Wichita and the Road Ahead
By Russell Arben Fox, In media res
But I can think of other ways, more genuinely and democratically empowering ways, that the city leaders could spend money that might make even more people happy, in the long run. Here's hoping they can start seeing them (and that we will know how to help them do so!).
The Invaluable Inefficiency of Neighborhoods
By Russell Arben Fox, Strong Towns
Note that “neighborhoods” are not necessarily “communities.” Community feeling and friendships can obviously exist among neighbors, but they don’t have to: what really matters to a neighborhood is proximity.
Power, Friendship, and some Democratic “Rules”
By Russell Arben Fox, In media res
For those tired of the fake news and play hate, who are convinced by Austin and their own better natures that accomplishing something better is actually still possible within the American system, Hersh provides a new, detailed, 21st-century appropriate set of adaptable "rules" for us all, radicals or otherwise.
The Localist Theory of Charles Marohn’s Wonderfully Practical Strong Towns
By Russell Arben Fox, In media res
In fact, Strong Towns is one of those rare books (Wendell Berry's classic The Unsettling of America: Culture & Agriculture is another) whose argument itself exemplifies what it advocates for: it builds towards a challenge to the whole way we conceive of its chosen focus by beginning with the most local and particular relevant matters possible.
Local Socialism and Civil Society
By Russell Arben Fox, In media res
Democratic socialism is, I think, at least potentially compatible with, and perhaps even capable of drawing strength from, the small towns and churches of U.S. society.
Bringing Wendell Berry (and Business) to Sterling
By Russell Arben Fox, In media res
Well, however one construes it, keeping in mind that rebuilding a sense of place will probably also mean rebuilding a sense of mutual obligation between different types of places is an important lesson, I think.
American Conservatism, and the Socialist Specter which Haunts it Still
By Russell Arben Fox, In media res
Socialism is the bogeyman that conservatives of all stripes find easy to associate with all that distorts or corrupts those thinks they, in theory at least, hold most dear: namely, civil society, and the goods which social interactions in and through one's community, church, and family make possible.
What Urban Liberals Might Learn from Rural Rebels
By Russell Arben Fox, In media res
Years of research in rural communities have convinced Ashwood--and she makes a convincing case--that the greatest enemy of rural America is what she calls "for-profit democracy."