What Pickleball Revealed in a Rural Town

The Bottom-Up Revolution · Jun 25, 2026 · 1h 2m

Van Buren, Maine, had a problem no town wants: it owned more than half of its downtown buildings through tax acquisition. When Luke Dyer became town manager after a long career in law enforcement, he was facing vacant storefronts, deteriorating buildings, flood-damaged land, and a downtown that had lost traffic after the port of entry moved away from Main Street. In this episode, Dyer shares how Van Buren began putting buildings back into productive use, turning an underused ice rink into pickleball courts, growing trees for Main Street in a community greenhouse, and converting its old town…