Allen Sarven ran away with the circus at age 18 and never looked back. At least, that’s how he sees it.

Born in northwestern Ohio, Al was captivated from a young age by the idea of becoming a professional wrestler. As a teenager, he maintained a monthly ritual of calling up every major wrestling promotion he could find and asking for a shot at training with them. Each month, they said no. And each month, he called them again. 

Known largely as the country’s sole manufacturer of the Corvette and home of Western Kentucky University (WKU), Bowling Green is also one of the largest and fastest-growing cities in Kentucky. Founded in 1798, the city and its surrounding Warren County are projected to double in size to 233,000 by 2050. 

To prepare, its leaders are collaborating and adopting new strategies for sustainable and inclusive growth. One initiative, a pilot program called the BG2050 Project (BG2050), uses civic imagination and artificial intelligence (AI) to develop a 25-year vision to guide this anticipated growth.

The fall after I turned 18, I moved from my hometown in Pikeville to the town of Bowling Green for college. The drive was less than five hours, an easy trip down the Cumberland Parkway anytime I needed a weekend at home. But despite being within state lines, and a mere one county outside what the ARC designates as the Appalachian region, something about Bowling Green felt like I had dropped onto a different planet. 

Civic Imagination (CI) Incubator is a partnership between Western Kentucky University's (WKU) Potter College of Arts and Letters, its Innovation Campus and the University of Southern California (USC). “The program originated out of media fandom,” says Sam Ford, the Executive Director of AccelerateKY and Board Chair of Kentucky to the World. “How do people react to pop culture stories, social issues, civic issues, politics? They were using fictional worlds to tell stories in Appalachia. … This is a natural partnership. We’re matching content with an outlet.”

The one I noticed the most by far is a trope I’ve come to call Degraded - the idea that Appalachians are primitive, degenerate, and destitute. Sometimes, these images are meant to be funny; others, deadly serious. In all cases, Appalachians are positioned as a society wholly separate from the rest of the world - a group that is other.