How Libraries Are Becoming Modern Makerspaces
They've long served as communal gathering spots, but these civic institutions are becoming gateways to technological tinkering.
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Articles & News
With the PBS NewsHour, in Greenville, SC
Last night the PBS NewsHour ran a 10-minute segment hosted by Judy Woodruff and shot in Greenville, South Carolina, where Deb and I have visited frequently and reported extensively over the past few…
A Public Library Tells the Civic Story of a Town
Greenville's public library puts its past and present on full display: mills, racial history, internationalism, public-private collaborations, and culture.
Local Success, National Paralysis: How Does it Balance Out?
The GOP/Fox last night was genuinely depressing. Donald Trump has brought the other candidates down to his level, in the process of demolishing the Republican party. No living American has…
Hmmm, This Sounds Like Something I Would Agree With
From Thomas Friedman in the NYT, emphasis added: … what will be required to produce resilient citizens and communities [is] forcing a politics that is much more of a hybrid of left…
Tech Meets Art in Middle School
A South Carolina public school gives tech-savvy students a sense of humanity.
Talking About a Second Gilded Age, With ‘On Point’ Listeners
Two updates today: 1) On Point. I spoke today with Tom Ashbrook of WBUR and his On Point audience, about my contention (in the current cover story) that even in this time of wage…
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.
A Police Shooting Case in Mississippi
Over the past few years we’ve mentioned many of the positive developments underway in the three counties of northern Mississippi (Lowndes, Clay, and Oktibbeha) collectively known as the “Golden Triangle.”…
‘The Looming Entrepreneurial Boom’: Kauffman Weighs In
Brand-new companies play a surprisingly important part in progress toward fuller employment. A new report says that the prospects for start-ups may be improving.
Fareed Zakaria GPS, and Another Traveler’s Views
This morning I was on Fareed Zakaria’s GPS program on CNN, talking about the project behind my current Atlantic cover story. A YouTube version of the full show is here; a one-minute out-take, in which…
Mississippi Students Write About Life in Their Home State
Inspiring young writers connect with their literary legacy
Pitching in to Save a Library
In San Bernardino, one way to help save the city is to save its library.
What Presidential Campaigns Show About Civic Fiber
The end of my current story in the magazine, on “How America Is Putting Itself Back Together,” explores the contrast between what I’m describing as healthy civic society at the…
‘American Futures’ Master List: Some of the Hundreds of Places We Would Like to Go
Some of the Hundreds of Places We Would Like to Go
"There is more going on, in more places, than you imagined."
Welcome Our Newest National Monuments!
Often it seems that modern presidents can't do anything — except wage war. Here's a heartening exception.