A candid look at the economics of community revitalization — and the responsibility we all share.

Every community reaches a moment where it must tell itself the truth.

Not the comfortable truth. Not the political truth. The economic truth.

Across Selma and countless towns like it, people are asking for new homes, renovated properties, better businesses, safer neighborhoods, and more opportunity. Those are reasonable requests. They are necessary requests if a community intends to survive and thrive.

But a question must follow.

Who is going to pay for it?

A new three-bedroom, two-bathroom home in 2026 can easily cost $200,000 or more to build — and that's before land, financing, permits, insurance, utilities, or developer risk are added in. That means the home must either sell at a price that allows the builder to recover their investment and turn a profit, or it must rent at a rate high enough to cover construction debt, maintenance, taxes, insurance, and the cost of the next project.

Many communities have grown accustomed to housing prices and rents that were only possible because the buildings were constructed under entirely different economic conditions — a generation or more ago. Labor was cheaper. Materials were cheaper. Regulations were different. Financing was different. Since 2019 alone, construction costs have risen more than 33 percent nationwide. The average hourly wage for a residential construction worker climbed from $28 in 2019 to $34 in 2024 — and that was before recent tariff pressures pushed material costs even higher.

The world has changed.

Asking for new housing while expecting yesterday's prices is a conflict that cannot be solved by hope alone.

This is where the conversation often becomes uncomfortable.

Some people hear the words "investment" or "development" and immediately fear gentrification. That fear deserves acknowledgment, because communities across America have watched growth happen without intentional planning — and watched longtime residents get pushed out as a result. Those concerns are legitimate, and they deserve real answers: things like community land trusts, income-targeted housing, and local hiring commitments that ensure growth benefits the people who were already here. The goal is not to import a new community. It is to build a better one with the community that exists.

But there is another danger that receives far less attention.

Vacant buildings. Shrinking populations. Fewer jobs. Less investment. Less opportunity.

Selma has lost more than 20 percent of its population since 2000. Dallas County has been losing residents for decades. That trend does not reverse itself. Communities do not remain frozen in time — they either move forward or they move backward.

The challenge is not choosing between growth and no growth. The challenge is choosing between intentional growth and unmanaged decline.

Real community development requires balance. We need investors willing to risk capital. We need residents willing to support local businesses. We need local government willing to create an environment where development can take root. We need employers creating jobs, and we need workforce development so that residents can actually participate in the opportunities being created — not just watch from the outside as the economy changes around them.

Revitalization is not something that happens to us.

It is something we participate in.

If we want more dollars circulating in the local economy, we need more people earning dollars in the local economy. If we want more housing, someone must be willing to build it. If we want more businesses, someone must be willing to open them. If we want investment, we must make this community a place where investing is worth the risk.

The question facing Selma is the same question facing communities across America:

What are we willing to contribute to building the future we say we want?

Because we are no longer living in a time where we can wait for a savior to arrive.

No single politician will save us.

No single grant will save us.

No single developer will save us.

The future will be built by residents, business owners, workers, investors, nonprofits, churches, civic leaders, and local government working together toward a common goal.

The conversation should not be, "Who is going to fix this?"

The conversation should be, "What can each of us do to move this community forward?"

That is where real revitalization begins.

A reflection on aging, responsibility, and the future we are already building — whether we realize it or not.

There is a question that rarely gets asked.

Not because it isn't important.

Because it makes us uncomfortable.

What happens when we become the aging population?

For decades we have watched conversations about senior citizens, retirement, healthcare, housing, and caregiving unfold as if they belong to someone else. We discuss them as future problems. Problems for another generation. Problems for another day.

Yet every day we wake up, we are moving closer to becoming the very people we are talking about.

This reality forces a larger question. What are we doing today to prepare for the future we are almost certainly going to inherit?

Many millennials and Gen Z entered adulthood during economic instability. We witnessed recessions, rising housing costs, increasing debt burdens, disappearing pensions, healthcare uncertainty, and growing social division. We were taught to work hard, get educated, and follow a path that often no longer existed by the time we arrived.

These were not personal failures. They were structural realities.

As a result, many of us became experts at surviving.

Somewhere along the way, our attention became trapped in the immediate. The next bill. The next crisis. The next election. The next outrage. The next emergency.

We became so busy reacting that we stopped asking where the road leads.

This is dangerous because history has a way of repeating itself through people who believe they are different.

