local

As budgets are cut, and professionally run service programs close, it may be appropriate to imagine the emergence of modern day Village Improvement Associations (VIA) and consider what projects they would now inspire. Following the Civil War, VIAs were started all over America. Small in scale, place-based, citizen driven, they were flexible to respond to a specific community. The Associations might organize concerts or put up window boxes on Main Street buildings, but just as easily serve regular meals to those in need or build a wing on the hospital or collect supplies for distribution after a flood swept through the town.