Small Town Center helps serve community
Connecting the residents of Starkville to schools, parks, churches and work is the primary objective for the Carl Small Town Center at Mississippi State as it works to gather data to figure out the best way to help the community.
Leah Kemp, Director of the Small Town Center, said the hope is to improve the existing infrastructure to help improve the mobility of people in Starkville who don’t use a car or don’t have one. Starkville Metro Area Rapid Transport, more commonly known as just SMART, buses already connect MSU to Starkville, but more trails and sidewalks would improve the connectivity of the city.
Currently the Small Town Center is just in the study phase of planning, people interested can fill out a survey online to help with the process. They can also go door to door with Ipads to collect the data. The Greater Starkville Development Partnership is aiding with the study by sharing the survey on social media and online.
“It is a very comprehensive and thorough look at how to plan for the long term,” Kemp said. “We really want to make sure we get input from every sector in the community. It is not just looking at Starkville. It is looking at ways to connect to MSU and incorporating the existing transit system.”
A more walkable community is a goal that the Small Town Center is wanting to address. Connecting Highway 12 to campus is another idea they are looking at how to better connect the city of Starkville to campus.
Information from the survey and existing plans to improve pedestrian and bike trails will be included in the master plan. Kemp said the city and MSU have been partnering for a while to connect students with the community and the impact it has on the economy, but this survey is more than just that.
“This survey is not just about the economy, but providing a safe route to schools,” Kemp said. “It is really understanding that not everybody could have carpool access to schools. (It’s about) making sure there are safe ways to bike and walk to schools, (and) finding ways to give them access to important and necessary goods and services.”
Kemp said once those connections are made, growth can be seen in the economy, but having a healthy community would also be a benefit. There is no hard deadline in getting the survey done.
This project is one of the many improvement projects for Starkville that the Small Town Center has been working on. Lafayette Street’s lights were a project they had worked on earlier in the year and another project Kemp said she could not speak about.
“We are excited about this,” Kemp said. “We are looking forward to getting everybody’s input from the community. That will ultimately inform the decisions made in the plan and the recommendations.”