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Economic Development

221 posts
Crowd gathered looking at a stage for the 2019 Nation Swell Summit.
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  • Economic Development

From Military Service to Civilian Leadership

  • James Fallows
  • April 23, 2020
Here’s another installment in the chronicle of people who are trying to take up the slack, while the national government flails rather than coping with a pandemic. Previously in this…
Aminata Brown, who is now Chief Innovation Officer at the New Orleans Police Department, and Sean Doss, now Executive Advisor to the Los Angeles Housing & Community Investment Department, both of whom served two years in those agencies as FUSE Executive Fellows.
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  • Economic Development

A Different Kind of Civil-Service Organization

  • James Fallows
  • April 21, 2020
The U.S. national government is failing in its response to the pandemic. One recent example: A month ago, on March 20, the United States and South Korea had about the…
Ember + Forge, a coffee shop that has become a center of downtown life in Erie, Pennsylvania, but whose revenue has virtually disappeared. Small businesses like this have led Erie's downtown revival. A new study examines what it will take for them to survive.
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  • Civic Life

‘Years of Effort, Undone in Weeks’

  • James Fallows
  • March 26, 2020
It has been nearly half a century since Erie, Pennsylvania, was officially recognized as an “All-American City.” But beginning with the first of our repeated visits nearly four years ago, Deb Fallows…
Person drilling into wood.
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  • Economic Development

New Jobs, New Residents, and New Possibilities

  • James Fallows
  • December 6, 2019
Here are news items and developments related to trends we’ve been covering in the recent “Our Towns” series, and elsewhere: The furniture business returns, and is looking for furniture-makers. In a…
Image of abandoned mall.
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  • Economic Development

The Death and Afterlife of the Mall

  • James Fallows
  • November 21, 2019
The shopping mall has had a dramatic fall from grace. Once the veritable town square and a cornerstone of American consumerism, malls have aged into oblivion, replaced by cheaper and…
At the Rural Women’s Summit.
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  • Economic Development

The Modern Women of Rural America

  • Deborah Fallows
  • November 13, 2019
Along the way of our reporting for American Futures and Our Towns, I ran into the stories of some remarkable women—living and dead. Eliza Tibbets, who planted the first navel oranges in California; Isabella Greenway,…
Overlooking downtown Dayton.
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  • Economic Development

The Gem City Moves Forward

  • James Fallows
  • November 5, 2019
This is the first in a series of posts on the city of Dayton, Ohio. I’ve been there three times since August and am about to make another trip. Almost…
Two women involved with Project Lia look up at windows they helped restore.
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  • Economic Development

Rebuilding After Incarceration

  • James Fallows
  • October 7, 2019
More than 2 million Americans are in the country’s prisons and jails now, giving the United States both the largest number of prisoners and the highest per-capita incarceration rate in…
Michael Brannon, a carpenter apprentice and graduate of the Build Your Future program in Indiana.
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  • Economic Development

Building Your Future in Indiana

  • James Fallows
  • October 1, 2019
This spring, Deb Fallows and I made a trip through Indiana for a series of events and meetings co-organized by New America Indianapolis and Indiana Humanities. We were in Muncie, Fort Wayne,…
By the Dan River, in the River District of Danville, Virginia, this summer (James Fallows / The Atlantic)
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  • Economic Development

‘Lessons From Danville’

  • James Fallows
  • September 19, 2019
This summer, Deb Fallows and I visited the southern-Virginia town of Danville, and the surrounding rural areas of Pittsylvania County, Virginia, and the adjoining Caswell County, North Carolina. In its…
The view from our plane this week, headed to Maine (Deborah Fallows)
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  • Arts
  • Economic Development

Flying Down East

  • Deborah Fallows
  • August 15, 2019
Headed back to Eastport
The headquarters of the Institute for Advanced Learning and Research, in Danville, Virginia (Courtesy of the Institute for Advanced Learning and Research)
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  • Economic Development

Three Big Lessons From One Small Town

  • James Fallows
  • July 18, 2019
Connections, parallel themes, and lessons from Danville
What Deb Fallows discovered in the children's museum at the Washington Pavilion, in Sioux Falls (James Fallows / The Atlantic)
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  • Economic Development

Sioux Falls is Ready for Tom Hanks

  • James Fallows
  • July 16, 2019
A year ago, America’s Favorite Actor™, Tom Hanks, triggered a series of reports on TV and in the Argus Leader newspaper in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. He did so with one little…
From the Brownsville side, the wall. On the other side is the Rio Grande, whose centerline marks the official border between the United States and Mexico in this part of Texas. (James Fallows / The Atlantic)
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  • Economic Development

‘A River, Not A Border’: Report from Brownsville

  • Deborah Fallows
  • July 14, 2019
Striving together for good health and well being in a Texas border town.
The Mississippi state capitol in Jackson, Mississippi, where Larrison Campbell grew up—and where she returned. (Nagel Photography via Shutterstock)
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  • Economic Development

The American Sense of Place

  • James Fallows
  • July 12, 2019
An update: Reactions from readers and significant local-renewal developments
A collection of Our Towns players from Ajo, Arizona; Erie, Pennsylvania; and Columbus, Mississippi. From left to right: Morgan Adams, Ben Speggen, Erin Williams, Ferki Ferati, Dairian Bowles, Stuart Siegel, Emily Siegel, Deb Fallows, Jim Fallows, and Chuck Yarborough, standing in front of the Chautauqua Institution's Hall of Missions. (Courtesy of Deborah Fallows)
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  • Economic Development

When Small Towns Take the Big Stage

  • Deborah Fallows
  • July 8, 2019
Connecting Ajo, Columbus, and Erie

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