Arts and Culture
Articles
How Artists Build the Spirit of a Town
An Artist-in-Residence Creates a Sense of Place
Photos Can Trigger Change in a Town
A River of Words in Pittsburgh
How Art Can Renew a Community
The Library That's Also an Art Gallery
A "hub of Winston-Salem in touch with the people."
Flying Down East
Headed back to Eastport
How a City Talks About Itself
Sioux Falls in 2019
Sioux Falls is Ready for Tom Hanks
A progress report
'A River, Not A Border': Report from Brownsville
Striving together for good health and well being in a Texas border town.
The American Sense of Place
An update: Reactions from readers and significant local-renewal developments
The Reinvention of Danville's Downtown: Part 1
A factory town coming back
On Emancipation Day, Back to Mississippi
A return visit to the Golden Triangle
A Community Finding a Path Forward
The civic-renewal mix in Angola, Indiana
'Our Erie' Tells Its Story
All Progress Is Local:
New Year's Notes from Around the Country
A Post-Election Field Report From America's Refugees and Immigra
Words and stories from the towns where the newest Americans live
The Treasures of Birmingham
For almost a century, the local library has guarded its city's history.
Update on the Eastport Saga
The never-say-die city
Old City, Old Buildings, New Life
An art museum with a long history reinvents itself with passion and an entrepreneurial spirit.
Little Town, Big Art
The arts at the center of economic and civic plans
A Carnegie Legacy in Dodge City
Synergy of arts and civic life in a Kansas town
Language as Art in Pittsburgh
Exiled writers use words as art and inspire a community.
Listening to Montana
In Chester, Montana, a world away from city life inspires an artist's music.
How America Is Putting Itself Back Together
Most people in the U.S. believe their country is going to hell. But they're wrong. What a three-year journey by single-engine plane reveals about reinvention and renewal.
Civic Engagement Talk in America's Original Engaged Communities
The Chautauqua Institution is one of America's great centers for civil, cultural, and intellectual engagement. A talk about 21st-century American renewal, at a place whose history traces to a great 19th-century reform movement.
Post-Memorial Day Note: Another Kind of Service, San Bernardino
"I don't just sit around. I don't sleep much. That's what I do. I do stuff." The story of a man determined to do something for his town.
California's Improbable Navel-Orange Queen
Eliza Tibbets was a suffragist, abolitionist, and spiritualist—and the mother of California's orange industry.
A Word Cloud of Ajo, Arizona
The words we use about ourselves reveal surprising truths
'Generation Now' —
What people do when there seems to be nothing to do.
Boulder, Colorado: A Special Kind of Community
An exaggerated version of a college town, it's the perfect setting for an unusually participatory conference.
Creating California's New Bohemia—in an Unexpected Locale
"It's a great time to be an artist in Fresno." This is a possibility I had never considered before visiting. And now ...
Ajo, Arizona: Oasis in the Desert
How a city with century-old "good bones" tries to reinvent itself.
'The Blue and the Gray'
A historically oriented performance comes from New York to the Southern site that inspired it.
How People in Boulder Build Community out of a Conference
An annual meeting brings speakers from around the world together with students and local residents, in intimate settings.
A Vibrant American Musical Career, far From America's Cultural C
What Larry Groce discovered by launching a national radio program from an out-of-the-way location
How the Arts Drove Pittsburgh's Revitalization
The role of the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust, founded by a wealthy band of visionaries 30 years ago, is central—but hard to replicate.
What Millennials Love About Pittsburgh
'Land of Opportunity' has real meaning here.
A New Vocabulary for American Towns
Three 21st-century words that are driving the nation's most dynamic municipalities
Pittsburgh's City of Asylum
In the City of Bridges, an eclectic community embraces writers in exile.
The Flying Housewife
50 years ago, Jerrie Mock became the first woman to fly solo around the world.
Hip in the Heartland
It's not just Brooklyn and the Bay Area any more
Ingredients of a Better City: How Arts Play Their Part
A soft-power approach to hard economic and social problems
How to Attract Artists to a Down-and-Out Neighborhood
Columbus, Ohio, has figured out how to draw creative types to an area it is hoping to revitalize.
How the Boy Scouts Are Adapting to Modern American Life
A local example of a century-old organization finding a new place and role for itself
Now That Mississippi Is in the News
Can the media avoid a freak-show tone?
The Endless Civil War Goes On
Northerners and Southerners, blacks and whites, grapple once more with the question of "what's the worst we will put up with?"
The Civil War That Does Not End
How to talk, in the 21st century, about the war that divided the country in the 19th century, and the racial patterns set up by slavery long before
A Real Story of Memorial Day
The origins of this weekend's holiday, linking Mississippi and The Atlantic
A Mississippi School Striving for Excellence
A unique school fuels big dreams
Swampwise!
Dipthongs turn into monopthongs, and other adventures among the cypress knees.
The Word Cloud of a Town
How the people of Sioux Falls describe themselves and their hometown
'Where Do You Go to Church?' The Video and Mapping Versions
More ways of taking the measure of this vast country.
Greenville, Burlington, and American Futures
"I loathed it with the heat of a thousand million suns."
Why We Never Get Over High School
Across the nation, people have different questions they ask when meeting someone new. There are hidden meanings in all of them -- including a popular one about schooling.
What We Mean When We Say Hello
The curious geography of American greetings
So, Where Do You Live? What Do You Do?
Dreaming Big in South Carolina:
A Public Boarding School for the Arts
Dadgum! Katy, Bar the Door!
Speaking Your Mind in South Carolina
An American Dream:
A YMCA With a Circus
On the Character of a Community: What Local Narratives Emphasize
The role of universities, and our un-loved public efforts.
A City's Turning Points
The steps toward success, or failure, and why our understanding of them matters.
On the Limits, but Also the Power, of Local Narratives
The stories cities tell about themselves, and the difference that makes.
'Springbok, Cleared for Landing':
More on the Language of the Skies
Building a Museum: Report From Down East
A Maine couple defies the odds -- and helps to build community in the process.
'Tis the L.L.Bean Season
For Pinball Wizards and Wicked Good Wieners
Do You Speak Eastport?
A town teaches itself to talk positive.
Report from Rural Maine
What it takes to make a school
Down East Down Under
When ships sailing downwind are sailing east
EATNN TTUNA SNWCH - hold (at) MAYYO: More on the Secret Language
"The approach fixes, in order, are TRAMP, FLOZY, SILKY, and JAKOR. I'm sensing a pattern here but would love to know the back story."
ITAWT ITAWA PUDYE TTATT:
The Secret Language of the Skies
Magical Roundabouts and the Language of Signs
Exploring the sociocultural landscape of Burlington
Strange Tales From the North Country:
A profitable (print) newspaper
'Say Souls On Board,' and Other Secrets of the Skies
Everyone's a Linguist
More on 'Coming With'
How to Make Nice With the Call Center
The language of Sioux Falls
On the 'Orientalism' of the Prairie
What happens when the "ordinary objects of our culture" are treated as curiosities.
Thanks Much! On the Geography of Language
"Is this your guys's stuff?" And other linguistic markers.