At Whitewater’s last meeting of Common Council, on 2.21.13, there was a discussion about the choosewhitewater.org website, a promotional portal for Whitewater. (The site has been around for a while, slowly adding content or links.) It’s labeled as a joint effort of the city, school district, and university, but it’s easy to see that the site is mostly a university effort.
Stylish, to be sure, but anodyne as most efforts like this are. The websites of the three institutions are similarly attractive (if varying in their features). It’s a multimedia version of a promotional flyer.
There’s no harm in that, of course. Safe is what most brochures are, and this is a site that fits that tried-and-true approach. The community planning mantra to shape a city to ‘live, work, or play’ is augmented to read, ‘Live. Learn. Work. Play.’ The addition of ‘Learn’ is your tell – it’s a campus focus.
For it all, the site is most useful to influence those deciding between Whitewater and another city, rather than simply enticing people to pick up and move. Choose Whitewater is designed to sway those who might be interested in going to school or working here, as against another pending academic or employment opportunity. The benefit to the university of a site like this, for hiring in particular, is clear.
There’s an unspoken message: Choose Whitewater (rather than another school).
It’s not wrong to say that parts of Whitewater are ‘vibrant,’ but the whole city has years ahead before that description will apply, generally. It will be true, one day, but we’re not there, now. Whitewater is now a combination of some who are lively and creative and a smaller number who are unreconstructed and hidebound.
We’ll one day be a premier destination, I’m sure, but it’s unlikely that we’ll ever be (as the website declares we presently are) a ‘premiere’ one. Whitewater is more today and will always be more than a film’s opening night.
Another point, worth making: one grows larger on one’s own, as an independent site, than would be possible as part of a collection of institutionally-backed sites. In fact, the contrast between those two paths only redounds to the benefit of those taking an independent course.
I’m not sure those behind choosewhitewater.org understand this; I’m quite sure it doesn’t matter whether they do.
One certainly should chose Whitewater, for reasons far beyond what any website might suggest. In fact, in choosing our small city, one will be choosing a place in which each newcomer can and will make a great difference.
Whitewater is no finished product, no fixed and decided landscape, but a city that a new generation will shape to their desires and tastes.
I’d hope many will join us, enriching this community in ways yet unknown to current residents. This small and beautiful city has its brightest days yet ahead, open to all who should wish to live here.
Yes, choose Whitewater.