Revitalize, or Die.

10/23/2026

I recieved my first testimonial this week for the Civic Health Workbook. Thanks Judith Cosgray for the kind words.

“When you are starting a new organization, it can be overwhelming to know where to begin. Jeff has created a workbook that has saved me hours of research and compilation of resources in one easy to follow guide. He also doesn't sugar coat things. This book will make you uncomfortable, and that's how it should be. If you are uncomfortable, that means you need to take action to correct the issues at hand. It is presented in a logical manner that encourages you to look critically at your community to identify key areas to focus on. The checklists and worksheets further solidify the path you need to take. I have no doubt we will be able to immediately see results by implementing the action plan in The Civic Health Workbook.”

Discomfort is not a flaw in this process. It is the process. If you read through the civic health assessment and feel a little uneasy, that is not a reason to close the tab. That is a reason to keep going.

The workbook gives you somewhere to take that discomfort. Checklists. Worksheets. A logical path through the hard questions and toward something you can actually do.

This is where you start.

Link in comments.

10/22/2026

It is perfectly okay that your town suffers from apathy, most do. It is completely normal to believe your place can and should be better, it should. It is the most rational response to feel run down by your run down surroundings, this is how people work. I don’t say this to encourage you to accept current conditions, but to accept that they need to change.

Healthy people are honest about their shortcomings. They understand there is always room for improvement and that getting better is a lifelong pursuit. Being proud doesn't mean thinking you've arrived. It means understanding where you are and committing to the work of getting somewhere better.

Our towns are no different.

We can’t improve until we accept that things are not as they should be. If we aren’t honest about where we are, we deny ourselves the opportunity to reach new places. We have to get a little bit comfortable with being uncomfortable.

So ask yourself a couple of questions that might not feel good to ask.

Does your town hold high standards or make excuses for low ones?

Do residents talk proudly about where they live or do they apologize for it?

Does the built environment make people feel good or does it make them feel ashamed?

These are not rhetorical questions. They are diagnostic ones. And asking them honestly is the first act of civic health.

I built a free civic health assessment to help community leaders get an honest picture of where their town actually stands. Not where they hope it is. Not where it used to be. Where it is right now.

It takes a few minutes. It will probably make you uncomfortable. That is the point. Link in comments.

10/21/2026

I have spent my career visiting communities, giving talks, conducting assessments, writing reports, and then leaving. I know this work is important and I also know there are not enough of this working in the field to deliver the help thats needed. Most of the communities that need this work will never hire a consultant. Most of the people doing this work are doing it without any outside help at all.

That's why I wrote the Civic Health Workbook. It's not a book you read. It's a book you do.

It walks through five vital signs of a healthy community: physical health, emotional health, social health, financial health, and civic ownership. Each one comes with a real diagnostic assessment, an honest explanation of why things broke down in the first place, a treatment plan with quick wins and long-term strategies, and case studies from real people in real cities who have done this work.

The assessments are not comfortable. They are designed to force you to look honestly at where your city actually is, not where you wish it was or where it used to be.

If you are a community leader, a Main Street manager, a chamber director, a concerned resident, or anyone who has ever looked around at their town and thought something has to change, this workbook is for you.

It is available now at revitalizeordie.com

10/20/2026

Introduction: Permission To Feel What You’re Feeling

Let’s start with something most civic engagement books won’t tell you: It’s okay that you don’t love your city right now. Maybe you feel ashamed when friends visit. Maybe you avoid downtown
entirely. Maybe you’ve stopped noticing the boarded-up windows and overgrown lots because caring hurts too much. Maybe you tell yourself it doesn’t matter, that cities are just places we happen to live, not places worth fighting for.

That feeling? It’s not your fault. And you’re not alone. But here’s what I need you to understand: That feeling is also the starting point for everything that needs to happen next.

This workbook exists because I wrote a book called Your City is Sick, and people kept asking me the same question: “Okay, I get it. We’re broken. Now what the hell do I actually do about it?” Fair question.

This is the answer. Not a comfortable answer. Not a quick answer. Not an answer you can delegate to a consultant or a new mayor or some federal grant program. This is the answer that requires you to look directly at what’s broken, understand why it’s broken, and then roll up your sleeves and fix it yourself alongside your neighbors.

