Our Towns Flyer Summer Edition

We hope you enjoy the stories, if you read them on the beach, the porch, or even in your office.

The Our Towns team has been venturing out to see some of the country this summer. Many of you certainly know San Diego, although probably not as a destination for the 15,000-strong Esri technology user conference. We bet that even fewer of you have been to Dillsburg, Pennsylvania. You might put that on your bucket list for more reasons than paying respects to the mascot Dill Pickle.

We’ve also revisited San Bernardino, California to talk with our friends at the youth boxing gym, Project Fighting Chance, and to hear the breaking news of their newest challenge. An excuse to return to Eastport, Maine was to catch up with a young lobsterman we met there, who has grown from a high-schooler into an independent businessman and entrepreneur, with an eye on sustainability of fishing in the Bay of Fundy. We also followed up with an artist we met in San Diego who is combining technology and community renewal with an artist’s sensibility in northern Ohio.

We hope you enjoy the stories, if you read them on the beach, the porch, or even in your office.

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Latest From Our Towns

'Mapping Common Ground': What I Learned This Summer in San Diego

New reason to “think globally, and act locally.”

JAMES FALLOWS |  ENVIRONMENT & SUSTAINABILITY

An Outsider Works with Insiders: Examples from Akron and Cleveland

After growing up around the world, Mac Love learned a valuable lesson: how crucial listening is to communication. Now the artist uses new technologies to bring community residents and college students together, helping citizens’ voices be heard and driving meaningful change in their neighborhoods.

ALEX BIELER | ARTS

Using Storymaps to Explore Bucksport, Maine

What does a mile-long stretch along the Penobscot River tell the walker about Bucksport, Maine? As it turns out, a lot. Using Esri’s ArcGIS StoryMaps, the Our Towns team takes a new look at Bucksport and its promising future following a major economic downfall.

 BEN SPEGGEN |  WATER

Inside Our Towns: Project Fighting Chance

Evan Sanford and Jim Fallows talk with Ian Franklin and Terry Boykins about Project Fighting Chance — a boxing gym that is more than a boxing gym in San Bernardino. They discuss how it got started, how it has grown, and an immediate challenge it faces today.

Listen to the podcast here and read Jim's Substack here.

OUR TOWNS | BIG LITTLE IDEAS

A Town of Doers Works Together to Preserve their Past and Plan their Future

Citizens and businesses in Dillsburg, Pennsylvania have adopted a mantra: If it’s a community problem, it’s their problem too.

JORDAN SANDMAN | CIVIC LIFE

A Dining-Room Meeting Begins a New Chapter in One Town's Story

As Isaac and Heidi Tucker saw it, there was no use in waiting for their town to improve itself. Instead, they took action, and are rallying renewal efforts in Dillsburg, Pennsylvania today.

 JORDAN SANDMAN  |  RURAL & REGIONAL

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Voices from America

Inside Our Towns: PA Humanities

The power of storytelling. The importance of civic engagement. The role of humanities in the 21st century, and how it has evolved over the years.

Those are some of the things you’ll hear about in this episode of the Inside Our Towns podcast. Evan Sanford talks with Laurie Zierer, Dawn Frisby Byers, and Jen Danifo, all with PA Humanities, an independent nonprofit and official state and federal partner of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

OUR TOWNS | CIVIC LIFE

A Look at Lobstering and Craftmanship

Eastport, Maine has a long history of resilience. It’s still there today in Elijah Brice, an ambitious 20-year-old lobsterman who can hear the call of the ocean while navigating an uncertain future for New England's fabled lobstering industry.

BEN SPEGGEN |  ENVIRONMENT & SUSTAINABILITY

The Economic Potential of the Great American Rail-Trail

This Daily Yonder report describes repurposing decommissioned railbeds as hike-and-bike trails, bringing the potential of economic and recreational development to connected towns across America.

SARAH MELOTTE, THE DAILY YONDER  | ECONOMIC & BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT

Q&A: How to Support Rural Students Pursuing Higher Education

In a conversation between The Daily Yonder’s Lane Wendell Fischer and Matt Newlin, the founder of The Rural College Student Experience podcast (which you can listen to here), we learn why empowering rural students to pursue further education and achieve success at the college level matters.

LANE WENDELL FISCHER, THE DAILY YONDER | RURAL & REGIONAL

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More on American Renewal

• Erie's Inclusive Growth: A Framework for Action Investment Playbook. From New Localism Associates, Bruce Katz and Florian Schalliol identify a series of catalytic projects that stretch across the city and county to boost Erie, Pa.'s position in next-generation industries, grow the number and size of minority-owned businesses, and upgrade critical infrastructure. 

• Quality of Life and Place as Economic Development. Director of the Michigan Economic Center John Austin and Economist and University of Akron Associate Professor Amanda Weinstein were interviewed by Medium and discussed how investments in schools, broadband connectivity, and connections to larger metro areas help boost smaller Midwestern communities.

• What We Learned in the Inaugral Youth Media Collective Boot-Camp. Melissa Montavlo writes for Youth Media Collective on Medium about lessons learned when Fresno area high schoolers participated in the inaugural Youth Media Collective, a 10-week journalism bootcamp hosted in partnership with Jakara Movement.