A Cirrus SR 20
Our Towns: A 100,000 Mile Journey into the Heart of America
By: James and Deborah Fallows
432 Pages
Owning and being able to fly your own plane creates a tremendous opportunity to learn about what is happening in communities across the country. There are thousands of landing strips outside cities large and small, and while a small plane is highly subject to the vagaries of the weather and only travels at a speed of about 200 mph, it sure seems to beat driving – and the views can be both amazing and illuminating.
James and Deborah Fallows have a Cirrus SR 20 (retail price $329,000, in case you’re asking), and Mr. Fallows knows how to fly it. The SR 20, a reader learns from the book, is the most popular single engine propeller plane on the market – and it comes with its own parachute – for the plane. They took advantage of this resource to travel around the United States, from northern Maine to southern California, to explore non-gateway cities and their progress towards revitalization. The largest of the places visited was Columbus, Ohio (now the largest city in the state). But most of the towns were much smaller: Duluth; Greenville, South Caroline; Bend, Oregon.
I’ve often heard speak of James Fallows as a fellow traveler of the placemaking movement, and his writing for the Atlantic and its City Lab reflect that. The book’s acknowledgements cite Fred Kent, Bruce Katz, Amy Liu and Richard Florida, names we know. But James and Deborah Fallows bring a particular perspective to their odyssey. First they are people who can afford to buy and keep that plane! Second, it’s clear from the text that they are members in good standing of the “inside-the-beltway” establishment. Not only does Mr. Fallows write for the Atlantic, but he was, early in his career, a White House speech writer (for President Jimmy Carter). While an SR 20 can’t fly much higher than 10,000 feet, and generally flies at lower altitudes, the D.C. native perspective tends to be from 30,000 feet. Indeed the Fallows’ attempt to take the same approach in gathering information about each of the two-dozen towns they visit (starting with visiting the editor of the local paper) and try to draw out patterns among what they find.
Duluth, MN
They conclude that there is lot’s of positive activity happening in smaller cities across the country. The impact of downtown revitalization has been at different rates in different places. Well advanced in Greenville and Duluth, not so much in Erie and San Bernardino, California. They find that citizen optimism about a city (around which there is often a generational divide, with Millennials far more upbeat about their hometowns than boomers), a good economic development entity, a local research university and an energetic local leader (formal or informal) can generally be found in the more successful places. It’s great that they visited so many varied places. It’s not so great that by looking at the same variables in each place, many of these towns seem the same from the descriptions in the book. As a result, the book becomes something of a slog to read. I found the parts that were the most fun, were the discussions of the ins and outs of flying the plane. I fly (as a coach passenger) a lot and don’t love it. But the book certainly stimulated my interest in having a plane; if I had a few extra hundred thousand dollars burning a hole in my pocket I might actually think about buying one and learning to fly it.
Eastport, ME
What they almost get, but don’t quite fully articulate, is the importance of place and public spaces to the more successful places they visit. They are very focused on communities’ ability to attract employers, particularly tech companies. Their base example is that they attribute the success of Duluth to the founding and growth of Cirrus Aircraft (the manufacturers of the plane they own) in that town. They got to know the town as a result of investigating and buying their aircraft. They look to conventional economic developers and their quiver of incentives. Their typology is that when a local manufacturing or extraction industry leaves an area, redevelopment requires the attraction of a replacement new economy business. The best case is when that business is started by a local person or a returning native who went somewhere else for education or to begin their career, and returned to their hometown to raise a family because it was less expensive and had a higher quality of life. The most interesting example they describe is Esri, in Redlands, California, which is the leading maker of GIS software – the principal of which returned to where he grew up from Cambridge, Massachusetts to lower his costs and raise his family. He has become an important civic booster and philanthropist in Redlands.
Holland, Michigan
But the books analysis come frustratingly close to understanding the key dynamic for urban revitalization, without exactly getting it. Really understanding local social and economic renewal requires a more granular view; an understanding of the unique particularities of particular communities. The thing that draws people back to (or just to) these smaller cities and towns is their sense of place. The essential element of social and economic revitalization is to make a town a safe, interesting, vital place to live. That is what comes first. Each of the Fallows’ success stories leveraged their history, physical and social assets and natural surroundings to draw people to them. Sioux Falls, South Dakota is a great example. The Fallows cite it as attractive to people in the region because it is big enough to provide urban amenities, but small enough to offer a small town feel and sense of safety. It works because its institutions of higher education and medicine that serve the region draw doctors and professors, but also bankers and attorneys. Residents say that the size of Sioux Falls is “just right.”
Erie, PA
Maybe it is because the Fallows didn’t spend enough time in any one community that they missed or don’t clearly articulate the importance of “place.” But, I don’t think that’s it. My sense is they came at their journey with an intellectual framework and ideological predispositions that make sense among the analysts and policy makers in Washington, D.C. There is a focus on job training programs, innovative magnet schools and successful tech businesses. They comment upon, but don’t make central, the importance of a community’s public spaces, quality of its downtown architecture and local cultural institutions. They discuss the impact of art on community revitalization, but, like most Americans, would much rather be at baseball game or walking in the woods. Their exposure to culture is almost entirely to pop culture. They don’t understand that the arts’ contribution to a community isn’t just about creating attractive sculptures and murals downtown, or nice looking jewelry at a local crafts fair – but goes to the central identify of what a city is and who the people are who choose to live there. It is more than just the local craft beer brewpub (one of their stops in each location). Artists create the social fabric that makes a community desirable to live in. Not only does having a high quality symphony orchestra provide opportunities to hear both Beethoven and, perhaps, the latest work of a local composer, but also those musicians live in the community. They give lessons to local kids. They play chamber music in community churches. Perhaps most importantly, they bring their perspective as artists to the local common weal – and a focus on education and culture.
Greenville, SC
The Fallows play an important part in the placemaking ecosystem from their platform at the Atlantic and in their other speaking and writing. They are greatly contributing and drawing people to the ideas around placemaking and civic re-engagement. “Our Towns” provides lots of great evidence of improving communities beyond the big cities of the coasts, and encouragement to those places that are beginning the process, or are in the middle of revitalization. In any event, it sure is cool to have your own plane and the time to be able to explore this great and beautiful country in it.