The Millennial 2020 Evolution by Nick Arnett

 
I’ve had a few people ask me in recent weeks how I’m applying my research through the Twelve Cities Project to economic development efforts in Northeast Indiana. While there’s a myriad of examples I could give, I’ll give you an overview of one that I’m very passionate about: Millennial 2020.
 
As many of you know, I took a position with the Northeast Indiana Regional Partnership (NEIRP) earlier this year to help them develop and carry out a program that would engage the “Millennial” (generally individuals between the ages of 15 to 29; however, we’ve narrowed it to 15 to 25 after a number of focus groups held with young people during the development of the program) population in Northeast Indiana in regional visioning efforts. The result is a program called Millennial 2020, a regional initiative we’re launching in January as an extension of Vision 2020 that will be stewarded by the NEIRP with the intent to civically engage young people in their communities and empower them to create a region that’s relevant and conducive to their lifestyles.
 
However, Millennial 2020 today is not at all what it was three months ago before I began my journeys.
 
If you could see the notes, diagrams, and flow charts I had scattered around my desk earlier this year illustrating how Millennial 2020 would roll out, you would think I was talking about something entirely different than what you’ll be hearing about in a few weeks. Myself and Erica Hahn, another member of our team who’s working on the program with me, had patched together a series of leadership development bodies and focus group-type events aimed at having young people in our region weigh in on Vision 2020. After my visit to Tennessee and studying projects going on in cities I intend to visit, however, all of that changed. I became very intrigued and impressed by a process known as placemaking, and began brainstorming ways to incorporate it into our plans. After my trip to Chattanooga and my recent visit to Paducah, I’ve been able to take concepts and ideas that were actively (and effectively) practiced in both cities and bring them back to our region by incorporating them into plans for Millennial 2020.
 
I’m sure many of you have heard me talk about the concept of placemaking and my theories about it (and if you have, you also know that I can ramble on about it for ages), but for those of you who aren’t familiar with the term, I’ll give you a brief overview and a look at how we’re building it into our process. After my visit to Chattanooga and conversations in Paducah, I’ve altered the process to include two critical components based on my observations: a.) visioning and planning, and b.) implementation through enablers. The first portion of the process involves taking all individuals who interact with a given space (whether you’re talking about a city block, neighborhood, community, or entire region) and involving them in a visioning conversation to describe 1.) What the space needs to have for them to carry out their routine functions as normal, and 2.) What the space needs to have to allow them to expand on their personal and professional hopes, dreams, and aspirations in the future.
 
Once a wide array of community input has been gathered and formed into a “vision,” you enter phase two of the process – the implementation phase. This is where I derail a bit from conventional placemaking concepts and go off on my own theory. In today’s global competition for talent, relevancy is becoming a hot issue. Millennials are drawn to places that are opportunistic and allow them to shape or mold the place into something that’s conducive and relevant to their lives. They want everything in their lives to be meaningful and connected; they’re not afraid to walk away from a job or a place if they don’t feel as if it fits with their core passions and contributes to a meaningful life for them. But a stumbling block that many cities face is figuring out how to produce relevancy – and that, in itself, is the issue. You can’t manufacture relevancy; it has to come from within. In other words, the people who live, work, and play in a space have to create a space that’s relevant to their lives and have to be able to continually alter that space to keep it relevant. This can only be done through what I call “enabling elements” in the placemaking process. Enablers have the capacity – whether it’s resources, space, or funding – to enable someone to turn a vision into action.
 
I first starting studying the concept of “enablers” after conversations with CreateHere, Colab, and the Community Foundation of Greater Chattanooga while in Tennessee. Whether it was intentional or not, they actively practiced this concept of “placemaking enablement” by equipping residents with what they needed to turn their dreams into reality. This has led to some incredible transformations in Chattanooga over the past thirty years, and they’re not alone – other cities are realizing the power held within enablement, and are beginning to see that their residents are their greatest pool of assets.
 
Back to Millennial 2020 – the program will roll out in a series of phases, with the first being a 10,000+ copy survey process throughout the ten counties the NEIRP serves. This will be the “visioning” portion of the process, asking Millennials to describe their hopes, dreams, and aspirations for Northeast Indiana (the “space”). Additionally, a critically important question will be included in the survey that asks the respondent to describe what they can do to help create the vision they just described. This was something I was very struck by on the Chattanooga STAND survey conducted a few years ago. It forces the respondent to have a reality check; yes, they might have some grandios ideas of what they’d like to see happen in our region, but they realize that they can’t make that happen alone. Instead, they’re forced to think about the important incremental steps that they can accomplish that will lead to the creation of a foundation to support their bigger aspirations.
 
Once collected, responses will be compiled and reported back to the Millennials later this summer during an event that will bring in young people from our entire ten county region to one location. In the weeks following the release of the survey data during that event, Millennials and their visions will be matched up with or directed to “enablers” who have the capacity to help make that vision happen, or can assist in the incremental steps needed leading up to it. At this point, the placemaking process will transition into the implementation phase where residents are working directly with enablers to turn the vision into action and implementation.
 
In theory, if this model works correctly – a future visioning process of this type would never be necessary, because it would become a constant work in progress. That may sound a bit radical at first, but if you think about it, the change and transformation will be ongoing; the “enablement” phase never really ends. Residents will constantly be engaged in a cycle of creating a space that’s relevant to their lives and able to adapt to generational transitions, lifestyle changes, or major population shifts. Of course, that would be if everything works out perfectly – so you could say that’s more of a pie-in-the-sky hope for me.
 
Nevertheless, it’s an exciting time for young people living in Northeast Indiana. As I stated before, young talent today is drawn to places they feel have an enhanced quality of opportunity – places where they feel they can make a difference and be part of the process of bettering their community. Beginning in January, Millennials in Northeast Indiana will live in one of the most opportunistic places in the midwest. I can’t hardly wait to see what they create.
 
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