Dream City 2020 hopes to help the city realize its potential

The Pikes Peak region is like a slacker dude with unlimited potential who is finally ready to get his act together, judging by the comments of community leaders.

Two complementary projects - Dream City: Vision 2020 and Operation 6035 - are spending money and time to put residents on the couch and ask the big questions. Who are we? What will we become?

Both projects plan to provide some answers to the region's existential crisis by June.

"We haven't quite figured out what we're going to be when we grow up," said Sallie Clark, vice chair of the El Paso County Board of Commissioners. "It's kind of like being in college and not knowing what career path you're taking. It's that strange adolescent time when you don't know what you want to do."

City Councilwoman Jan Martin was singing the same tune, with different words.

"If our community can catch a vision, there's nothing we can't accomplish, but we haven't had a vision in the recent past," Martin said. "We haven't been striving to go anywhere."

Dream City: Vision 2020 is a grassroots effort that launched last summer, led mainly by arts and culture groups such as the Pikes Peak Library District, Leadership Pikes Peak, the Cultural Office of the Pikes Peak Region and The Gazette. Dream City is now in its community engagement phase, gathering more than 1,000 people into small groups to talk about what this community needs to preserve and what it needs to create.

"We're going to bridge groups, and book clubs and churches," said Paula George, a volunteer facilitator who has led six groups so far.

She said the most common thing people want to create is a light rail system.

When it comes to Colorado Springs assets that should be preserved, folks rave about the natural beauty of the mountains and trails, she said, and then they go silent, not sure what else defines this place.

Operation 6035 is a six-month study launched in January by the Colorado Springs Regional Economic Development Corp., with a much narrower and deeper focus: Which industries should we pursue to create jobs in this region? Then, how do we market this community to attract those industries?

While consultants AngelouEconomics, based in Austin, Texas, will seek community input, this project is less about residents' dreams and more about a precise plan for job growth.

Community leaders report they're being called personally and interviewed for Operation 6035, rather than the bottom-up, book-club type focus groups of Dream City. Leaders of both projects acknowledge this difference, and said that's part of what makes them complementary - the top-down and bottom-up approaches should meet in the middle.

The two projects will also coordinate the rollout of their results in June, with Dream City planning a "summit" open to all comers.

So, what is it about this point in the city's history that has inspired two simultaneous projects to envision a new path?

The last economic study was launched after the savings and loan debacle, as the local housing market swooned, said Mike Kazmierski, president of the EDC. The parallels to today are obvious.

"When the pain of doing something is less than the pain of doing nothing is when communities want to change," said Jon Abercrombie of Everyday Democracy, a consultant who is helping Dream City organizers.

Abercrombie said tremendous growth or hard times can inspire the "visioning" process, as growth forces a community to decide what it wants to become and hard times force people to admit the status quo isn't working.

It appears that Colorado Springs has had one followed by the other, years of sprawling growth followed by an abrupt contraction, with developers leaving behind half-finished houses. And that's left community leaders, as well as participants at the Dream City brainstorming sessions, expressing the theme that this region has grown but still lacks a strong sense of identity.

Will hiring consultants and collecting dreams solve that? The natural question for any project of this ilk is, What is the payoff? Can they get the slacker off the couch and put him on a purposeful path?

Kazmierski said skeptics should look at history. The similar study 20 years ago is credited with the Springs' successful move to attract high-tech and nonprofit sector jobs.

The Pikes Peak Center, the revitalization of Tejon Street, and wooing military installations are other examples of conscious planning efforts.

"Visioning in and of itself doesn't guarantee change in a community, but change in a community seldom happens without visioning," Abercrombie said.

While success is not guaranteed, planners can make it more likely with the steps they take right now.

"A lot of those kinds of projects resulted in a nice-looking plan and a vision that never went anywhere, but there are other examples that really guide the city's direction for the next 10 years," said Matt Leighninger, executive director of the Deliberative Democracy Consortium in Washington D.C., and author of "The Next Form of Democracy: How Expert Rule is Giving Way to Shared Governance - and Why Politics Will Never Be the Same."

Leighninger said most successful projects involve a lot of people in the visioning - "500 is a good critical mass" - and organizers thought ahead about who would implement the programs.

"Citizens are really good at describing the place they want, but they're not as good at telling you how to get there," said Otis White, a columnist for Governing magazine who is researching a book on how communities make dramatic changes.

He emphasized the importance of elected leaders and public employees in turning dreams into workable plans, transforming what into how.

"You've got to have the right mayor, the right city council, the right planning department," he said. "Very often the leadership emerges before the vision and they're the ones pushing to get a clear vision."

Martin and Clark argued that the city and county have the leaders in place to affect change, even if they've been forced to spend most of their time lately slashing budgets.

Clark took the role that White assigned to leaders and placed it back at the feet of residents.

"I think it's important to know what people think, but it's also important to know what those solutions might be. Tell us not only what you want but how you get there," she said. "There's a point when you have to say this would be really nice, but it all comes down to money."

Clark urges caution in the midst of economic trouble and failed tax hikes for services, but Martin said she believes the process is already ending the inertia that has marked this community.

"I absolutely have high hopes," Martin said. "I believe it's the first step in our community really beginning to move forward."

Call Reed at 636-0226

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Dream City: Vision 2020 update

Get involved

Go to dreamcity2020.com, e-mail Becci Ruder of Leadership Pikes Peak at becci@leadershippikespeak.org, or call her at 632-2618, ext. 24. Gather a group and facilitators will come to your location for a brainstorming session. Also, anyone is welcome at these two sessions: 6-8 p.m. March 11 at the Rockrimmon Branch of the Pikes Peak Library District, 832 Village Center Drive, or 6-8 p.m. March 12 at the Penrose Library adult meeting room.

What's happened already

Dream City was launched in the summer with an inspiration phase that focused on art and literature, and an education phase to look at the visions that have guided the city in the past. The phases overlap, but the dominant phase now is the community engagement phase.

What's happening now

Dream City - with help from Everyday Democracy - is gathering groups of residents to think about what should be preserved in this city, what should be created, and what would make this an ideal community in 2020. Organizers plan to gather ideas from more than 1,000 people, with facilitation meetings continuing for several weeks more.

How will these ideas used?

Thousands of ideas will be studied and poured into software to evaluate the most common themes. Dream City organizers will create an over-arching vision, as well as more specific visions in 10 areas: economy, social wellbeing, natural environment, health, education, arts and culture and recreation, transportation, public safety, community engagement and the built environment.

What happens next?

In April and May, circles of stakeholders will be formed around each issue to refine the vision, start setting priorities, and start thinking about how they can champion their issue to turn dreams into action.

The payoff

A community-wide summit will be held in July to present a vision for the community and champions for specific issues. Community members will be asked to help set priorities and get involved.

Evaluation

Dream City organizers hope to evaluate progress and re-focus each year until 2020. An annual study of Quality of Life Indicators for the Pikes Peak region provides measurable results.

Find out more about Operation 6035 at operation6035.com