City Makers: American Futures
The people, organizations, and ideas reshaping the country. A journey piloted by James Fallows with Deborah Fallows.
Economic Life
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Deborah Fallows Returning to Ohio
How a small, Midwestern town has changed over the decades—and where it aims to go
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The Generational Difference in Optimism: A Video Look
I hope you'll check out the second in the series of short films that The Atlantic’s video team has…
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Boston Public Library Tichnor Brothers collection The Ebbs and Flows of Coastal Maine
Quoddy Village was built ahead of its time.
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Mark Fainstein Erie's Unlikely Benefactor: Its Casino
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.
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James Fallows The World Comes to a Tiny Town: Eastport's Lesson in Globalization
Even the most remote-seeming corners of America can find themselves in the middle of quick-moving global trends.
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Deborah Fallows What Rural Economies Look Like From Above
In Kansas, the advent of an energy industry is inscribing itself on the physical landscape, adding wind farms to wheat farms.
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The Multi-Dimensional Reality of the Nation, vs. the Flattened Reality of National Politics
My wife Deb and I have started out on the road again—northern Texas recently, now western Kansas, with a diversion…
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More on the Public Role in Fostering Private Innovation
A few days ago I argued that the Maker Movement finally depends on the ingenuity and effort of private entrepreneurs…
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The Maker Movement: If Hamilton Were Around, He Would Be a Fan
The previous two installments in this series, “The Tools Revolution” and “Agility,” of course concentrated on…
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The Surprising Problem With U.S. Manufacturing: It's Creating Too Many Jobs
An ongoing theme of our reports from “career technical” schools—like this high school in Georgia and this community college in…
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The Maker Revolution: What It Has Changed, and What It Hasn't — Yet
After these two articles on why the Maker Movement matters — “Part 1, the Tools Revolution” and “Part…
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James Fallows / The Atlantic Why the Maker Movement Matters: Part 2, Agility
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.
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‘Mr. China’ on Making Things in America
Following this earlier post about the significance of the Maker Movement, and before an upcoming report on an unusual and…
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FirstBuild Why the Maker Movement Matters: Part 1, the Tools Revolution
Just like the internet before it, the Maker Movement is revolutionizing manufacturing, with implications for startups and jobs.
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Paradise Duluth
As part of the unfolding saga of start-up businesses as the crucial creators of new jobs, and of particular start-ups…
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Hmmm, Why Does This Sound Familiar? Part 1,293
A big theme in our ongoing reports from across the United States, and of my story in our March issue…
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Startups Creating Jobs in the United States, Around the World — and Now in Cuba
Let’s get back to some positive news — actually, let’s connect the positive news I’m about to give, to the…
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In Which Warren Buffett Agrees With Me (or Perhaps Vice Versa)
When I was living in and reporting from China, I spent a lot of time trying to hammer this point…
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James Fallows ‘The Looming Entrepreneurial Boom’: Kauffman Weighs In
Brand-new companies play a surprisingly important part in progress toward fuller employment. A new report says that the prospects for start-ups may be improving.
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Wikimedia Commons The Battle for Downtown, From Canada to the Carolinas
“It is strange, but true.” What one reader says about Raleigh, North Carolina, applies many other places as well.
