the lived experience in ways that few other institutions can do.

In both Jasper and Newton counties, third places are hard to come by and aren’t diverse or dispersed enough to serve our many small communities. Third places of the past have given way to automation and e-commerce, and adequate replacements haven’t grown to fill the niche. More functional zoning, incentivizing, and better community communications will help us promote third places. As we drive forward our home, we must certainly give it an adequate living room.

Attract and retain a diverse and high-quality range of dining options.

Nothing is more central to the creation of a vibrant downtown space than adequate dining and restaurant options. Regardless of community size, shared dining experiences play an important role in building a tighter-knit community, offering a more experiential visit for outsiders and tourists, and creating a cultural center for residents to share experience and trade stories. Nothing is more central to the creation of a vibrant downtown space than adequate dining and restaurant options. Regardless of community size, shared dining experiences play an important role in building a tighter-knit community, offering a more experiential visit for outsiders and tourists, and creating a cultural center for residents to share experience and trade stories. 

At present, both Jasper and Newton counties rank among the bottom 5% of counties in Indiana in terms of restaurant density and lower still in cuisine diversity.

A better future for our communities means attracting, building, and retaining more diverse dining options to support a vibrant community. For this reason, it ranks second in our priorities.

Ensure that all local events and activities are communicated in an effective and easy-to-access way.

As technology has taken over, our front porch communities have disappeared and, with them, has gone our ability to communicate amongst our residents. In years past, a tighter social fabric allowed news and events to travel through an informal network with relative ease. Today, that fabric is weakened and stretched; messages get lost and fall away.

Are people more distant? Do they want to be more insular and shut off? The answer is a simple and resounding, “No.” It is incumbent, then, on us to evolve our social fabric to meet their needs. We must develop communication tools and products and leverage the ones we already know are popular to ensure that our methods of communication meet the market demand.

With an improved communications effort, we’ll quickly see our social fabric tighten, our events become more popularized, and a push for more vibrant activities to follow.