Wednesday, November 14, 2018
Travel 100,000 miles around the country and you’ll find that rural America isn’t necessarily in decline. James and Deborah Fallows took that trip and share what they found.
There's a common narrative that often comes out of rural America – one of communities in decline. But James and Deborah Fallows have found a much more vibrant picture of America's small towns than we usually hear in the national media.
They set out across the country in a single-engine plane to document stories of reinvention and innovation in towns that only seem to make the news when there's an election, natural disaster, or shooting.
Their journey took them to small and mid-sized towns from Bend, Oregon to Greenville, South Carolina and became the subject of the New York Times bestselling book Our Towns: A 100,000-Mile Journey Into the Heart of America.
They join Mike Collins to talk about what they learned when they flew into what's often described as "fly over country" and about the common threads they've found in some of America's successful small towns. And in our increasingly divisive political landscape where the urban-rural divide has only deepened in the midterm election, what can we learn from these communities?
Guests
James Fallows, correspondent for The Atlantic magazine and Co-Author, Our Towns: A 100,000-Mile Journey Into the Heart of America
Deborah Fallows, linguist and writer, and Co-Author, Our Towns: A 100,000-Mile Journey Into the Heart of America
Vistit the book's website for more photos and information about 'Our Towns'
