“In my work in Ohio, there were some communities that I just dreaded going to because they really wore you down. People think that a grant or a plan will make it better, but that’s not how a town works,” he said in a recent meeting of the Reimagining Rural program, which is sponsored by Montana State University. “The shape of our places is the shape of us.”

Siegler is the author of “Your City is Sick: How we can improve the economic, social, mental and physical health of millions by treating our cities like people.” He is also the founder of the civic pride consulting firm, Revitalize or Die.

Siegler said there were several components that made a community healthy and proud of itself, which include effort, progress, ownership and beauty.

Effort in building the community was key in areas that offered beautiful public spaces and well-kept businesses and homes.

“For a lot of these communities, they had hacked their town out of the woods, and that sense of progress was important,” he said. “It feels really good to get better.”

Ownership in the town also had a significant impact on community pride, especially when much of the business community was made up of locally-owned businesses.

“There was a point when we got caught up in the convenience economy and chain stores and bringing in whatever businesses were ‘cool.’ But chain businesses are in the extract economy, the money goes away and doesn’t stay in the community. Fewer people own businesses in most communities now. Every department in a Wal-Mart was once a business,” he said.

Giving priority to cars also shifted how towns looked.

“We now have car-dominant communities, and we have also experienced a depression of standards,” he said. “It’s led to trash in empty lots and buildings not being maintained.”

One of the ways to change this is to acknowledge that beauty matters in a town.

“A beautiful city hall, for instance, raises the property values around it. We went from having beauty to having good enough and feeling lucky to have a national chain store. But beauty matters. When things get crummy, people begin to feel crummy, and that gives you a feeling you want to numb,” Siegler said. “Beauty and special places in towns are important because if there is no place in our community to go to feel sophisticated or dignified, we can see how things like addiction can increase.”

Improving community pride isn’t just about economic planning, Siegler notes, it’s about community building and ownership.

“Pride is an emotional problem,” he said. “If we only use our economic development brain, we will never figure it out. Doing that hasn’t worked for the last 40 years.”

Strategies communities should consider along with economic development include establishing community traditions, having stronger regulations against vacant properties, and starting annual street cleanups and block parties.

“No entity, no building, no business, no individual is ever improved by lowering standards. Raising your standards about development and vacant properties doesn’t drive away growth.  Having red tape allows you to mitigate risk and make property more attractive to investors,” he said. “Creating community through things like street cleanups also fosters ownership and connection. Communities are made when we gather. It’s not enough to live next to each other, it’s important to set aside time and space for people.”