Moving to a new city is like walking into a party where you don’t know anyone. You’re secretly hoping everyone’s going to fight each other for dibs on being your new best friend, and when that doesn’t happen (because does that ever happen?) you end up hovering near the metaphorical hors d’oeuvres table, wishing someone would please acknowledge your existence. … Read More
The #1 Thing You Can Do to Help Your Town Thrive
Add this to the list of things you probably already know: Volunteering is good for you. Like, seriously good for you. Various studies have shown that spending as little as an hour a week volunteering can: Increase your well-being, making you more satisfied with everything about your life: your finances, your health, your accomplishments, your relationships. Basically it gives you … Read More
The Power of Small in Charleston
The highway overpass that funnels vacationers like me toward the high-end shops and million-dollar mansions of downtown Charleston, South Carolina, soars a hundred feet above a very different kind of neighborhood, a part of the city known as the Upper Peninsula. The homes here are small, interspersed among warehouses and union halls, and lived in primarily by low-income, African-American Charlestonians. … Read More
This may be the first time a video for an app made me tear up.
Vamonde – 'Every Story Has a Place' from Philip Giancola on Vimeo. Vamonde is a new iOS app inspired by the age-old question, “What happened here?” This is a way to make the walls talk. Download guided tours through the history of a 100-year-old theater, or the architecture of a particular neighorhood, or the food of an entire city, mostly … Read More
How 800 residents of Powell, Wyoming, opened a store together
In 2002, when the last clothing store shut down in the ranching town of Powell, Wyoming, the 5,300 residents feared for the future of their Main Street, which was already disintegrating into a gap-toothed ghost town of shuttered storefronts and struggling shops. A Super Walmart had just passed them up for nearby Cody; wouldn’t everyone drive over there for their … Read More