BIG LITTLE IDEAS
TOWN HISTORY & STORY
Building Bridges Within and Among Communities Through Stories
Not all bridges are physical. The ways communities are connecting with one another, and themselves, is happening differently in light of COVID-19 and with new tools like OurStoryBridge: an online platform that captures and houses community stories.
CITIZEN ENGAGEMENT
The Past, the Future, the Present: Updates from Coast to Coast
A Fellow named, college services goes big, and scenes from a Day of Enlightened Living -- here are three updates on stories we've been following on this site over the years.
CITIZEN ENGAGEMENT
Bringing a City Together: How Leaf Blowers Did It
This is the story of how citizens worked together toward a common goal in Washington, D.C. The story involves a change on the local level with significant, positive implications for other parts of the country and beyond.
BIG LITTLE IDEAS
Three community leaders come together to tell the stories of American renewal in their towns.
What do Ajo, Arizona; Eastport, Maine; and Charleston, West Virginia have in common? The answer leads down a rural path.
BIG LITTLE IDEAS
A California Project, with Nationwide Ambitions
American history doesn't repeat, but it rhymes. Crises keep cropping up--and so do ideas and solutions. Many innovations from the 1930s have new relevance for the post-pandemic 2020s. Here is an example, and the thinking behind it.
BIG LITTLE IDEAS
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.
Big Little Ideas
Why Some Libraries Are Eliminating Fines
Are fines consistent with a fundamental mission of libraries: to serve the public with information and knowledge? And to address that mission equitably across the diverse population of rich and poor library users?
Arts
Photos Can Trigger Change in a Town
Read the story in The Atlantic here. Kononstev Artem via Shutterstock In 2008, National Geographic photographer Jodi Cobb and photographer and former Second Lady, Tipper Gore, talked about the role of photography at the then Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, DC. The evening was called “How Photos Can Change the World.” Eleven years later, their comments […]
Big Little Ideas
Planting a ‘Trail of Giants’
Read the story in The Atlantic here. Giant Sequoia seedlings, planted at Otis College of Art and Design, in Los Angeles Courtesy of WildPlaces Last month, as part of a “Big Little Ideas” series, I mentioned a surprisingly valuable short-term step that communities can take, on their own, for positive climate effects. That is to start planting trees. More on […]
Arts
A RIVER OF WORDS IN PITTSBURGH
As we've traveled around the country with our American Futures and Our Towns projects since 2013, my husband, Jim, and I have evolved from being skeptics to evangelists about the impact of public arts on communities.
Big Little Ideas
Start Planting Trees
Planting trees as part of a green initiative in the southern California town of Redlands. Courtesy of Karen Bell Recently Deb Fallows kicked off a series of “Big Little Ideas”—innovations or reforms that could be applied fairly easily at the local level and that might have cumulatively very important effect. (Thanks to many readers who have written in. […]
Big Little Ideas
A Big Little Idea From Nashville
The Nashville Public Library Wangkun Jia / Shutterstock During our travels visiting towns and cities across the country for American Futures and now Our Towns, Jim Fallows (my husband) and I have encountered story after story of short, sweet initiatives that we have begun referring to, fondly, as Big Little Ideas. The ideas usually started from sparks somewhere in […]