We often criticize previous generations for the systems they left behind.

The housing shortages.

The economic inequality.

The political divisions.

The neglected infrastructure.

The social fragmentation.

But inheritance is not only financial. It is structural. We inherit the systems we helped shape.

Every year that passes, we inherit more responsibility for the future we claim to want. Every year, the decisions become less theirs and more ours. Every year, the youth inherit more of what we create and less of what previous generations created.

At some point, we become the establishment we once criticized.

At some point, we become the adults in the room.

At some point, history stops asking what happened to us and starts asking what we did.

This is why conversations about aging should never be separated from conversations about youth. The two are connected.

If we want young people to have stable communities, we must create sustainable systems before we need them ourselves. If we want affordable housing for future generations, we must begin building it now. If we want dignified care for seniors, we must design it before we become dependent upon it. If we want economic opportunity for our children, we must make investments whose benefits we may never personally enjoy.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. understood this principle. In the final years of his life, he turned his attention not only to civil rights but to economic rights — organizing the Poor People's Campaign because he believed that justice without economic dignity was incomplete. He was building toward a future he knew he might never personally see. He understood that meaningful change requires both vision and action.

Perhaps that is the challenge facing our generation. Not simply to solve today's problems. But to remember how to think beyond ourselves. To remember how to plan in decades instead of days. To remember that every decision we make today becomes the environment someone else will inherit tomorrow.

That does not require grand gestures. It begins with smaller ones. Saving something, even modestly, before the crisis arrives. Showing up for planning conversations in your community before your vote is needed. Advocating for housing, healthcare, and retirement policy before you personally depend on it. The future belongs to whoever shows up to shape it.

The aging population is not a warning about getting older.

It is a reminder that time is moving whether we prepare for it or not.

The youth are watching.

The future is coming.

And one day, if we are fortunate, we will become the elders sitting in the chairs we currently observe from a distance.

The question is simple.

When that day arrives, what world will we have built for them — and for ourselves?

A reflection on identity, narrative, and the moment a community must choose its next chapter.

Selma is one of the most important cities in America.

Not because of what happened here.

Because of what it represents.

Courage. Perseverance. Sacrifice. The belief that ordinary people can change the course of history.

Those lessons matter.

They should be remembered.

They should be taught.

They should never be erased.

But there is a difficult question every historic community must eventually ask:

What happens when we become so focused on preserving history that we stop creating it?

There is a difference between remembering the past and living in it.

There is a difference between honoring struggle and becoming defined by struggle.

There is a difference between learning from pain and building an identity around pain.

Communities, like people, can become trapped in stories.

Stories about what happened.

Stories about who is to blame.

Stories about why things never change.

Stories about why success is impossible.

Over time, those stories can become ceilings.

Not because they are false.

Because they are incomplete.

The truth is that Selma has suffered. The truth is that many rural communities across America have suffered. Industries left. Jobs disappeared. Over the past two decades, Selma has lost more than 20 percent of its population — and nearly one in three residents now lives in poverty. Buildings deteriorated. Investment slowed.

The wounds are real.

At some point, healing requires movement.

One of the greatest challenges facing small-town America today is not a lack of potential. It is a lack of belief. Not belief from outsiders. Belief from within. This is not to minimize the real barriers — the disinvestment, the infrastructure gaps, the limited access to capital, the policy failures that communities like Selma have absorbed for generations. Those barriers are real and they demand real answers. But structures alone do not explain why two similarly situated communities so often diverge. At some point, culture becomes a factor. And culture begins inside.

Too often, we ask why businesses leave.

Sometimes we should ask why they never stayed.

The answer is not always economics.

Sometimes it is culture.

Growth should not feel like a threat.

Building something should not require permission from those who have chosen not to build.

None of this means ignoring problems.

It means refusing to become them.

The future of communities like Selma will not be determined solely by grants, politicians, developers, or outside investors. It will be determined by whether the people who live there choose possibility over pessimism. Whether they choose collaboration over division. Whether they choose creation over criticism.

Selma's history already draws hundreds of thousands of visitors each year. The story is working. The question is whether the community around it is being built to match it.

The people living here today have a responsibility to write the next one. That chapter has not been written yet — which means there is still time to decide what it says, and who gets to say it.

The question is not whether Selma can change.

The question is whether we are willing to become the people capable of changing it.