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Home California Fresno

Town: Fresno

50 posts
Bellevue, Iowa on the Mississippi River. (Courtesy Community Heart & Soul)
View Post
  • Citizen Engagement

Fountains of Youth for Towns

  • Deborah Fallows
  • March 15, 2022
The life and spirit of any town or city depend on its ability to attract and retain people. In a time when many worry about brain drain, how communities keep their young people, or bring them back, or attract newcomers illustrates a place's sense of and attention to renewal.
An early 1900s image of the old Toledo Post Office.
View Post
  • Entrepreneurs

When a Company Invests in an ‘Underdog City’

  • James Fallows
  • February 25, 2021
The story of how a company that started in one of these places is now involving people and businesses in another—and why that matters in the next stage of equitable American recovery.
Bitwise sit in an auditorium with their hands raised.
View Post
  • Entrepreneurs

A Company That Helps You Find Job B

  • James Fallows
  • April 30, 2020
The tech-training and incubator company Bitwise, based in Fresno in California’s agricultural Central Valley, has been an important test case for the proposition that new, valuable, job-creating and wealth-expanding businesses…
Jake Soberal and Irma Olquin, co-founders and co-CEOs of Bitwise Industries in Fresno, which announced a big expansion today (Courtesy of Bitwise Industries)
View Post
  • Entrepreneurs

Bitwise Goes Big

  • James Fallows
  • June 19, 2019
Fresno tech startup, Bitwise gets $27 million in funding to expand its operations.
Concept drawing for Bitwise facility the State Center warehouse.
View Post
  • Economic Development

‘Let’s Care About Someone Who Does Not Belong to Our Tribe’

  • James Fallows
  • January 19, 2017
We could use a little positive news at the moment, right? Here you go: Over the past three years we’re written a lot about Fresno in general, one of the unglamorous…
Barn at the Deerwood Ranch wild horse refugee, outside Laramie, Wyoming. (Deborah Fallows)
View Post
  • Economic Development

All Progress Is Local: New Year’s Notes From Around the Country

  • James Fallows
  • January 1, 2017
New Year's Notes from Around the Country
Another gigantic turbine blade is delivered in Spearville, Kansas (Nicolas Pollock / The Atlantic)
View Post
  • Environment & Sustainability

What the Renewable-Energy Economy Looks Like

  • James Fallows
  • November 3, 2016
At its peak, nearly one century ago in 1920, the coal-mining industry employed nearly 800,000 people in the United States. Decade by decade, as America’s population has swelled and its…
Sisters originally from Darfur, resettled in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. The young lady on the left was a proud member of public high school ROTC. (Deborah Fallows / the Atlantic)
View Post
  • Refugees

Refugees, Immigrants, and the Battle Over Who Is American

  • James Fallows
  • October 29, 2016
Deb Fallows has a new post up, about what’s actually involved in settling immigrants from Syria—or Somalia or Congo or Bhutan—in the American cities that have taken the lead in…
RJ Messenger (left), successful Erie entrepreneur, at the Radius CoWork space in downtown Erie. (Nicolas Pollock / The Atlantic)
View Post
  • Economic Development

The Generational Difference in Optimism: A Video Look

  • James Fallows
  • October 25, 2016
Older People Moan, Younger People Hope
Entrepreneur Alicia De La Torre, of Dodge City, Kansas (Nicolas Pollock / The Atlantic)
View Post
  • Refugees

Is America in a Boiling Fury About Immigration?

  • James Fallows
  • October 22, 2016
Not the America I Have Seen
Part of the old manufacturing corridor in Erie, Pennsylvania. Manufacturing is still underway in many of these buildings, and the city is in the middle of considering a sweeping plan for economic and civic revitalization. (James Fallows)
View Post
  • Economic Development

And Now for Something Saner and More Positive: Fresno, Erie

  • James Fallows
  • October 12, 2016
Not to over-personalize, but I feel as if my life in the past few weeks recapitulates the argument my wife Deb and I have been making in our American Futures travels.…
Downtown Fresno mural
View Post
  • Economic Development

From Fresno to Duluth to Allentown, with Montana in Between

  • James Fallows
  • March 30, 2016
Here are some generally positive developments from places we’ve visited in our travels. Fresno: This evening Fresno, California, held its big “State of Downtown” event. You can see the details here.…
Illustration by Adam Voorhes and Robin Finlay.
View Post
  • Civic Life

How America Is Putting Itself Back Together

  • James Fallows
  • February 22, 2016
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.
Downtown Fresno
View Post
  • Economic Development

Wondering Why We Like Fresno?

  • James Fallows
  • October 31, 2015
Some people are smug about the coolness of New York or San Francisco. Those places are nice, but Jim Fallows much prefers "the kick-ass spirit" of Fresno.
View Post
  • Aviation

Why an F-16 Hit a Cessna, and Some More-Upbeat Updates

  • James Fallows
  • July 22, 2015
Sobering news from the NTSB, but encouraging news from Maine to California
Fayetteville Street in Raleigh, North Carolina, saved by ... cars? (Wikimedia Commons)
View Post
  • Economic Development

The Battle for Downtown, From Canada to the Carolinas

  • James Fallows
  • May 15, 2015
"It is strange, but true." What one reader says about Raleigh, North Carolina, applies many other places as well.

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