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 15^th 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

è Buffalo Jump

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

Crude Nation - Shows the Crude Reality

I heard of this book via John Oliver's Last Week Tonight episode on Venezuela.  And was interested to know more about the country that was increasingly making all the wrong headlines.

I found the book very helpful in giving a deep insight into how day-to-day life works in Venezuela and how does the society think. It has been in the news and the author has meticulously made his case giving a context of how things are why they are and what can be done to change it for the better.

The way Venezuela works is shocking and totally unintuitive – people and the government do not believe in saving for the future because the country heavily relies on oil money (ever since they found oil in the early 1900s). Because the government spends heavily all of the oil revenue there is high inflation which causes further incentive to not save as it eventually loses its value kept in a bank. Faced with shortages and ever-lasting price controls make matters worse - smuggling and black market. The government faced with challenges and following populist measures plunders coffers of well-run private companies – nationalizing them, filling them with loyalists, thus increasing payroll and making them heavily inefficient.

Day to day life is full of crazy wait in lines at shops and still failing to get basic necessities like spare car parts and even toilet paper. The book contains so many such examples giving a clear view of the life that at a point you find them repetitive. But they are basically needed to understand how things work in an economy gone wild!

The book explains the Dutch disease – a phenomenon that occurs when the success of one natural resource ruins the rest of a country’s economy. Countries like Norway have taken special care to avoid it when they found oil in the North Sea). That was a new learning!

The stark call out in the book was that due to rampant corruption

“…Venezuelans wanted a firm hand that would upend the rotten state of things…… Venezuelans lack enough formal education to achieve abstract thinking. Most of them are susceptible to emotions not rational thoughts when it comes to politics.”  

Sounds like a vicious circle - deny the public opportunities to learn, know better and then play to the gallery. The general public’s view of money and governance is heavily distorted, out of touch than the whole world. They view government’s duties to be as a favor to them and are heavily used to populist measures.

The author calls out well-functioned oil-based economies who have created Sovereign Wealth Funds to diversify and invest for the future as an example. But looking at the present state of affairs it looks unlikely to happen unless there is a sudden painful event. Also, when I picked up the book I hoped it may provide an answer if the “socialist” policies led to its present dismal state but it doesn’t talk about it. You may have to draw your own conclusions.