Best Ideas

Editor’s Note: The following are excerpts from “Ten Years of Best Ideas From American in Bloom Towns and Cities.”

Looking Good

As we travel across America, some towns are more striking than others. They appear cleaner, prettier, more welcoming. We may feel comfortable in their ambiance without knowing exactly why. These are the places where we want to spend time, maybe even relocate there. Chances are these towns are some of the many America in Bloom (AIB) participants.

Our country is experiencing a resurgence of citizens who want to be actively involved in their communities, addressing many urgent needs. America in Bloom is providing the framework to get the job done. This book is the work of many contributors: AIB judges, board members, and the many talented, hard working people who are passionate about making their hometowns better. They live in towns and cities like yours and have generously shared their best practices for you to dream about, adapt, and even improve. Here, nearly 200 towns ranging in size from Shipshewana, Indiana with a population of 536 people, to Chicago, Illinois, with nearly three million, share their best ideas. These ideas have been culled from ten years of evaluations written by America in Bloom judges who have visited each community and from the profiles towns submit as part of their application.

Through America in Bloom, cities collect and share their success stories. Some clean up blighted neighborhoods. Others preserve historic buildings. Some work to retain community character in the face of dramatic growth. Others recognize the power of flowers to attract tourism and make their citizens proud. Many towns are doing similar things; we have attempted to showcase what's unique. Through partnership, collaboration, cooperation and empowerment, people in America in Bloom cities are making the place where they live as good as it can be. Some of our towns have written poignant articles for this book about what the America in Bloom experience has meant to them; I hope they touch you as deeply as they did me.

This book is organized by the eight criteria on which towns are evaluated: floral displays, landscaped areas, urban forestry, turf and groundcovers, heritage preservation, environmental efforts, community involvement, and tidiness. We hope this format will make it easy for you to see what towns your size are doing. But don't stop there – towns and cities of all sizes are doing things that you might like to try in your hometown.

As with any book, it is more meaningful when the concepts are explained by an expert, first hand, in relationship to your situation.
 

By Evelyn Alemanni

The author is editor of "Ten Years of Best Ideas From American in Bloom Towns and Cities."

To buy this book, visit www.americainbloom.org and click on “Participation Toolbox.”

Plants bring communities together

In today's challenging economic climate, community leaders are seeking new ways to attract and retain citizens, develop prosperous economies, add intellectual capital, and create jobs.

The drivers that create emotional bonds between people and their community are consistent in virtually every city and can be reduced to just a few categories. Interestingly, the usual suspects – jobs, the economy, and safety – are not among the top drivers.

Rather, people consistently give higher ratings for elements that relate directly to their daily quality of life, including such things as an area's physical beauty, opportunities for socializing, and a community's perceived level of openness to all people. Each of the known quality of life dimensions (usually defined as social, physical, psychological, cognitive, spiritual, and environmental well-being) are impacted by various stimuli, but remarkably, all of them are impacted in one way or another by the efforts that communities put forth in ensuring green spaces and managed landscapes (comprised of flowers, shrubs, trees, and turfgrass) remain a vital part of their local infrastructure. In other words, plants provide multiple benefits to communities in terms of local economic contributions, various environmental amenities (ecosystems services), and human health and well-being paybacks.

For example, some of the economic benefits of green spaces, parks, and other managed municipal landscapes are that the beautification of these areas draws customers to shopping districts, reduces shopper stress while they are there, enhances overall curb appeal for local businesses, boosts apartment and commercial building occupancy rates, increases revenue from tourism, creates local jobs (from various landscape design, installation, and maintenance activities), increases residential and commercial property values, and even reduces the costs of street repairs from the reduced temperatures resulting from shaded roadways and sidewalks.

While the list of environmental amenities, otherwise known as ecosystems services, is quite exhaustive, it is impressive to consider a mere subset of them–carbon sequestered; oxygen generated; wildlife attracted; biodiversity enhanced; heat islands offset; air, noise and glare pollution reduced; soil erosion mitigated; storm water runoff more efficiently handled; wind damage minimized; and the reductions in energy use that arise from the temperature buffering that plants provide around buildings.

Needless to say, many of these environmental amenities translate into substantial economic contributions to local economies as well. While these economic and environmental benefits may not come as much of a surprise, the plethora of health and wellbeing benefits might. Peer-reviewed research has documented people's ability to concentrate in their work environment when it is enhanced by the presence of plants and flowers. Children learn faster and are less distracted in plant-filled environs as well, and plants have even been documented to reduce stress levels, hypertension, and ease the effects of attention deficit disorder.

Anyone who has given/received flowers or plants as gifts knows the joy and excitement they generate; these powerful emotions carry over to beautified landscapes as well. Parks, botanic gardens, and other urban green spaces favorably impact people's health (and reduce health care costs) by providing them with an inexpensive and convenient recreational service. Another health-related benefit is derived from the accelerated healing that occurs during hospital recovery periods when patients are exposed to flowers and potted plants in their rooms, but as importantly, when they have views of beautiful landscape areas around the hospital.

If you would like to learn more about these and other plant-related benefits, please visit the "Benefits of Plants" resource area of AIB's website (go to www.americainbloom.org, then click on Community Resources and then Benefit of Plants).

By Dr. Charles R. Hall

The author is Ellison Chair in International Floriculture, Texas A&M University Department of Horticultural Sciences and AIB Board Member.