Governance Archives

Ben Speggen
November 7, 2021

What do Ajo, Arizona; Charleston, West Virginia; Eastport, Maine have in common? For starters, they were all featured in a recent panel discussion that Our Towns hosted at the Rural…

Paradoxes of Power Essays on Failed Leadership and How to Fix It Book Cover

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Governance

The Future of Power

Carl W. Hunt
October 22, 2021

Substituting Hope for Fear in Small Town America

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Governance

The Justice Paradox in America

Carl W. Hunt and Lawrence A. Kuznar
September 19, 2021

Developing a common definition of justice could go a long way towards healing our national rifts. But how do we arrive at a shared definition?

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Governance

Polycentric Power in Your Community

C. E. Hunt, Carl W. Hunt, and Stuart A. Kauffman, M.D.
August 19, 2021

What power do communities have at the local level when it comes to the environment?

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Governance

Greater than the Sum of its Parts

Carl W. Hunt, Dennis W. Greene, and Veronica A. Mata
August 5, 2021

How Gender and Racial Biases Create Ironies that Defeat Good Organizations

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Governance

Organizational Irony in Small Town USA

Carl W. Hunt and Lawrence A. Kuznar
July 9, 2021

What can a look at the paradoxes of power and failed leadership teach communities?

Michael Jones leans against a stone wall, smiling slightly, with a mountain behind him.

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Governance

How Michael Jones Changed Our Daily Lives

James Fallows
January 26, 2021

"Everyone is an inventor; you need only ignore limits and preconceptions then ask yourself 'how should it be?' "

Governance

Another Lesson From the Roman Empire

James Fallows
August 7, 2020

From Sulla to Sullen: What the Fall of the Roman Republic Tells Us About Where Trump Is Taking Us.

Deb Fallows on part of the farm near Guymon, Oklahoma, where Caroline Henderson wrote her “Letters from the Dust Bowl” series for The Atlantic in the 1930s. At the time, the area was a thriving farm community. Now it is deserted.

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Governance

Democrats Should Talk About Place-Based Policy

James Fallows
November 20, 2019

Staying versus moving is one of the eternal tensions of American life. Americans have frequently moved: Consider how the geographic center of the population has shifted over the centuries, from…

Citizens of Stockton at city council meeting considering library expansion ("Raising Literacy," Robert Dawson)

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Citizen Engagement

Why Not Dodge? Why Not Stockton?

James Fallows
November 8, 2016

I mentioned yesterday that several local initiatives could mean as much to their communities or states as the outcome of most national races. The two historical examples I naturally think of are…

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Governance

What’s (Less) the Matter With Kansas

James Fallows
August 5, 2016

This week’s election news out of Kansas was the defeat in the GOP primaries of some of the hardest-line Tea Party Republicans, at both the Congressional and local- and state-legislative level. The…

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Governance

Today a Bankrupt City Votes on Its Next Steps

James Fallows
May 18, 2015

"We've gotten used to gridlock and stalemate at the national level. This is what it looks like for a city." What civic dysfunction has in common with excessive CEO pay, and why it matters.