What defines the identity of a city?
When you picture a typical town or suburb, maybe you see the community rallying their support for the school, whether at a sports competition, concert, or other school event.
Or perhaps you picture a quaint downtown or city center with local businesses that define the flavors and services that are so beloved by their neighbors. These central staples of a city build a bond between citizens across age and racial lines.
Well, Fitchburg is not your typical Madison suburb. Though its population is just about thousand shy of Middleton and Verona combined, there is no Fitchburg school district. Its students are divided among Madison, Verona and Oregon. And despite many thriving businesses and constant development in the city, there’s no central downtown area.
To complicate the already spread out and split up nature of Fitchburg, the city, while beautifully diverse racially, remains extremely segregated.
So when the Fitchburg Faith Network & City Leaders meetings began in January of 2013, one of the formative questions facing the group was: “What is Fitchburg’s identity? Who are we as a city?”