arden City is a place with an attitude. Leaders in this small town in Southwestern Kansas know what kind of community Garden City is and where it wants to go. They're not sure exactly how things will look when they get there, because they keep finding new ways to deal with the opportunities and challenges that come their way. What they do know is that they've learned how to contend with change, and that they can handle whatever comes next.

We went to Garden City to learn about how people have dealt with credit in a place that has the kind of ethnic mix that more and more communities will have as we move into the 21st century. What we found is that the stories of the business people, politicians, educators, bureaucrats and immigrants who have shaped Garden City could not be separated from the stories of lenders offering credit.

There is no line dividing the robustness of a "local economy" from the everyday realities of where we live, what we buy, and if and where we borrow money. Bank examiners consider the context in which a bank does business for good reason. Credit is an important part of the health of a community, but the ability to extend credit and borrow money depends on a lot of other sometimes-intangible factors.

It was clear on our visit to Garden City that it takes a community to support families, nourish citizenship and build an integrated economy. We asked a mix of people what they thought about being part of this multicultural community. We talked to elected officials, educators and a pawnshop owner, with bank presidents and providers of refugee assistance. We asked about access to credit, dealing with diversity, and contending with dramatic change in a short amount of time. We asked how it was that Garden City had become a regional economic center, rather than other once-comparable towns in Southwest Kansas.

It takes a community to support families, nourish citizenship and build an integrated economy.

We learned the answers to two questions that we didn't have to ask. First, a natural part of conversations was where people were from. There was a sense of connection with place, and while almost all the people we talked with were committed to staying in Garden City, an important part of their story was where they had grown up, whether that was in Cambodia, in another town in Southwest Kansas, or in Garden City itself.

The other big question being discussed by everyone was whether a pork processing plant would be built near Garden City. Seaboard Corporation, which aims to be the largest pork processing corporation in the world, had narrowed its site selection for a new plant to four communities, including Garden City.

In 1980, IBP, Inc. (formerly Iowa Beef Packers) built the largest beefpacking plant in the world just outside Garden City. To attract the firm, community leaders had put together a package of incentives that included abatement of $3.5 million in county property taxes for ten years and $100 million in industrial revenue bonds to finance construction. It was a business decision to compete with other communities for the plant. When Garden City won, the town learned that it was also an education and housing and law enforcement and health care decision.

It was a business decision to compete with other communities for the plant....It was also an education and housing and law enforcement and health care decision.

The Monfort beefpacking plant, now owned by the Con-Agra Corporation, had also bought and expanded a nearby plant in 1983. Between them, the meatpacking plants employ 4,700 people to slaughter and process 10,000 head of cattle per day. The new pork processing plant would employ an additional 2,400 people, in a town of 28,000 that already has more jobs than people who need them. The meatpacking plants recruit employees where they can find them, and one-third of Garden City's population has come from other countries for work.

One-third of Garden City's population has come from other countries for work.

The factors that made the community attractive to IBP 20 years ago still exist today. This is farm country, where processing meat is a logical value-added activity. Garden City's climate is dry and neither too hot nor too cold, making it ideal for cattle. The underlying Ogallala Aquifer provides a stable source of water for raising feed grains and for the meatpacking process. Kansas is a right-to-work state, allowing plants to hire non-union workers. And in 1998, an added draw for Garden City is the way it has coped with growth and diversity.

Some have asked if Garden City is really two communities: the settled families who have lived in Garden City for years, and the transient people who come for work in the meatpacking plants, then leave because the work is grueling, opportunities arise elsewhere, or they simply return to the homes they left. Even when there is little direct interaction between these groups, however, the impact of everyone on the multi-ethnic community in which they live is apparent.

Garden City folks have the "live and let live" attitude often seen in the West, where people's forebears were pioneers seeking new opportunities and new adventure in a new territory. Garden Citians have also learned from their own history, from the time the town was platted in 1879 beside the new Santa Fe railroad tracks. Immigrants from Mexico began settling in Garden City in the early part of the century, attracted by work in the sugar beet fields, at the sugar factory, and on the railroad. After World War II, long-time residents whose families were from Mexico fought for an end to discriminatory practices, and relationships between the "Anglos" and Mexicans began improving.

Immigrants from Mexico began settling in Garden City in the early part of the century.

Attitudes were honed in the 1950s, when the Clutter family was killed in their farm home near Garden City. A national spotlight was directed on the town when Truman Capote wrote about the murder in his acclaimed book, In Cold Blood. Garden City residents who only wanted to put the tragedy behind them were forced instead to confront the image of their community from an outsider's perspective. With his flashy sports car and his New York ways, Truman Capote was an anomaly in Garden City. Because of his skill as an observer and writer, however, he came to be respected and accepted. Garden Citians have learned that people from different backgrounds enrich the community. They have learned they can make it through the toughest of times, and that they can not only survive, they can grow and shape their future.

Garden Citians have learned that people from different backgrounds enrich the community.

This small town in the middle of America intrigued us, with its Mexican and Southeast Asian and Central American immigrants. We knew that manufacturers and processing plants have been moving to non-urban areas--but seeing a person of Vietnamese descent wearing a cowboy hat while driving a pickup truck down a street in a small town in the middle of America still seemed incongruous.

It's easy to see how credit is directly tied to business and housing development, but in Garden City it was also easy to see how it is tied to religion and family and politics. Some people were more enthusiastic than others about the town's diversity, but everyone we talked with accepted that diversity as "how things are," and they looked for ways to build on its strengths. Leaders in Garden City assume they will join with others to discuss and coordinate and cooperate in making things happen. They work to include, not exclude, people in a decision-making process.

In Garden City, "character" was almost visible. Statistics indicate that this town's mix of population really does reflect the future of America. We hope that the spirit we saw in Garden City--that determined, energetic, enthusiastic attitude--also reflects the future. Please join us in these pages in listening to citizens of Garden City discuss credit and learning and life in a multicultural community.