Need more March Madness? Bellingham picked to Sweet 16 of Strongest Town contest
If pouring over NCAA Tournament brackets studying potential early-round upsets and championship contenders is not your thing — or if you expect you’ll crumple up your bracket and throw it away by mid weekend — you can still get in on some March Madness.
And the good news is your favorite has already made it to the Sweet 16.
Bellingham is one of 16 towns across the U.S. and Canada that are part of the sixth-annual Strongest Town Contest.
“The Strongest Town Contest celebrates the towns and cities doing the hard work of becoming stronger, responding to local challenges — and addressing local opportunities — with creativity, intelligence, humility, and courage,” said a news release about the contest.
Though the 16 towns are not seeded, as in the NCAA bracket, teams are paired off in eight first-round matchups. The winner of each matchup — determined by online voting — will move on to the next round of eight, and a champion will be crowned after four rounds.
Bellingham is matched with Lockport, Illinois — a 25,307-person suburb of Chicago, located approximately 30 miles southwest of downtown — in the first round.
Voting is now open at strongtowns.org/journal/2021/3/15/2021-round-1-matchup-6 and will close at 10 a.m. PDT Thursday, March 18. An email address is needed to cast a vote.
“It’s thrilling to see the enthusiasm and positive spirit that emerges from each city that participates in the Strongest Town Contest,” Strong Towns Program Director Rachel Quednau said in the release. “The competition consistently generates transformative ideas that inspire communities around the country to grow more financially resilient.”
Bellingham was nominated by a group of “passionate residents,” including Dean Fearing and Lorraine Wilde, according to the matchup page.
“Our favorite thing about Bellingham is how community-minded we are,” Fearing and Wilde’s nomination reads. “According to Governing.com, based on 2018 data, Bellingham has more than 248 locally-focused nonprofits, a rate of 11.0 per 10,000 people.
“We at Kulshan Community Land Trust (KulshanCLT), a nonprofit focused on providing low- to moderate-income working families with opportunities for homeownership education and permanent homeownership, are nominating the city of Bellingham for this honor because of their long-term commitment to building and fostering the public/private partnerships that continually improve the lives of all of its citizens.”
Bellingham’s nomination also includes answers to eight questions about how easy it is to get around Bellingham without a car, steps that are being taken to increase housing options and affordability, how Bellingham is attempting to foster economic development, how active community members are in local issues and various steps taken to address the COVID-19 pandemic.
Lockport’s nomination answered the same questions to give an idea what it was like.
“The Illinois and Michigan (I&M) canal history is the backbone of Lockport and is our favorite thing about the city,” says the nomination by Ben Benson, Lance Thies, Lisa Heglund, Brent Cann and Brittni Calderon. “Lockport’s history as an I&M Canal town is rich and set the course for the development of the community over 190 years ago. The community grew along the canal, becoming the ‘Public Landing’ for goods from around the county to be loaded onto mule-pulled barges as well as the location for what is referred to as the Canal Commissioner’s house where the canal’s construction logistics were executed and property for miles around the city was platted, including our downtown and Heritage Residential district.
“Today, many of the historic buildings are still in place, have been restored, and have led the resurgence of the heart of the community over the past ten years. The canal is now a recreational destination with bike trails, parks and plazas along its path and the Gaylord and Norton buildings, formerly a general store and grain mill respectively, anchor the still visible Landing, now a park celebrating Lincoln’s legacy and his role in the formation of the canal.”
The winner between Bellingham and Lockport will be announced Friday, March 19 — just as the NCAA Tournament kicks into full action with the first round. The winner will move on to the Strongest Town’s Elite Eight to face the winner between Sleepy Hollow, New York, and Middleton, Wisconsin.
The other six Sweet 16 matchups are:
▪ Kenmore, Washington, vs. Coaldale, Alberta.
▪ Norfolk, Virginia, vs. Bentonville, Arkansas.
▪ Oxford, Mississippi, vs. Ridgefield, New Jersey.
▪ Osakis, Minnesota, vs. Yellow Springs, Ohio.
▪ Bismarck, North Dakota, vs. Elkhart, Indiana.
▪ Northfield, Vermont, vs. Edmond, Oklahoma.
“There are no universal answers to the complex problems America’s cities, towns and neighborhoods face,” the Strong Towns website says in its approach to picking the strongest town. “There is no playbook. No civilization has ever transformed the living patterns of an entire continent the way we have. No civilization has even taken on so much debt – public and private – to keep it all going the way we have. No civilization has ever faced so many obligations that cannot be met as we now do.”
This story was originally published March 15, 2021 at 10:37 AM.
CORRECTION: The spelling of Dean Fearing’s name was corrected March 16, 2021.
