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Recent posts

Articles & News

A 500-pound cake, inside the arena it depicts (Village Bake Shoppe)
View Post
  • Economic Development

Countdown to Tonight’s Arena Debut in Allentown

  • James Fallows
  • September 12, 2014
Is the city ready for its close-up? The locals say it is.
PPL Center arena in the heart of downtown Allentown, as it looked two weeks ago. On Friday night at 8 pm, it kicks off Allentown's new era with a concert by The Eagles. (All photos: Deborah and James Fallows)
View Post
  • Economic Development

The Eagles Come to Allentown, and So Does ‘American Futures’

  • James Fallows
  • September 11, 2014
Tomorrow is the first day in an old city's new life—or so the city leaders hope and believe.
Chugging ahead toward the future (Calisphere)
View Post
  • Transportation

California High-Speed Rail No. 11: Thinking in Time

  • James Fallows
  • September 5, 2014
Everybody talks about the future, but nobody does anything about it.
Union Pacific Station, East Los Angeles, 1950 (Calisphere)
View Post
  • Transportation

California High-Speed Rail No. 10: Palate Cleanser

  • James Fallows
  • August 31, 2014
"The decision on HSR is going to shape the future in ways we can't predict, and a touch of modesty in the arguments would be welcome."
Passengers waiting for the train, Marin County, 1889 (Marin County Library, via Calisphere)
View Post
  • Transportation

California High-Speed Rail No. 9 and the Chairman’s Turn Again

  • James Fallows
  • August 29, 2014
You want to hear more about the biggest infrastructure project being considered anywhere in the country? You've come to the right place.
Vintage image of train.
View Post
  • Transportation

California High-Speed Rail No.8 and More Questions and Concerns

  • James Fallows
  • August 24, 2014
"Bad, bad, bad," and other critiques
Artist's rendering of a high-speed train station (AP)
View Post
  • Transportation

The Courts Speak Up for California High-Speed Rail (No. 7)

  • James Fallows
  • August 4, 2014
And so do some readers.
The Fresno Amtrak station (James Fallows)
View Post
  • Transportation

California High-Speed Rail No. 6: Some Views From the Valley

  • James Fallows
  • July 28, 2014
People in Los Angeles and San Francisco often say that the initial links in a proposed north-south system would be "trains to nowhere." People from nowhere weigh in.
An earlier era's ambitious infrastructure program: The Last Spike, by Thomas Hill (Wikimedia)
View Post
  • Transportation

California High-Speed Rail No. 5: 10 Readers With 10 Views

  • James Fallows
  • July 22, 2014
A solution looking for a problem? A genuine leap forward? The best we can expect from messy political half-measures? Or something truly brave? Take your pick.
What they're trying to build (Esri and UC Davis)
View Post
  • Transportation

California High-Speed Rail No. 3: Let’s Hear From the Chairman

  • James Fallows
  • July 14, 2014
It's time for broader national attention to the most expensive and ambitious infrastructure proposal in America today.
Los Angeles-basin electric-streetcar map a century ago, during the state's previous foray into rail expansion (California Digital Library)
View Post
  • Transportation

California High-Speed Rail No. 4: From the Chairman–7 Ways in Which It Would Help California

  • James Fallows
  • July 14, 2014
For your reference, the chairman's detailed pro-and-con about the most ambitious current attempt to change America's transportation infrastructure
The Louisiana Purchase, most fortunate land deal in American history, was to Thomas Jefferson's critics a case of unconstitutional overreach. (St. Louis Public Library)
View Post
  • Transportation

California High-Speed Rail No. 2 The Critics’ Case

  • James Fallows
  • July 11, 2014
Every big infrastructure project is controversial. Most of them work out better than critics contend early on. But maybe the critics are right about high-speed rail. Let's hear what they say.
View Post
  • Economic Development

It Takes a Village to Staff a Factory

  • James Fallows
  • July 10, 2014
"It indeed is an oasis, but the passion and commitment are replicable elsewhere." A Kenyan-born man working in Mississippi on some of the things the state has done right.
Infrastructure moves the world (from Hiroshige's watercolors of the Tōkaidō) (Wikimedia)
View Post
  • Transportation

The California High-Speed Rail Debate Kicking Things Off

  • James Fallows
  • July 9, 2014
The Erie Canal. The transcontinental railroad. The Interstate Highway system. Big, expensive, controversial—and indispensable. Is the next one in this series a new rail network in our most famously freeway-centric state?
View Post
  • Community Colleges & Technical Training

Raj Shaunak and the Economic Boom in Eastern Mississippi

  • James Fallows
  • July 8, 2014
It's one thing to draw high-skill, high-wage jobs to a place that has historically lacked opportunities. It's something else altogether to find people qualified to fill them. A local answer to a national question.
Downtown Greer, South Carolina, a rapidly growing small town between Greenville and Spartanburg.
View Post
  • Economic Development

Smaller Towns as Talent Magnets: The Chance to Make Things Work

  • James Fallows
  • July 5, 2014
"The kind of people who might have gone to NASA in the 1960s, Wall Street in the 1980s, or Silicon Valley in the late 1990s are now, I think, more likely than ever to work in municipal government." So says a well-educated young small-town mayor.

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