Our Towns Flyer | Summer 2021
Welcome to the summer wrap-up edition of the Our Towns Flyer.
During August, Jim time-traveled through a series of American migrations from the 1880s to the 1950s. He arrived at the present with a review of current new stories, essays, and reports pointing to another migration underway from disruptions of climate emergencies, Covid, and real estate volatility. How might Americans wend their way through the turmoils and make choices on where and how to live?
We’ve also been wrestling with one of the most common questions we have heard from you: How do we revitalize our town? We can’t give a blueprint for that; each town knows itself better than we ever could. But we can tell you stories about how some towns have tackled this practical question and offer you some models that towns have followed. Deb wrote about how Bucksport Maine, where we visited in July, answered this question with the story of their ongoing revival through a process called Community Heart & Soul.
We’re collecting these stories and models in a How-To section of our website. We hope you will write in to us about how your towns are building practical, citizen-led initiatives for community renewal.
Pursuing one of our favorite topics, libraries, and one of our favorite library systems, Our Towns team member Allie Kuroff visited the Anythink library system in Adams County, Colorado, to report on their innovative, hospitality-based, people-driven approach to a new library culture.
And finally, we are delighted to announce that you can now bring Our Towns, the HBO documentary, to Your Town. See details below!
We hope you stay in touch with us (@ourtownscivfnd). Thanks for reading.
Deb & Jim Fallows
Reports from the Road and Sky
Bucksport Maine Finds its Heart & Soul
How can person-to-person democracy be revived? A former paper mill town in coastal Maine is a laboratory for a new approach, which involves a profound of degree of community engagement.
On Our Bookshelves this Summer
Living Through History: A Reading List
How might the United States look different after the pandemic—economically, socially, politically, geographically? Jim's roundup of news stories, essays, and reports all deal with the (now-unanswerable) question.
Check out a few highlights from Jim's reading list below and find the full writeup here.
American Renewal After the Pandemic | Derek Shearer | UCD Clinton Institute
The Next Big Sort and Back to the Land Movement | Tom Rudy | Blue Grass Critical Thinking Solutions
Small Town Natives Are Moving Back Home | Grace Olmstead | Wall Street Journal
Turning Empty Office Buildings Into Housing Could Instantly Transform Post-COVID Cities | Adele Peters | Fast Company
Decline in Immigration Threatens Growth of Regions on the Rise | Miriam Jordan | New York Times
Voices from America
Read Parts II and III of a multi-part essay series from Our Towns contributing authors on what recommendations can come from a closer study of leadership and power that might lead to changes at the community level.
Greater Than the Sum of Its Parts
How do gender and race biases create ironies that defeat good organizations?
Human's Power Versus Nature's Power
What power do communities have at the local level to protect the environment?
Piquing Our Interest is... Library Innovation
The coverage of libraries has been a part of the Our Towns canon since reporting first began in 2013. Check out a few recent reads, in addition to our own coverage, of the creative strategies libraries are using to renew communities at the local level.
Learning to Expect the Unexpected
When the Adams County public library system received a funding increase, library directors took an unconventional approach by rethinking the operating philosophy and practices to resemble the hospitality industry. Read our writeup to learn how their success can serve as a model to libraries in transition elsewhere.
Other Reading:
The Radical Potential of Libraries | Liz Cormack | New Urban Mechanics
Public Libraries and Government Innovation | Steve Kelman | Federal Computer Week
Bring Our Towns to Your Town!
Through a special arrangement with HBO, you can bring a screening of Our Towns to your civic organization, church, school, or any group interested in inspiring citizens to revive their community. There is no charge to access the film, however no admission can be charged to attendees.
For more information, email Our Towns Civic Foundation Director of Operations Shelli Stockton at shelli.stockton@gmail.com
Our Towns in the Media
Our Towns has been a longtime friend and ally of 10X, a project examining social, economic, and climate change in towns all across Interstate 10 of America.
We recently talked with Wellington "Duke" Reiter — the founder of Ten Across Conversations — for his new podcast here.
Our Towns from Elsewhere
Ideas and conversations inspired by the Our Towns Journey.
Combating Disinformation Through Local News Ecosystems | William McKenzie | George W. Bush Presidential Center
Let’s Reimagine How Your Church Property Might Serve the Community | Brian Foreman & Justin Nelson | Baptist News Global