The city of Dubuque on Iowa’s eastern border has once again been named an “All American City” by the National Civic League. Mayor Roy Buol says the designation means a lot.
“It’s a tremendous opportunity to showcase some of our best practices in the City of Dubuque. This is the third time in seven years that we’ve received this very prestigious honor. And really, I think it speaks to the quality of our services, our citizen engagement, and the quality of life issues the that we’ve addressed in the city,” Buol says.
The cities have to apply for the award and Buol says one of the things they highlighted is the revitalization of the Millwork District.
“Where we are redeveloping a million square feet of essentially vacate and abandoned warehouse buildings into a walkable neighborhood with great amenities, an arts community, walkable to our downtown,” Buol explains.
“We talked about some veteran issues, what we are going in support of our veterans and our workforce program.” He says that program helps those who have been out of work for some time to get back into the workforce. Ten cities are chosen each year, and Buol says two other honorees had an interesting link to his city.
“Two of the other 10 All-American City designees — Owensboro, Kentucky and Peoria, Illinois — had sent delegations to Dubuque, two, three four years ago, and actually came to Dubuque to see what we are doing to copy some of our best practices in their cities. So it was very gratifying to see those two cities to be among the top 10,” Buol says.
The other cities on the list are: Birmingham, Alabama ; Downey, California ; Montrose, Colorado; Dunn, North Carolina; Garner, North Carolina; Thomasville, North Carolina and Norfolk, Virginia.
Dubuque won the designation last year, and also in 2007. One other Iowa city, Marshalltown, was among the 20 finalists for the designation this year.