And the Seven Wonders of Sioux Falls are…

We asked, and you definitely shared your thoughts: What are the Seven Wonders of Sioux Falls?

We can’t take credit for the question, though. That goes to Greg LaFollette, who saw something similar in another community and posted the question in a Facebook group.

“It started a conversation with 300-some comments, many of them thoughtful and many not, and I took that and narrowed it down to 25 and said, ‘What do you think of these?'”

Photos by Paul Schiller

And we can’t take credit for the methodology, which goes to Joe Kirby, who saw it as a chance to demonstrate how ranked-choice voting works.

“I’m involved in a group that’s trying to slowly bring awareness in South Dakota to ranked-choice voting, which is a better system for expressing your preferences when there are multiple options,” he said. “Plurality voting is what we use today in most of our elections, so if there are six people running for mayor, pick your favorite instead of saying, ‘Here’s my top three,’ which is a better way in a mayoral election.”

But we can take a little credit for connecting you, our readers, to their survey asking people to weigh in on the seven places they feel could best be described as “wonders” in Sioux Falls.

More than 700 people voted.

“I think it’s marvelous you got 700 or 800 people to jump in and show their enthusiasm,” LaFollette said. “And actually the smartest person in the room is usually the room. I don’t know that I would have put them in this order.”

And here they are:

1. Falls Park
2. Washington Pavilion
3. St. Joseph Cathedral
4. McKennan Park
5. Citywide recreation trail
6. Arc of Dreams
7. Historic downtown Sioux Falls

“Falls Park seems to dominate,” Kirby said. “It emphasizes the importance of downtown when you look at how many ‘downtown’ ended up on the list. I think downtown dictates our community identity in many ways.”

It took 17 rounds of voting calculation for the top seven to clearly emerge, LaFollette said.

“The next ones were the SculptureWalk, the Japanese Gardens and the Levitt Shell,” he said. “But all these things got votes. Somebody ranked all these things in their top seven. They’re all valid candidates.”

And while it was just a fun exercise, Kirby said he hopes it raised awareness of this approach to voting when multiple choices are available.

“We have a city election coming up in six months, and already it looks like a crowded field of candidates. We wish ranked-choice voting were available so we didn’t have to pick one,” he said. “We think we would need enabling legislation from the Legislature, which has happened in a few states recently to enable local governments to use ranked-choice voting if they want.”

Ready for another survey? You now can pick the Seven Wonders of South Dakota by clicking here.