Rural America is taking a beating in the news. Part of it is deserved. I grew up in rural Indiana and am shocked at some of what is going on there: severe hard drug problems, HIV outbreaks, serious crime, etc. Things are a long way from when I was a kid there in the 70s and 80s and people not only left their doors unlocked, they left their keys in the car. While I don't want to minimize the challenges facing rural America, there's a lot that has flat out gotten better since I first moved to Harrison County in first grade around … [Read more...]
Archives for March 2017
What Do We Do With Shrinking Cities?
Shrinking Cities: Understanding Urban Decline in the United States By Russell Weaver, Sharmistha Bagchi-Sen, Jason Knight, and Amy E. Frazier Routledge (2017) Cities like Detroit, St. Louis, and Cleveland have lost stunning percentages of their peak population since 1950. Yet these are all in metro areas whose regional populations are much higher than in 1950, even if not at their all time peak high in all of them. Some cities like Youngstown have gone so far as to try to plan for shrinkage and a permanently reduced population future. … [Read more...]
The Quest for Food Freedom
Biting the Hands That Feed Us Baylen J. Linnken Mariza Ruelas currently faces up to two years in jail in California for the crime of selling ceviche through a Facebook food group. Welcome to the mad world of American food regulation. In Biting the Hands That Feed Us, Baylen Linnekin looks closely at a system that can take pride in a historically safe food supply but that also imposes too many rules that defy common sense. Linnekin traces the system’s origins to The Jungle, Upton Sinclair’s exposé of the appalling conditions in Chicago’s … [Read more...]
Ten Things You Need to Know About Indianapolis City Culture
What makes one city different from another? Some of it is the geography, the economy, or the buildings. But a big chunk of it is culture. Every city has its own culture. A journalist recently interviewed me about Indianapolis and asked about some of the things that make that city's culture distinct. I'm reposting ten of my observations here. Keep in mind that many of these points are relative, not absolute. They are comparisons versus what I see in other cities. 1. Indianapolis has a very open social structure. Many cities have very … [Read more...]