Warsaw, MO, featured on ‘Hometown Revival’

There is power in making your place, your hometown, a wonderful place to live. This may be obvious, but quality of life is often an afterthought in the economic development work of growing jobs and businesses.

That’s why the new Hometown Revival podcast focuses ts first episode on the economic development strategy of ‘placemaking.’

In Episode 1, host Ben Vickers, Vernon County Economic Developer, sits down with Randy Pogue, city administrator for Warsaw, Missouri. They discuss how a focus on everyday quality of life has fueled recent growth in that rural Benton County town (pop. 2,100).

Tune in to Hometown Revival, our new podcast about innovative people and projects in rural community economic development.

Hometown Revival – Episode 1: Placemaking (13 min.)

More Resources

A system of recreational trails is a big part of Warsaw’s placemaking story. But even more powerful is how Warsaw designed them to hook up together and connect everyday life.

Read more about that ‘complete streets’ approach and Warsaw’s success with it in this national report highlighting our rural neighbor: Best Complete Streets Initiatives of 2017.

Drake Harbor park in Warsaw, MO.

Take Action

Where do you start in your own community? How do you advance existing efforts?

Check out some tried and true strategies in this Streets as Places Action Pack from the national Project for Public Spaces.

Our Team

The idea for this podcast, and the energy to produce it, comes from a group of regional organizations working with community development corporation New Growth to build a new era of health and wealth in west central Missouri.

Our regional leadership team includes:

• West Central Missouri Community Action Agency
• Kaysinger Basin Regional Planning Commission and its economic developers in Vernon, Benton, Cedar, and St. Clair counties.
• MO Small Business Development Center at State Fair Community College
• University of Missouri Extension West Central Region
• Osage Valley Electric Cooperative
• MOSourceLink
• New Growth

Coming Up

We have some great episodes coming up every month. Follow the Hometown Revival podcast and learn about new episodes as they go live!

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