Luring Tourists to a Little Eco-City on the Prairie

Travel Blog  •  Joanna Kakissis  •  05.11.09 | 3:31 PM ET

Photo by wfryer via Flickr (Creative Commons)

Two years ago, a massive tornado tore apart more then 95 percent of the buildings in Greensburg, Kansas. Normally, the destruction of this tiny town of 1,400 people would have been just another natural disaster on the high plains, where twisters regularly shred the landscape. But Greensburg’s recovery has made headlines around the world because the town is rebuilding itself as a sustainable, clean-energy “laboratory for eco-friendly living,” according to Greenwire.

The greener Greensburg is hoping to jump-start its regenerating economy by attracting environmentally minded travelers who want to experience sustainable living in an iconic American landscape. But will the tourists come? No doubt it will be tough. Eco-cities and eco-neighborhoods are rising up around the U.S. and beyond, and in far more glamorous locales. Prairie towns often have little street cred with travelers and even less appeal for greenvolutionaries looking to immerse themselves in more exotic endangered places. At the moment, Greensburg’s biggest tourist attraction is the 121-year-old, 109-foot “Big Well”—apparently the world’s deepest hand-dug well.

Greensburg may never make any top 10 travel lists, but it may attract those tourists who believe this nation’s hardiest stories lie in the heartland. That resilience has shaped the narrative of a tornado-wrecked farm town rebuilding itself nearly from scratch as a LEED-certified, wind-energy-powered eco-haven in the high plains.

Even prairie godmother Laura Ingalls Wilder would have been impressed with that kind of fearless optimism.

 

 

Tags: Eco Travel, Tourism, North America, United States, Kansas, News and Briefs

Joanna Kakissis's writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Boston Globe and The Washington Post, among other publications. A contributor to the World Hum blog, she's currently a Ted Scripps fellow in environmental journalism at the University of Colorado in Boulder.


1 Comment for Luring Tourists to a Little Eco-City on the Prairie

Anita 05.12.09 | 5:49 PM ET

Hello - I live in Greensburg, and I just want to say that every tourist that I talk to tells me that they have watched the television show, and seen the news reports, but until they were really here they just didn’t “get” it. This town works its magic on everyone who stops in…

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