
‘Our Erie’ Tells Its Story
As we’ve been working away on our book based on our “American Futures” travels over the past four…
As we’ve been working away on our book based on our “American Futures” travels over the past four…
If you’ve read or heard about Erie, Pennsylvania, since the election, it’s likely to be with framing as “declining Rust…
We could use a little positive news at the moment, right? Here you go: Over the past three years…
Arriving in Tucson, we felt the inklings of coming full circle with our American Futures project. Only one more leg…
We took off west from Demopolis, Alabama, prepared for a lot of flying ahead on this last journey for The…
We woke up in Demopolis, Alabama, on day two of the final journey of our American Futures series for The…
Since our first visit in the fall of 2013, Deb and I have reported frequently on the grit, vision, resilience,…
Montgomery County traffic, Cirrus Four-Three-Five Sierra Romeo taking Runway One-Four, VFR (visual flight rules) departure to the west, Montgomery. …
For me this is the third post of the day, and probably the last in this space for quite a…
This is the first of three posts on this New Year’s Day, building toward a change in (my part of)…
How a small, Midwestern town has changed over the decades—and where it aims to go
Words and stories from the towns where the newest Americans live
When you are an American living overseas, Thanksgiving is an even more powerful nationally unifying holiday than the Fourth of…
For almost a century, the local library has guarded its city's history.
I mentioned yesterday that several local initiatives could mean as much to their communities or states as the outcome of…
At its peak, nearly one century ago in 1920, the coal-mining industry employed nearly 800,000 people in the United States.…
The Boston Globe had a story over the weekend about the never-say-die small city of Eastport, Maine. As we’ve been…
Deb Fallows has a new post up, about what’s actually involved in settling immigrants from Syria—or Somalia or Congo…
The people of Erie, Pennsylvania, have welcomed immigrants and refugees, and believe that their town is better off for having done so.
1) Meet the Press podcast. Yesterday afternoon I spoke with Chuck Todd for his podcast; the segment has gone…
I hope you'll check out the second in the series of short films that The Atlantic’s video team has done…
A tour of three cities that are finding unique ways to mitigate the country's jobs crisis
Over the past year-plus my wife Deb and I have been arguing that the “build a wall!”-style anti-immigration furor in…
Not to over-personalize, but I feel as if my life in the past few weeks recapitulates the argument my wife…
Getting from here to there by small plane
An art museum with a long history reinvents itself with passion and an entrepreneurial spirit.
During our American Futures tour around the country over the past three years, Jim and I have seen libraries, one…
Quoddy Village was built ahead of its time.
Legalized gambling is a familiar part of the modern American landscape. But an innovative scheme in a lakeside city in western Pennsylvania shows new possibilities for putting casino revenue to positive public use.
Last night my wife Deb put up a report called “Little Town, Big Art.” It’s about how a…
“The arts” might seem a frill or nicety. In Eastport, Maine, they’ve been at the center of economic and civic plans and have helped the little city “punch above its weight.”
In Erie, Pennsylvania, a public institution is building on its nautical past to open a world of opportunity for local residents.
Even the most remote-seeming corners of America can find themselves in the middle of quick-moving global trends.
Early in 2014, I wrote a magazine article about the 1,300 residents of Eastport, Maine, with the title “The…
My wife Deb and I are on the road again this week, but as a reminder of the ongoing theme…
What does it mean to spend years as a Syrian refugee and then land in a brand new life in Erie, Pennsylvania?
The challenges of Rust Belt America are real, and well-known. What’s less familiar is the response some mid-sized cities are making.
What he could learn from America’s public pools
Synergy of arts and civic life in a Kansas town
Notes from the ground, from the sky, and from the people of Dodge City, Kansas
This week’s election news out of Kansas was the defeat in the GOP primaries of some of the hardest-line Tea…
“We’re a port of entry 1,000 miles from the border.”
Western Kansas, where Deb and I have spent time over the past month, is the heart of Trump Nation in…
A high school in the famed Kansas town is embracing its rapidly changing demographics.
Mexican immigrants on the Great Plains try to build new lives, with hope and help.
Dodge City, Kansas relies on undocumented immigrants—from meatpacking workers to the city’s assistant finance director.
Two days ago I mentioned the unflappable, multi-tasking and multi-dimensional competence with which an air-traffic controller at Denver’s Centennial airport…
During our more than 50,000 miles of flight for our American Futures project, I’ve sat in the “right seat”…
During our travels Deb has often mentioned our interest in, and nearly-all-times admiration for, the Air Traffic Controllers with whom…
In Kansas, the advent of an energy industry is inscribing itself on the physical landscape, adding wind farms to wheat farms.
For the past week my wife Deb and I have been in western Kansas — Dodge City mainly, also Garden…
My wife Deb and I have started out on the road again—northern Texas recently, now western Kansas, with a diversion…
A few days ago I argued that the Maker Movement finally depends on the ingenuity and effort of private entrepreneurs…
In one way or another, all Clinton-era “scandals” trace back to Whitewater. That was the late-1970s Arkansas real estate deal…
The previous two installments in this series, “The Tools Revolution” and “Agility,” of course concentrated on…
One of my favorite features of our American Futures project is the occasional serendipity of crossing the path of some…
With the closest hospital 100 miles away, Ajo, Arizona’s Desert Senita Health Center acts as the region’s clinic.
An ongoing theme of our reports from “career technical” schools—like this high school in Georgia and this community college in…
After these two articles on why the Maker Movement matters — “Part 1, the Tools Revolution” and “Part…
Business are finding that “makerspaces” enable them to reduce what’s known as the mind-to-market gap: how long it takes for an idea to become a thing on a shelf.