Pulling for big mules
By Tim Chitwood, Columbus Ledger-Enquirer
Otis White has seen Columbus through the wide eyes of a child and the skeptical lens of a 24-year-old newspaper reporter. Now the 57-year-old president of the Atlanta consulting firm Civic Strategies Inc. hopes to help Columbus see its future self.
The Columbus native, who grew up on Sherwood Avenue in Beallwood, graduated from Columbus High in 1969 and Columbus College in 1973, will be speaking at 7:30 a.m. Wednesday on "How Communities Make Dramatic Changes: The New Formula For Civic Progress," at Columbus State University's Cunningham Center, 3100 Gentian Blvd. The program's sponsored by Midtown Inc. and the Coalition for Sound Growth.
White has traveled a long way since he left a Columbus newspaper in 1975 for a job at the Lansing State Journal in Lansing, Mich. From there he went to Florida's St. Petersburg Times, and then moved into business writing for magazines. He worked for Florida Trend, then in 1985 started Georgia Trend, then went into consulting with his Community Leadership Company, which he started in 1992. It was renamed Civic Strategies in 1998.
Homegrown
His memories of Columbus remain strong. He remembers catching a bus to come downtown to the courthouse to visit his mother, Alma, who worked in Municipal Court. His father, Howard, was a deputy sheriff. "It seemed like a big city," he recalls. Once when he was in the third or fourth grade, he got separated from his sisters and got lost downtown. A policeman took him home -- so far the only time he ever rode in a police car. He remembers that when he was about 12, his mother let him come downtown to watch his first political rally. He saw a young gubernatorial candidate named Carl Sanders speak on the courthouse steps.
After graduating from the college now called Columbus State University, he got a master's degree from Columbia University in New York, came back home and went to work for what was then the afternoon paper, the Ledger. He covered city hall. It's the only time he ever heard a triple-mixed metaphor, he said: A councilor who lost his seat said, "I will be watching the next council with bated ears." It was an analogy to remember, but "anatomically one that's difficult to picture," he said.
White also recalls what downtown Columbus looked like when he left here in 1975: "disappointing." He had traveled around to look at other cities' downtowns, going to Montgomery, Macon and Augusta. Columbus' then was "the least attractive, the least vibrant," he said. What has happened since, he says, is "an astonishing turnaround." The sort of amenities other cities now want in their downtowns -- like the RiverCenter, the Riverwalk, loft apartments, the Civic Center -- Columbus already has, he said. In three decades downtown Columbus went from dying to thriving.
That's the kind of urban resurrection that intrigues White, whose business helps other cities try to find that sense of direction and long-range vision. Making the initial changes is a giant step. Maintaining the momentum is a marathon. White knows one key to Columbus' progress has been leadership. Prominent businessmen and well-connected politicians worked to achieve common goals. And in Columbus, a few good leaders was all it took.
Now that leadership model is changing, White said: Fewer future business leaders will be homegrown and long-term. Today's executives often come from somewhere else and go somewhere else. They aren't as emotionally invested in the community. They don't identify with it. They don't plan for its future as if their children will inherit it. "You're not going to be depending on a steady, stable group of leaders in the future," White said. "It's going to be a lot more fluid, and it's just going to be more difficult, because you won't know who to go to, to get things done. It's far more likely to be organizational." A city then has to nurture more of a "grassroots type of leadership," White said, and often nonprofit organizations take the lead in identifying, developing and connecting those new visionaries.
But first cities have to figure all that out. "Most places just haven't figured out what to do, once the big mules have left, so they flounder," he said. "And you know, Columbus had the big mules a lot longer than most places have." When the big mules are gone, everyone else has to pull together.