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 Big Little Idea From Nashville
The Gem City Moves Forward
In Memphis, a Lab Experiment for Local News
Planting a 'Trail of Giants'
On the Virtues of Statewide Journalism
The Modern Women of Rural America
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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