Parks, Rec & Fun

Welcome Marketplace Listeners, to American Futures

Kicking off a new collaborative project

Economic & Business Development

Welcome to Sioux Falls

A successful, energetic, rough-edged, and therefore typically American town

From the Readers

American Futures: Grand Finale Holland-Palooza

A small arena in which many dramas are being played out.

Economic & Business Development

The Next Lesson From Holland: Why Local Money Matters

In an age of globalized companies and relentless focus on "shareholder value," a reminder of what local ownership can mean.

Education

The Surprising News From One Small Town About Immigration Reform

In a place as unlike Miami, New York, or L.A. as you can imagine, America's unsettled immigration policy has a profound effect.

Parks, Rec & Fun

Today’s Frightening / Inspiring Aerial Videos

How fire-fighting looks from the tanker-pilots' point of view.

Reports From America

Rapid City Report:

What Does Green Mean?

Parks, Rec & Fun

If We’re Talking American Orientalism …

Read the story in The Atlantic  here. Etching of the ominous country under discussion, above, by Janet Edwards of Redlands. … as I was doing previously here and here, I thought it would be worth going back to re-read Joan Didion’s 1966 Saturday Evening Post article that so offended my home town back when I was in high school and before Joan […]

Parks, Rec & Fun

A Theory of Mountain Flying

The safety virtues of multi-modal transportation.

Economic & Business Development

The ‘Rapid’ Story:

Trains, Planes, and the Making of a City

From the Readers

Readers on ‘American Orientalism’

Good thing I didn't mention snowmobiles.

Arts

On the ‘Orientalism’ of the Prairie

What happens when the "ordinary objects of our culture" are treated as curiosities.

Leaders & Governance

Notes From the Road: Drought, Politics

Politics as sport spills over into real life.

Parks, Rec & Fun

Life on the Road:

Beef Jerky, Swimming, and a Search for Spiritual Relief

Economic & Business Development

Holland: Where Things Go After the Recycling Bin

Holland makes, the world takes -- and Holland recycles too.

Parks, Rec & Fun

Giant Lawn Machinery Everywhere: This Actually Is a Thing

Industrialization increases productivity. Sort of.