Across the country, in towns outside the media spotlight, a new America is being built - one that is innovative, compromise-minded, optimistic, and working toward practical solutions to the problems of this age.
This is the site for the people, communities, and organizations creating America's future, right now.
The Story of a Journey, and of an America That Works
Since 2013, Deborah and James Fallows have traveled to small communities in every part of the country that have faced economic shocks, political crises, or other serious hardships. Each place they went, they talked with teachers, business creators, mayors, religious leaders, students, artists and architects, librarians, and others involved in shaping their community's future.
As they traveled across the country, at low altitude in a little propeller airplane, they saw the patterns of river and hill that explain the pattern of American settlement. On the ground, they saw the emerging pattern of American reinvention - through the stories collected here
Featured Stories
A 'Climate Corps' of California Volunteers
Designed to address both the causes and the effects of California's exposure to climate change.
'A Most Beautiful Thing' in a Time of Racial Reckoning
This film's story would be surprising and engrossing at any time, but it has a current power and relevance its producers could not have foreseen when they began making it.
The Cool-Media Approach to Conventions
The Democrats were forced out of the old, and figured out the new. How will Republicans respond?
The Artists of Lemmon, South Dakota
The role of the arts in a tiny town with its sights set high.
How a Small Brewery Can Survive COVID-19
A bellwether business category, figuring out how and whether it can survive.
A Plan to Grow 90,000 Trees in Los Angeles
Using tree planting as an axis to connect job creation, climate sustainability, urban renewal, and economic equity and inclusion.
What happens to small companies now?
The path small, locally conscious firms are taking to survive the current economic and public health disaster.
Will Craft Brewing Survive?
Following up with breweries large and small around the country.
Three Guides to the Next America
How parts of America that still work can be applied to the parts now so badly failing.
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.
'This Is What We Train For'
During our five years of travel around the country, my husband Jim and I often found that artists who revealed the perspectives on their hometowns were the people who stopped us in our tracks.
The Post-pandemic Future of Libraries
"I've never been prouder to be a librarian."
A Company That Helps You Find Job B
Sparking a Small-Town Business Ecosystem
From Military Service to Civilian Leadership
A Different Kind of Civil-Service Organization
A Rural Health Center With a Pandemic Plan
Books for This Moment
A New Way for Californians to Serve
Public Libraries' Novel Response to a Novel Virus
'Years of Effort, Undone in Weeks'
Local Efforts in a Time of Extreme Global Stress
Press
The story of a journey, and a country remaking itself: “Our Towns will become a classic, joining the ranks of American odysseys from De Tocqueville to Dos Passos. THe landscape unfurls beneath us; the language of different regions echoes in our ears. Most important, this book is a tonic for what ails us as a nation, a captivating story of energy and renewal across the land.”
—Anne-Marie Slaughter, President & CEO, New America
“In the tradition of John Steinbeck and Studs Terkel, the Fallows have crisscrossed the country in search of the extraordinary strength and character of ordinary people and places. What they’ve found--in towns we know and others off the beaten path—should give us all great hope for the future.” —California Governor Edmund G. Brown Jr.
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