Because here’s the truth nobody wants to say out loud: Your city won’t be saved by someone else. It has to be you.

*An excerpt from The Civic Health Workbook, available at

Expert civic health consulting for community revitalization, organizational growth, and strategic action to foster pride and sustainable development.

10/19/2026

One of the main reasons our towns are in such poor condition is that we keep equating growth with success.

That is equivalent to suggesting weight gain is a good measure of individual health. Obviously there is so much more to consider. We understand this intuitively on a personal level, but we seem to lose all sense when it comes to our civic lives.

Growth doesn't dictate health. If anything, it's quite the opposite. Every meal isn't healthy, some are though. Putting on fat is clearly unhealthy, but adding muscle is beneficial. It really just depends.

Building more roads, dollar stores, and subdivisions is the civic equivalent of putting on fat. Sure there is more, but more isn't better. It's worse. More apathy architecture, more disconnected communities, more discontent. More infrastructure to maintain, more police and fire, all while the heart of the community has to pump harder just to stay alive.

Muscle is dense and density is the key. Adding muscle strengthens the heart, speeds up metabolism, and helps bones stay stronger later in life. Building with density utilizes existing infrastructure, builds social connection, and strengthens the heart of town.

We are built to walk and our towns were too. We were built to be close to one another and our towns were too. We thrive when our towns are built with the health of residents in mind.

We have to confront the false promise that growth equals health. After 40 years of adhering to this tired trope, we can safely say it just isn't true. We have to start measuring civic health, not just growth.

With this in mind, I created a civic health assessment as a means to measure the overall health of our communities. It helps us move past the growth mindset and understand if our towns are actually healthy.

I hope you'll take a few minutes to complete it and get a clearer picture of the health of the community you call home.

Link to the assessment in the comments.

10/16/2026

Your city isn't dying. It's undiagnosed. The Civic Health Workbook is out today, link in the first comment.

10/15/2026

You've sat through the meetings. You've read the plans. Tomorrow, you get something to actually write in. The Civic Health Workbook is coming!

10/15/2026

Most days I like to share a bit of writing or a graphic I think will help you in your efforts to improve your communities. But some days I have to stop and reflect on how lucky I am to do this work.

Today, I am grateful.

Yesterday, I delivered the closing keynote at the Wyoming Stronger Together Conference, hosted by the Wyoming State Chamber of Commerce in Cody. Afterward, I grabbed lunch and toured downtown with Jennifer and Courtney from the Cody Chamber.

With the afternoon free, I visited Yellowstone National Park on my way back to the airport. It had been years since my last visit, and it was even more amazing than I remembered. Along the way, I saw elk, fox, bear, and quite a few buffalo.

After leaving the park, I stopped at a place dear to my heart. Before graduate school, I worked on a ranch in Paradise Valley and then spent another year in Livingston, MT. The town was everything I remembered, and I grabbed a drink in a couple of my old haunts.

It was the perfect day, and it reminded me how fortunate I am to travel the country, see beautiful places, and work with people who are passionate about the concept of place. Thank you to the folks in Wyoming for inviting me, and to everyone I've had the chance to work with so far. I hope to work with many more of you in the future.

10/13/2026

I don't go into communities to give them another plan.

Plans have their place. Good ones absolutely matter. But a plan only covers so much ground, and eventually it runs out.

What I actually try to do is give community leaders a better decision making lens. Because a community has thousands of decisions to make every year. The municipal budget. Capital improvements. Staff time. Nonprofit mission statements. Volunteer projects. Zoning decisions. Code enforcement. All of it.

No plan covers all of that. But a shared lens can.

The question I want every leader asking before every decision is simple: will this make residents proud of their town? Will this make the people who live here healthier and happier?

That's the lens.

When an entire community, municipal government, nonprofits, local businesses, volunteers, starts running every decision through that filter, real change becomes inevitable. Not because of one big project or one great plan, but because hundreds of small decisions are all pointed in the same direction.

That's where the power lies. Not just in the plan. In the decisions we make every single day.

10/09/2026

This week I wrote about the single most overlooked strategy in community development.

Stop chasing outsiders. Start helping residents make friends.

Full piece on Substack this week. Link in bio.