Tuesday, February 5, 2019

Our Towns - Criscrossing the USA



I picked this book because of a few reasons –
·      Have never read a travelogue. (Got to know about certain legendary one’s courtesy this – Mark Twain’s, John Steinbeck’s and Lewis & Clark)
·      I am interested to visit all the 50 states, and  learn and experience how USA is like. I thought while that may take sometime I might as well read about a few small towns and places (not just the touristy ones)
·      Tom Hanks endorsement




I have to admit this book was enjoyable. I liked the concept of husband-wife travelling across the US in a small single-engine propeller airplane (Cirrus SR 22). They had chronicled their journey spread across 3 years in The Atlantic posting regular updates and have compiled it all in this book. I also enjoyed the tidbits of flying/aviation interspersed throughout the book. Deb Fallows talks about how it is like to be a passenger in the cockpit and I like it.
Their travel is a 100,000-mile journey as the subtitle suggests but I do wish that the authors had visited more states – they visit only 29 towns in 19 states.



However, all these towns except for Columbus, Ohio are not heavily populated or can be called big cities – but they all have a common theme of resurrecting the fortunes of a town battered by 2008 crisis, technological disruption and bad perception. I noticed that there is a certain pattern how cities revive themselves –
·      Change the outlook of visitors by revamping the downtown
·      Create new scenic public places often by a waterfront or a river
·      Setup atleast few well-functioning innovative schools
·      Use the nearby research university/college to entice startups
·     Do not let the vicious national politics disrupt collaboration at the local level

Although the authors add one more intriguing parameter – the more craft breweries a town has, the more ambitious a city is. It is the most reliable sign of civic energy as per them.

If you were to ask me which towns I am tempted to visit after reading about them in this book – I would say Greenville, South Carolina and Burlington, Vermont.


If you do not have time to read the whole book - here are my brief impressions/remarkable things I found about each of the town listed in the book. Some towns were very interesting while for some I struggled to note even a single thing.

Sioux Falls, South Dakota
è Morrell Company – acquired by Chinese firm
è Balloon-tech industry
è Large immigrant population
è Has the only large mall which people visit from nearby towns

Rapid City, South Dakota
è Pathways Spiritual Sanctuary – a meditation place started by a local

Holland, Michigan
è Sidewalks and streets have the snowmelt system inbuilt thus making it walkable in the winters too.
è A (Padnos family) recycling company backbone of the local economy

Burlington, Vermont
è Whitest state (95%) – authors spent some time talking about it
è Large immigrant population
è Good school
è Bernie Sanders’ involvement – “what is good about the city should be enjoyed by all

Eastport, Maine
è Very low cost of living, poor population
è $100,000 buys you a 3 bedroom – 2 storyhouse
è Lots of sea-food
è Fish pens for farming fish! They grow salmon.
è Got to know of Equal Rights Amendment - a proposed amendment to the United States Constitution designed to guarantee equal legal rights for all American citizens regardless of gender. It is still a proposal and yet to be enacted.

Greenville, South Carolina
è Most walkable downtown. Model for urban planners
è Good School focusing on STEAM i.e STEM + Arts
è Michelin, BMW plants
è Bridge for pedestrians overlooking the waterfront

St. Mary’s, Georgia
è Noticeable Dialect difference – Y’all v/s You guys.
è Gilman Paper company
è U.S Navy Base drives economic activity

Columbus, Mississippi
è Well below national per capita income
è Good school
è Golden Triangle Region – Columbus, Starkville, West Point
è Indian origin person helped
è TVA megasite
è Yokohama plant

Caddo Lake, Texas
è Beautiful lake threatened by invasive plant species
è Singer helped restore it via his fame
è Caddo Lake Research Institute

Columbus, Ohio
è 15th largest city
è Financial district – with lots of financial companies located
è “Collaboration” is a buzz word in the local development
è Good school -industry collaboration
è Iconic public library saved by the public – passing of a tax bill
è Waypoint for Jerrie Mock – Jeanna Smith race (race between two female pilots to become the first to circumnavigate the world.) Waypoint means an intersection in the sky

Louisville, Kentucky
è Business model of “smaller scale – higher value – closer to customer – advanced manufacturing”
è GE’s incubator thrived here (led by Indian origin guy who later joined Starbucks)

Allentown, Pennsylvania
è Acquired a negative image through Billy Joel’s 1982 song “Allentown”
Well we’re living here in Allentown…
And they’re closing all the factories down.
è Mayor revived the town but was caught in a corruption scandal. Convicted in 2018
è Local newspaper The Morning Call pursued it. Shining example of local journalism
è Example of public subsidy for private investment (NIZ – Neighborhood Improvement Zone)
è Huge Minor League baseball stadium
è Amazon’s distribution center
è Parkette Gymnastics – where USA’s Olympic gymnasts train

Duluth, Minnesota
è Part of the Rust Belt (realized US is divided into different types of belts – Rust Belt, Corn Belt, Bible Belt, Sun Belt, Frost Belt, Snow Belt)
è Klapmeiers Brothers - aircraft industry
è Infamous 1920 lynching incident took place here

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
è City of Asylum – home to lots of people who sought asylum

Charleston, West Virginia
è Hillbilly

Guymon, Oklahoma
è Dustbowl region

Ajo, Arizona
è Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument
è Mining town
è Home of now defunct Gilpin Airlines
è Isabella Greenway – a close friend of Eleanor Roosevelt – was the most notable person
è She also started the Arizona Inn

San Bernardino, California
è Probably the only town that generates least optimism reading about it.
è Odd civic structure (Section 186) through which salaries are set by a formula which puts burden on the budget (70%) and elected officials cannot cut it down. In a town with median income of $35k – salaries in ~$62k being paid to responders who don’t even live in the town
è Local economy was built around Norton Air Base which closed in 1994

Riverside, California
è Home of California navel oranges

Redlands, California
è Esri – a big Geographic Information Systems (GIS) company HQ
è Probably visited this cause it’s the hometown of one of the authors

Fresno, California
è California High Speed rail construction starting here. Future tied with that project
è Came across as slightly better than San Bernardino (not a compliment!)

Winters, California
è Strategically located – hour to the south of wine country and 90mins west from San Fran
è Almonds
è Likeable town

Bend, Oregon
è Abundant natural beauty - Deschutes National Forest
è Local Timber and logger industry suffered from environmental regulations changes from the Clinton era
è Challenge of not having any research university nearby

Redmond and Prineville, Oregon
è Suffering from collapse of Big Timber industry
è Redmond is home to an aircraft company which builds light personal jet
è Prineville: Facebook and Apple have datacenters here because of low cost of electricity and property tax exemptions
è FB atleast donates to local community, arranges tours but Apple works behind a wall of secrecy

Chester, Montana
è Again surrounded by forests and natural beauty

American Prairie Reserve, Montana
è Buying land from private owners and taking it out of ranching is the strategy
è Migration paths of animals re-enabled to support diverse population of species, large and small
è Some locals perceive it as a “federal land grab”

Dodge City, Kansas
è Beef town
è Large diverse immigration population even though it is in one of the Reddest states.

Garden City and Spearville, Kansas
è Lots of Wind turbines as wind produced electricity doubled in the last 5 years

Erie, Pennsylvania
è Lake Erie
è Sizable portion of immigration population
è Presque Isle Bay





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