“We found that people who were responsible for key parts of the city, business and government had never met each other,” said Mann. “They were all in their own silos, and we — Hourglass — were neutral, so we could get them together.”

Many locals say the turnaround began in the early 2000s, when Lancaster got the chance to have a minor-league baseball team and stadium. The ballpark was originally planned for the suburbs — no one would come downtown at night — but a public-private coalition emerged to locate the stadium in the city’s northwest corridor in 2005. Recalled Mann: “I went to opening night and sat next to people from suburbia and they said, ‘Wow, I can’t believe I’m in Lancaster.’”

At the same time, Hourglass, and other groups provided the funds so public officials and the private sector could learn from the best experts in the world on how to lift their city and businesses. These included bringing in the mayor of Charleston, S.C., Joseph Riley, to explain how to build a thriving downtown; Edward Deming to teach quality improvement strategies; and an urban development expert from Brookings, Christopher Leinberger, to help create a long-term growth vision for the city and county. They’ve even looked to Denmark for insights.

I found the hunger for best practices profound. “There is an awareness that all good ideas don’t start here,” said Susan Eckert, president of the Lancaster Partnership for Health. “Who is the best small-city mayor? Let’s call ’em. Who is the best urban planner? Call ’em. Who are the education transformers? Call ’em. Who is doing the most interesting stuff in public health? Call ’em. No one is bowling alone here. The civic life and engagement are as rich and dense as anything I have ever seen.”

The momentum for change really picked up, though, around 2006 when a dynamic new mayor was elected, J. Richard Gray, who worked with the Hourglass team, local business leaders and societal innovators to take Lancaster to a new level. Gray, with the help of Leinberger , started by drawing up a long-term revitalization plan, which he carried around on a small note card every day to make sure every decision aligned with it.

Gray describes himself as a “Democratic capitalist,” which, he said, means: support businesses to invest in town — because there are no employees without employers — make sure they pay people a living wage and don’t damage the environment. It was a balance a lot of locals of all political stripes found appealing.

“On the local level I don’t know how many people would come up to me and say: ‘I am a Republican but I really like what you do,’” said Gray. “We have gotten over the partisan divide.”