***NATIONAL BEST SELLER***For five years, James and Deborah Fallows have travelled across America in a single-engine prop airplane. Visiting dozens of towns, the America they saw is acutely conscious of its problems-from economic dislocation to the opioid scourge-but it is also crafting solutions, with a practical-minded determination at dramatic odds with the bitter paralysis of national politics. At times of dysfunction on a national level, reform possibilities have often arisen from the local level. The Fallowses describe America in the middle of one of these creative waves. Their view of the country is as complex and contradictory as America itself, but it also reflects the energy, the generosity and compassion, the dreams, and the determination of many who are in the midst of making things better. Our Towns is the story of their journey-and an account of a country busy remaking itself.

Authors’ Note Introduction: 2017: A Last Trip West 2013Sioux Falls, South Dakota Rapid City, South Dakota Holland, Michigan Burlington, Vermont Eastport, Maine 2014Greenville, South Carolina St. Marys, Georgia Columbus, Mississippi Caddo Lake, Louisiana-Texas In the Air Columbus, Ohio Louisville, Kentucky Allentown, Pennsylvania In the Air Duluth, Minnesota Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Charleston, West Virginia 2015In the Air Guymon, Oklahoma Ajo, Arizona San Bernardino, California Riverside, California Redlands, California Fresno, California Winters, California Bend, Oregon Redmond and Prineville, Oregon Chester, Montana The American Prairie Reserve, Montana 2016Dodge City, Kansas Garden City and Spearville, Kansas Erie, Pennsylvania What We Saw and What We Learned 10½ Signs of Civic Success Afterword Acknowledgments