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Three Implications of the 737 Max Crashes
Previously on this topic: “Is It Time to Worry About the Boeing 737 Max?”, “A Shorter Guide to the Ethiopian Tragedy and the 737 Max,” “What Was On the Record About Problems With the 737 Max,” and...
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Washington, D.C., Enacts a Phaseout of Gas-Powered Leaf Blowers
Back in the fall of 2015, in the first installment in this series, I mentioned that a group of community activists in our hometown of Washington, D.C., had begun an effort to get noisy,...
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‘INseparable’ Indiana
Indiana Humanities has launched a two-year major program called INseparable, designed to improve connections and understanding between people in the state’s big cities and those in its smaller cities...
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Training, Regulation, and the 737 Max
Previously on this topic: “Is It Time to Worry About the Boeing 737 Max?”, “A Shorter Guide to the Ethiopian Tragedy and the 737 Max,” “What Was On the Record About Problems With the 737 Max,” “‘Don’t...
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Another Non-victimized View of Appalachia
Last week I mentioned how fresh and valuable I thought the new documentary Moundsville was, for presenting the hard-luck story of a West Virginia town that had lost its big factories and was trying to...
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The Jump-Seat Pilot and the Boeing 737 Max
Previously on this topic: “Is It Time to Worry About the Boeing 737 Max?,” “A Shorter Guide to the Ethiopian Tragedy and the 737 Max,” “What Was On the Record About Problems With the 737 Max,” “‘Don’t...
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The Cultural Origins of Aviation Safety
Previously on this topic: “Is It Time to Worry About the Boeing 737 Max?,” “A Shorter Guide to the Ethiopian Tragedy and the 737 Max,” “What Was On the Record About Problems With the 737 Max,” “‘Don’t...
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Our Towns: On the Road, in the Air
In the summer of 2013, nearly six years ago, my wife—Deb Fallows—and I announced in this space the beginning of a project to visit smaller towns around the country. These were places that usually show...
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A Community Finding a Path Forward
Last month we traveled by car through several cities in Indiana, in a project organized jointly by New America Indianapolis, where our main partner was Molly Martin, and Indiana Humanities, as part of...
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Fort Wayne Makes Its Own Luck
Today’s theme: what happens to buildings, after they die.Today’s locale: a major manufacturing center along Indiana’s I-69 corridor, the industrial stronghold of Fort Wayne.The second lives of...
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What We Saw in Muncie
Here is why I think this report from central Indiana matters, for people who don’t happen to live there themselves.What Deb Fallows and I saw in Muncie, Indiana, is as stark an illustration as we’ve...
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An Unusual Way to Bridge the Town-Gown Divide
This post is about a development that few people outside the state of Indiana have ever heard or read about, but that has implications for the country as a whole. It’s about a highly unusual approach...
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‘Unknown Outside Indiana’
The previous four “Our Towns” posts have been about Indiana: One about Angola and the importance of its relationship with Trine University; one about Fort Wayne and its ambitious reconstruction of a...
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What Happens to Abandoned Malls?
In a report last week from Fort Wayne, Indiana, I noted what I considered the mid-century tragedy of big, sprawling, “modern” shopping malls displacing historic downtowns, only to become bankrupt...
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Dead Malls, Reborn Cities
We can all think of things that have gotten worse about journalism, in the era of continual distraction and internet-borne hysteria and info silos.Here’s something I’ve continued to appreciate as an...
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On Emancipation Day, Back to Mississippi
Five years ago today, Deb Fallows and I were in Columbus, Mississippi, to observe the commemoration of Emancipation Day held in the cemetery there. My dispatch about it at the time is here; in the...
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Dead Malls, Everywhere
One more installment on the question of whether an unloved and unsightly part of America’s infrastructure—the giant sprawl-malls that drained business from classic downtowns in the 1960s and 1970s,...
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The Last Family-Owned Daily in Mississippi
As mentioned in the kickoff post in this new “Our Towns” series, anyone who cares about America’s civic, cultural, and economic future should care about the fate of the local press.Journalism...
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‘Small Towns, Big Ideas’
This was a fascinating session—I say, as the person who got to ask the questions, rather than having to give the answers. The hour-long YouTube video is here.The topic was “Small Towns, Big Ideas:...
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National Policies Have Local Effects
The ongoing theme of this site is the possibility and practical-mindedness of much of local-level America, at just the moment when national-level politics have become so bitter and dysfunctional.But of...
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