In this month of Valentine’s Day, I find myself musing, “Northside, how do I love thee?” (with apologies to Elizabeth Barrett Browning). A refrain I hear over and over from Northsiders is “and then I fell in love with the Northside and never left.”

How do we love our community? We love the natural resources and beauty, our community engagement, positive leaders and enthusiastic cheerleaders for our part of the city, the award-winning teachers and leaders at our schools, and the diversity of ages, races, incomes and ethnicities that makes this such a rich landscape. The degree of passion of those who live, work, learn and play here is unmatched elsewhere in Madison.

So why is the Northside still unknown to so many other Madisonians? What can we do to share the tremendous benefits we enjoy, to introduce people to our parks and schools and businesses?

The Northside Economic Development Coalition (NEDC) has created two new tools to help share our story outside our borders. On www.northsidemadison.org, there is now an online, searchable map of amenities — a visual picture of our wealth of resources that is constantly growing as we add new businesses and organizations to the menu. You can search restaurants, auto repair shops, churches and retail locations at http://northsidemadison.org/
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The NEDC has also created and printed a new marketing booklet describing the benefits of locating a business or finding a home here. This beautiful, high-quality brochure has been sent to real estate brokers and developers throughout Dane County to introduce them to our quality of life. If you would like to share why you love it here, pick up a copy of the brochure at the Northside Planning Council office and give it to friends and co-workers.

With recent public art projects, we’ve started to bring some attention to the beauty of our community. Look for more community art in 2015 to highlight our attractive neighborhoods, parks and schools.

Let’s do more this year to showcase what we have to offer — to bring new people to our businesses, to take part in our activities, to join our organizations and churches. Our Valentine to the Northside is sharing our love for it with others.