Principles Part 1: Do we have guiding principles?
As a young gathering of Strown Townies in the summer of 2018, we felt we wanted to start putting together some project ideas to begin to move the needle in Sioux Falls. One thing we noticed was that the city loves to hire consultants who crank out 10-year, 20-year, and 50-year visions and plans.
Here is a list of them we printed off and read
http://siouxfallsmpo.org/files/2914/5010/5167/Sioux_Falls_2040_LRTP_-_Final_November_2015.pdf
https://www.siouxfalls.org/finance/budget/current-budget-documents/2018-final-budget
And about a dozen others. I think we printed like 3000 pages and sat on the floor and read them all.
We walked away from this research asking, how did these various groups make these decisions? What guided them? How did they decide to leave out certain things and include others? After many attempts to reverse engineer what the guiding principles might have been, we were left simply with growth.
In an attempt not to reinvent the wheel we began researching if any other cities had guiding principles, and in fact, many do. After studying 8 cities with great guiding principles a group of Strong Townies came up with the following potential guiding principles for Sioux Falls.
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COMMUNITY AND PEOPLE
Principle 1. Pride in Identity
Sioux Falls takes pride in its identity, natural setting, and history. Its residents, businesses, and government value the City’s industrial and agricultural heritage, cultural diversity, neighborhoods, and thriving arts community — and their links to the region and the world.
Principle 2. Strong Community Bonds
Sioux Falls builds strong community bonds at the neighborhood level, with activities and recreational opportunities for youth, local festivals, and a strong culture of volunteering, positive role models, and leadership programs.
Principle 3. Safe City
Sioux Falls is a safe place for everyone. Residents and businesses in every neighborhood collaborate with each other and with responsive law enforcement to promote personal safety.
Principle 4. Caring and Equitable Community
Sioux Falls treats everyone with compassion, dignity, and fairness and supports stable, diverse neighborhoods. It is a caring community where everyone has access to services, jobs and housing and shares in the vitality and prosperity of the community.
Principle 5. Collaborative Civic Engagement
Sioux Falls identifies its challenges and takes constructive actions to address them. It is a place with strong, collaborative partnerships between government, residents, and local businesses and where challenges are addressed proactively, drawing on lessons learned from their own experience and from other communities.
Principle 6. Active, Participatory Community
Sioux Falls supports and depends on active community participation. Sioux Falls provides timely and understandable information on planning issues and projects, and community members participate directly in shaping plans and policies for the city’s future.
Principle 7. Healthy Community
Sioux Falls promotes the health of its residents and recognizes the value of a proactive, preventative approach to health. All Sioux Falls neighborhoods have easy access to healthy food, including organic food and locally grown food from school and community gardens.
NATURE AND THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT
Principle 8. Beautiful City
Sioux Falls values and showcases the City’s beauty, historic character, compatible architecture, abundant trees, and local ecology. Gateways into the community make positive, welcoming impressions, and Sioux Falls’ pride is displayed on every block in the way people care for their homes, gardens, businesses, and neighborhoods.
Principle 9. A Place People Want To Be
Sioux Falls’ vibrant downtown, attractive waterfront and open spaces, livable neighborhoods, and, varied destinations draw people from the region and beyond. Sioux Falls is a place where people of all ages want to be, day and night — to live, work, shop, and recreate.
Principle 10. Iconic Waterfront
Sioux Falls treasures its waterfront as a centerpiece of the community, with a promenade, multi-use trails, natural open space, and access to water activities. It is a place for community gathering, exercising, socializing, shopping, dining out and having fun.
Principle 11. Environmental Stewardship
Sioux Falls pursues and promotes environmental education; protects and manages its watersheds, wetlands, and wildlife habitats; and embraces businesses and industries that are sensitive to the environment. It is a community where environmental stewardship is an asset that attracts people and businesses.
Principle 12. Sense of Place
Sioux Falls values its special character and unique sense of place in its dramatic riverfront setting, varied topography, city-wide views, historic districts, and prevalent green spaces.
ECONOMY, EDUCATION, AND TRAINING
Principle 13. Good Jobs, Education, and Training
Sioux Falls provides people with good jobs and its young people with job training and the education they need to succeed. Sioux Falls embraces innovations in education, and the city’s excellent educational institutions and trade schools play a prominent role in its economic vitality and community life.
Principle 14. Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Successful Local Businesses
Sioux Falls welcomes innovative businesses and fosters entrepreneurship. It is a community that capitalizes on new technologies, community assets, and local knowledge — while helping local businesses to succeed.
Principle 15. Economic Development Aligned with Natural Environment
Sioux Falls values economic development and aligns well-designed projects with the protection and enhancement of environmental resources. It is a community where sustainable development is efficiently processed and provides broad benefits that serve community needs and enhance the quality of life.
Principle 16. Stable, Strong and Diverse Economy
Sioux Falls is characterized by fiscal stability; a strong, diverse economy, including health care, education, and manufacturing; and efficient use of its lands and waterways. Sioux Falls’ unique setting, community character, and favorable weather are major resources for economic expansion, including tourism and entertainment.
MOBILITY, TRANSPORTATION, AND CONNECTIVITY
Principle 17. Regional Transportation Hub
Sioux Falls provides excellent and affordable connections to the surrounding region for people and goods. It is a regional transportation hub — by car, transit, bicycle, and on foot.
Principle 18. The Bike Loop
Sioux Falls provides distinct pedestrian/bicycle access to the city and outlying neighborhoods via the Bike Loop and connecting pathways.
Principle 19. Interconnected, Mobile Community
Sioux Falls is an interconnected, cohesive community from east to west and north to south, where traveling by foot, bicycle or transit is efficient, easy, safe, and fun. Sioux Falls offers a range of convenient, affordable, and eco-efficient mobility options.
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Our hope was and is that these principles actually guide and inform decisions like the lights on a runway for a pilot landing an airplane. These are not true now. They are aspirational. We would hope that our children could say they are true. We think they could be true by 2030 if you, the citizen, wanted them to be.
We would love to see developers look at these principles and ask simple questions. Take Principle 9 for instance:
Principle 9. A Place People Want To Be
We would love to see a developer ask themselves “Am I building a place that people want to be?” AND THEN write that up in their proposal so that neighbors and the city at large could understand their position.
These are merely a draft. We would love your input on these principles. Have we headed the right direction? Are there some missing principles?
Please participate in our online public input at http://bit.ly/guiding-priciples
And join our Facebook Group at http://bit.ly/strong-sioux-falls
