Wendy Streit: Using Public Art to Help Small Businesses

<p>Lockport, Illinois—a suburb of Chicago—won our annual Strongest Town Contest this year, and we’re doing a special week of content right now to celebrate their win and explore some challenges the city is facing. </p> <p>One genuinely fun and compelling story that we heard about from Lockport involves rubber duckies. Huge, people-sized rubber ducky statues, actually. During the pandemic in 2020, leaders and residents in Lockport were watching local businesses struggle to stay open as activity downtown dwindled. At the same time, a popular annual arts event was cancelled, and there was a desire to fill that ga...