AfterWord




e went to Garden City asking questions. We got a standard response from the people there. "We can handle whatever comes our way," they said. "We've learned that we have to talk things through and respect different opinions. We may not all agree and we may not be happy with everything. We may not end up where we thought we would, but where we end up will be okay. We'll find ways to make things work."

This attitude about challenges--not problems, but challenges--is central to this community's unique character. In Garden City, our story about credit in the 21st century became a story about an economy and the people who create it by the way they work, the way they spend their money, the way they live their lives. It became a story about change, and how banks and business and government and schools and individuals cope with it. It is a story about American culture and how newcomers are influenced by that culture and how America is changed by the culture others bring to it.

This attitude about challenges--not problems, but challenges--is central to this community's unique character.

We found a town with wide horizons. Garden City has an independent heritage and a history of progressive self-sufficiency. It has water and an ideal climate for crops and cattle. It has nurtured and attracted leaders who have vision, courage, persistence and flexibility. Other towns with more resources and amenities struggle to survive, while Garden City prospers. What makes the difference?

Fresh ideas
Communities prosper when they have an agenda of learning and an ability to have constructive dialogue, according to work done by the Kettering Foundation. We saw these traits in abundance in Garden City. Although we later talked to one disgruntled citizen who thinks Garden City is on its way to ruin, he and others with negative, pessimistic viewpoints are not leaders in Garden City. While complainers may be tolerated, they're out of step with the prevalent attitude of making the best of the opportunities in the community.

Garden City has an ongoing infusion of new ideas from new citizens from different cultures. From the time when it was a campsite on a cattle trail to the present, streams of new people have come to Garden City. Some have settled and become a part of the community, others have stayed for a few months or a few years, and others have come only as visitors. These new settlers, temporary residents and outside observers have all helped shape Garden City.

Truman Capote was an outsider who held a mirror up to Garden City when he wrote In Cold Blood more than 30 years ago. Banker John Davis stayed several years, and while we know that his perspective and that of current Garden Citians are very similar, we can't say for sure who influenced whom the most.

Immigrants from Mexico made Garden City their home more than 90 years ago, and are now considered part of the "mainstream" community. Other more recent immigrants from many countries struggle to learn new language and customs. But through school and work and business, their ideas also come to help shape the community.

Academic research
Researchers have focused an objective--and sometimes affectionate, sometimes critical--eye on Garden City over the past ten years, providing additional perspective about what does and doesn't work. In 1988, the community was selected by the Ford Foundation for inclusion in their Changing Relations Project, which has looked at interaction between newcomers and established residents.

Garden City, representing small towns and rural communities, is one of six communities across the country included in the Ford Foundation book, Changing Relations: Newcomers and Established Residents in U.S. Communities. Recommendations to other communities facing the challenge of bringing newcomers and established residents together were, in part, developed from Garden City's experience: Identify shared goals. Take initiative locally. Use the schools to promote understanding and cooperation. Support community development. Celebrate diversity. Find ways to bring people together in day-to-day activities, in neighborhoods, workplaces, schools and places of worship.

Find ways to bring people together in day-to-day activities.

On the Cutting Edge: Changes in Midwestern Meatpacking Communities describes research into the consequences of the restructuring of the meat-, poultry-, and fish-processing industries. Dr. Donald Stull, professor of anthropology at the University of Kansas and one of the book's editors, has studied and written about Garden City for the past ten years. He has written about the transformation of Garden City from a bicultural community of established residents of European and Mexican descent into a cosmopolitan multicultural community.

Stull and his colleagues observe that while Garden City's ethnic groups live side by side with little conflict, there is also little social interaction. In On the Cutting Edge, Stull describes two Garden Cities: "One is a stable community of established residents, many from families who have lived there for generations. The other Garden City is highly mobile, and its residents are people who come seeking work and who stay only as long as they have a job."

A key to Garden City's success in dealing with its cultural diversity, Stull believes, has been the concerted efforts by clergy, newspaper editors and reporters, school administrators and teachers, police, and social service providers to keep negative consequences of the influx of newcomers to a minimum.

Three factors are important in understanding the positive nature of ethnic relations in Garden City, according to an article by Stull in the Urban Anthropology journal. First, interaction is natural in small communities because of their size. Second, immigrants have come to Garden City for work. They do not take jobs away from established residents, and "Americans value hard work and admire hard workers, regardless of their background." Third, the Ministerial Alliance actively worked in the name of the group, rather than a particular church, to provide services and counter negative reactions when the influx of immigrants first began.

Garden City has learned more about itself through its role as the subject of research, and has used what has been learned to move forward.

"Garden City has learned more about itself through its role as the subject of research."

Seaboard's Decision
When Seaboard made inquiries about locating a pork processing plant near Garden City, the community's response was different from what it was 20 years ago when IBP was looking for a plant site. Opinions were still mixed about the benefits of a large new plant coming to the area. However, even those who did not want the fast change, new immigration, and infrastructure challenges that Seaboard would bring said, "We've learned from our experience with IBP, and we know we could handle this."

This time, leaders who supported Seaboard's move to Garden City knew very clearly that the benefits of jobs and economic growth would also bring responsibilities and challenges of making the community a place in which both current residents and newcomers would want to live and work. This time, supporters of the new plant agreed that in addition to the economic draw of climate and transportation and water, Garden City's strength was demonstrated in its excellence of schools, ability to provide affordable housing, outstanding health care, effective law enforcement, and the vitality of an already-diverse community.

People who opposed Seaboard said they wanted more diverse industries that would help Garden City grow in new ways, rather than just with more of what they already have. Both those who supported and opposed the pork processing plant said, "Garden City will do well, whatever happens."

In April, Seaboard announced its decision to locate near Great Bend, Kansas, 130 miles east of Garden City.

Credit in the 21st Century
With its foretaste of a future in which more communities will have more diversity, Garden City provides a snapshot of the challenges others will face. Banking is an essential piece in a mosaic of people and businesses and institutions that make up the community. Credit is an indicator of economic strength, but it cannot be separated from the other pieces that make up a place. We came to Garden City to talk about credit, and what we learned about was credit and the interwoven fabric of a multicultural community.

Banking is an essential piece in a mosaic of people and businesses and institutions that make up the community.

Garden Citians were proud of who they are--and what they have done--and they emphasized that they are not yet where they want to be. Discrimination and prejudice may still exist, but that's simply one of the challenges to work on. People in Garden City know that things won't stay the same, no matter what they do. They have set about choosing the ways they want to change.