‘My Friends’: Communications and a ‘National Family’
What the presidential addresses of 1933 tell us about the America of 2021.
Civic Life
163 posts
Our Towns Civic Foundation: The Idea, and the Goals
What is the idea behind this site and the Our Towns Civic Foundation? And what are the goals? Here’s a brief summary.
‘On Such a Full Sea…’
Welcome to the Our Towns Civic Foundation site! The purpose of this note is to introduce a new film; to connect the news of the moment to the largest possibilities of the era; and to explain the ambitions of the project of which this site is part.
A Vibrant American Musical Career, far From America’s Cultural Capitals
What Larry Groce discovered by launching a national radio program from an out-of-the-way location
Three Guides to the Next America
This note is to kick off a resumed set of chronicles in the “Our Towns” series, after time away for a long Atlantic project on the origins of this era’s public-health and…
Local Efforts in a Time of Extreme Global Stress
The theme in this “Our Towns” space has been, and remains, the sources of vitality, practicality, generosity, and renewal in local-level America, despite bitter polarization in national-level politics. The series began almost…
How Michael Jones Changed Our Daily Lives
"Everyone is an inventor; you need only ignore limits and preconceptions then ask yourself 'how should it be?' "
How to Reconnect Rural and Urban America
Some recent items worth noticing
A ‘Climate Corps’ of California Volunteers
Designed to address both the causes and the effects of California's exposure to climate change.
Another Lesson From the Roman Empire
From Sulla to Sullen: What the Fall of the Roman Republic Tells Us About Where Trump Is Taking Us.
The 3 Weeks That Changed Everything
Imagine if the National Transportation Safety Board investigated America's response to the coronavirus pandemic.
Is This the Worst Year in Modern American History?
Comparing 2020 to 1968 offers some disquieting lessons for the present.
A Rural Health Center With a Pandemic Plan
The Rowland B. French Medical Center is the primary health-care facility for the residents of Eastport, Maine, a tiny Down East fishing town, population 1,400. Eastport was one of the…
Books for This Moment
The past weeks have of course meant economic devastation for small and local businesses of all sorts, as discussed here in an item about Erie. The pressures on local bookstores and…
A New Way for Californians to Serve
The coronavirus peril is global. Much of the response must, of course, be international or national if it is to matter at all. In the United States, only the federal…
‘Years of Effort, Undone in Weeks’
It has been nearly half a century since Erie, Pennsylvania, was officially recognized as an “All-American City.” But beginning with the first of our repeated visits nearly four years ago, Deb Fallows…