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Title details for Our Towns by James Fallows - Available

Our Towns

A 100,000-Mile Journey into the Heart of America

by James Fallows
Deborah Fallows
Audiobook
1 of 1 copy available
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1 of 1 copy available
***NATIONAL BEST SELLER***
A vivid, surprising portrait of the civic and economic reinvention taking place in America, town by town and generally out of view of the national media. A realistically positive and provocative view of the country between its coasts.
For the last five years, James and Deborah Fallows have been traveling across America in a single-engine prop airplane. Visiting dozens of towns, they have met hundreds of civic leaders, workers, immigrants, educators, environmentalists, artists, public servants, librarians, business people, city planners, students, and entrepreneurs to take the pulse and understand the prospects of places that usually draw notice only after a disaster or during a political campaign.
The America they saw is acutely conscious of its problems—from economic dislocation to the opioid scourge—but itis also crafting solutions, with a practical-minded determination at dramatic odds with the bitter paralysis of national politics. At times of dysfunction on a national level, reform possibilities have often arisen from the local level. The Fallowses describe America in the middle of one of these creative waves. Their view of the country is as complex and contradictory as America itself, but it also reflects the energy, the generosity and compassion, the dreams, and the determination of many who are in the midst of making things better. Our Towns is the story of their journey—and an account of a country busy remaking itself.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    May 8, 2018

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9780525639183
      • File size: 452686 KB
      • Duration: 15:43:05

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • AudioFile Magazine
      Scattered across the nation, from Maine to Oregon, Arizona to Georgia, there are small towns doing amazing things. OUR TOWNS, written and read by James and Deborah Fallows, offers an engrossing, entertaining, and, at times, surprising look at some of these places. Over the course of five years (from 2012-2017), the Fallowses flew their single-engine plane to the four corners of the country. They are excellent chroniclers of interesting places and the people who make small towns tick. While not professional narrators, the Fallowses's reading of their audiobook does give it a kind of "small-town" feel. OUR TOWNS is an engaging listen about parts of the U.S. that are often overlooked. J.P.S. © AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine
    • Publisher's Weekly

      March 12, 2018
      Creativity, know-how, diversity, and public-spiritedness are the perhaps surprising national trends unearthed in this exuberant exploration of economic development in Middle America. In researching the book, husband-and-wife journalists James Fallows (China Airborne) and Deborah Fallows (Dreaming in Chinese) flew around the country in their prop plane surveying unsung renaissances of cities and small towns. They find commonplaces—like the ubiquitous downtown-revitalization quartet of tech-startup incubator, waterfront bike path, arts festival, and microbrewery—as well as idiosyncrasies: Bend, Ore.’s marijuana shop; Duluth, Minn.’s growing aviation sector; new factories and vocational training in Columbus, Miss., and cutting-edge fashion design in Columbus, Ohio. Unlike the usual community-activism narratives, the authors spotlight a civic establishment of urban planners, development officials, strong mayors, and business boosters; they also cite as keys to prosperity brainy innovators at universities, hard-working immigrants, and citizens willing to raise taxes for needed government services. The Fallowses’ reportage from fly-over territory occasionally feels schmaltzy—“n the Best Western breakfast room, Miss Nettie was making grits and biscuits”—and they skirt troubling features of development strategies, like the antiunion animus of Southern states. Still theirs is an eye-opening, keenly optimistic reminder of the strength of America’s vital center.

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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