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Growth has come easily during the past couple of decades for the little towns that ring Des Moines and West Des Moines. The jobs are here, the land is there, and developers are happy to make the connection.

Sticking people into new houses is simple. Harder to handle is all that stuff that happens in between the houses, like traffic and utilities, and the biggest challenge of all is to keep a friendly small town from turning into a collection of strangers.

Which brings us to the Grimes Citizen Visioning Advisory Team. Fifteen citizens have signed up to brainstorm about what their community needs and how to make it happen. The 16th member of the squad is a veteran of this kind of thing; Elizabeth Weinstein is an Urbandale-based consultant who has worked with similar groups in Ankeny, Urbandale and Altoona.

They got organized last year, they have made a list of topics to be addressed, and the next step is to hold two community forums on Feb. 19 and 23. They’re hoping lots and lots of Grimes citizens show up. Child care will be available. And refreshments. And just to show you how serious they are, free T-shirts for the first 50 participants. What’s a cause without a T-shirt?

Grimes perches on the northwest corner of Greater Des Moines, out there on the edge of the prairie, as Garrison Keillor would say. Its old downtown area remains isolated from the neighboring suburbs, but its city limits extend south to R&R Realty Group’s Paragon business park development. Although it’s easy to drive by without noticing how much the town has grown, the population is up to about 7,000.

A new YMCA is taking shape, and so is a second elementary school. A Wal-Mart Supercenter is expected.

“We were the fastest-growing community in the state until Waukee took over last year,” said Brian Buethe, who moved down from Waterloo to become the executive director of the Grimes Chamber & Economic Development.

Rapid growth creates traffic counts that would have seemed very unlikely when Ruth Otto became a Grimes resident in 1963. She lives on “the old north side” and getting out of the neighborhood isn’t easy. Iowa Highway 44 and 128th Street are busy all the time, she says, so busy that “you can sing ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’ three times” before claiming your place on the road. “At the stoplight, there can be 15 cars lined up all four ways,” she said.

So traffic is one concern, along with high water bills, the city’s lack of its own police department, communication problems and a desire to spruce up the appearance of the place – they look at the East Village as a nice model for that latter issue.

Weinstein says her role is “to help people realize they can shape the community. … This is an opportunity to not only talk, but take some action.”

“Liz said if we get enough people and make our wants known,” Otto said, “the city’s priority list could be altered.”

After the forums, Weinstein will summarize the input and recommend to the advisory team which projects to pursue. “I’ll do team descriptions, like job descriptions, and set up the first meetings,” she said.

Then, sometime this spring, Weinstein’s contract will expire and the people of Grimes will be on their own. “The biggest challenge is when I leave the project,” she said. “Right now everyone is excited, but when they start committee meetings, it will take a lot of energy to sustain their efforts.”

Buethe thinks the city government will welcome the results. “A lot of times officials are accused of making up their minds with no input from the public,” he said. “But the city council and the mayor were really reaching out; we think they’re looking for sincere input.”

When you think about the players, Grimes seems like a microcosm of how Central Iowa is changing. Some residents have been there for decades; others are coming from around the state to retire there; some of the people on the advisory council have e-mail addresses that include the words “Pioneer,” “Principal” and “Wells Fargo”; and then there’s Weinstein. She grew up in Woodchurch, England, and came to America to be a nanny in Connecticut. Then she bought a three-month Greyhound bus pass and explored the country. Before settling here, she lived in Phoenix, Pittsburgh and Council Bluffs. She definitely brings a different perspective to this undertaking.

With a mixture like this, the results could be interesting.