From Our Towns to Yours, Happy Holidays!
December 17, 2021
The Our Towns journey began more than eight years ago with a hunch that a lot more was going on in small towns than we were hearing from the politically-driven interviews with “a guy in a diner” or the disaster-driven interviews with devastated residents who had suffered a tornado, or worse. We held a strong desire to see community-level America for ourselves, and the good fortune to have the support from The Atlantic, where we wrote hundreds of reports over the next five years. We were humbled by all that we saw and heard from the people who shared so openly about their hometowns.
We wrote our book, Our Towns, in 2018, and then produced the HBO documentary, Our Towns, over a hundred days of filming in 2018 and 2019 with the amazing filmmakers Steven Ascher and Jeanne Jordan. It was released in April 2021. In the same month we launched this foundation, also called Our Towns, to amplify the stories from communities, to connect like-minded ones to each other, to share their successes and make their secrets to success not so secret. That is our mission now: to give voice and respect to all those who are working from the ground up, in the communities where they live, to improve lives and spirits, and to build this into a network of like-minded citizens across the country.
Covid slowed all of us down, and like all of you, we did our best to keep in touch with old friends and make new ones, nearly all of it remotely. We Zoomed, and emailed, and talked on the phone, recorded interviews and podcasts, and all of that.
We wrote about some of our favorite American renewal topics, including civic life, leaders & governance, education, and libraries, and we met new Covid migrants and witnessed a stunning ceremony of racial reconciliation. The places and events we covered are found in the ESRI map below.
We also did virtual press events, hosted conversations and panel discussions, many of which you can see in the timeline below.
We report with great sadness that we lost two people this year from the Our Towns family, our beloved Random House editor, Dan Frank, and the heroic Charleston WV artist and legend, Charly Jupiter Hamilton.
We greatly appreciate your being part of this journey. Please consider supporting this work by making a year-end, tax-deductible donation by clicking here.
Thank you, and see you in the New Year.
Deb & Jim Fallows
To interact with our reports across America, click here or anywhere on the map.
To see a full list of press events from 2021, click here or on the timeline.
Looking for Stories for Your Holiday Table?
To close out the year, we leave you with three final reports, all focused on storytelling — how and where stories are told and why they are important for small town renewal efforts everywhere.
The Local Tavern: A Glimpse of America's Past Present Today
One of the most important things modern America shares with the people who founded the country is the sense of community and fellowship that comes with sharing time at the local tavern.
A Southern City Shows How to Deal with the Past
This is how it looks when a community, its faith and civic organization, and some of its leading citizens face difficult truths.
'We're Speaking' Features 'Our Towns' in Conversation
Deb and Jim Fallows chat with the Lincoln Project about "experimentation, renewal, and hope for America's small towns" as we approach the New Year.