Harrisonburg, Virginia

plan for the city revolving around many sectors, from energy to transportation to food use. We have listed goals and now we’re working on how to meet them, how we will measure these environmental actions, and what we can do to implement them. In the downtown area, we just turned a two-way street into a one-way street with biking and walking. And we’re working on switching over our landscaping to more native landscaping; plants that come back every year and provide benefits for bees and other pollinators. We’ve moved the majority of our downtown to pollinator-friendly landscaping.” The city also works closely with the local universities – JMU and Eastern Mennonite University (EMU) both have professors on the committee that helped with the Environmental Action Plan. “They were a great resource,” says Stimson. “We also have the Shenandoah Valley Soil and Water Conservation District here. They helped us create a program called the Harrisonburg Conservation Assistance Program, where we provide cost-share funding for property owners and business owners that want to implement conservation practices on their land. We budget $100,000 every year for that. Promoting environmental sustainability is very important to the city. Harrisonburg has a community-run composting program, a Farmers’ Market, and our water & sewer operations are energy efficient. We have a tree program, the pollinator program, and a water quality program. All the city departments are working together to keep Harrisonburg clean and green.” In summing up the best attributes of Harrisonburg, Shull relates, “Harrisonburg is the economic capital of the Shenandoah Valley. Because of that, we see a lot of continued growth in the area and our projections show that continuing well into the future. We’re well diversified and obviously, with the universities, our average age is young. We also have a lot of retirement facilities here and our business sectors are balanced between manufacturing and technology and retail. Our marketing HARR I SONBURG, V I RGINI A