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April 3, 2018: Early in March, President Trump boasted that in a potential trade war between the U.S. and China, the U.S. would easily prevail. This statement came just a couple of weeks before announcing that he would impose tariffs on steel and aluminum imports and on potentially an estimated $60 billion worth of Chinese goods, sparking fears of retaliation. On Monday, investors’ anxieties were realized in a financial riposte from China. The Takeaway reviews China’s retaliatory tariffs of up to 25 percent on 128 American-made goods ranging from wine and pork to steel piping, scrap aluminum and an assortment of fruit and nut products. Plus, we examine “matrescence,” the period of newfound maternity for women who have just given birth; the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., 50 years ago; and how urban environments can thrive through city-based evolutionary advantages.
December 26, 2016: From the social and economic progress to innovations in clean energy and beyond, cities are the laboratory of how we live.
Rebroadcast: Over 85 percent of the world’s population will likely live in a city by the end of the century. In this special podcast, we’re exploring what the urban centers of the future will look like.
June 23, 2016: Over 85 percent of the world’s population will likely live in a city by the end of the century. In this special podcast, we’re exploring what the urban centers of the future will look like.
Click on the audio player above to hear the full interview.
What makes a city a success? As it turns out, there are a few secret ingredients.
That’s according to author James Fallows, national correspondent for The Atlantic. Over the course of three years, Fallows set out on a 54,000-mile journey with his wife Deborah, a linguist and author, to survey the American heartland.
Traveling by a single-engine plane all across the country, the Fallows found a number of traits that make for happy, healthy, and prosperous communities.
Divisive national politics seem to be a distant concern.
In the course of their reporting, Deborah and Jim found that the locals they spoke to were not very interested in national politics.
“What people were really interested in talking about was their town, and the problems they were looking at and how they were solving them,” Deborah says. “It was clear to us from the get-go that these were towns where people were working together.”
By pushing aside the heated partisan rhetoric that comes with national politics, Deborah says that communities foster a collaborative environment with the goal of solving problems. If the national dialogue was heavily present in a local community, Deborah and Jim found that divisions grew, something that made problem solving difficult.
You can pick out the local patriots.
Known community figures that are publicly invested in a town or city can make all the difference, Jim says.
“We would go into some town and start asking a newspaper editor or a high school principal, ‘Who makes this town go?’” he says. “If there were names that immediately came to mind of people who were philanthropists, high school teachers, or developers who had taken a big stake in making the downtown function, it was sign that people knew … who felt responsible for the welfare of that place.”
People know the civic story.
Whether it’s a myth or a lie, America has its “story”—an exciting tale that includes the pilgrims hitting Plymouth Rock, Lewis and Clark in the American West, immigrants coming through Ellis Island, and more.
“There are certain cities that have a similar sense of themselves so that even someone that’s just arrived recently can think, ‘OK, here is the connection between what people did 50 years ago and what I’m doing now,’” says Jim.
They have a downtown.
“After the Civil War and through the 1920s and 1930s, America built a tremendous amount of classic, main street downtown,” says Jim. “Some of it was bulldozed in the ‘50s and ‘60s, but a lot of it is still there. The towns that seem to be working best are places that are restoring this, and that’s a big thing.”
The successful cities that Jim and Deborah visited were pouring resources into their downtown areas to attract young workers and families, who are moving to cities in droves. Some 2,000 communities have seen downtown revitalization thanks to the National Trust for Historic Preservation, Jim has reported.
They are near a research university.
Research universities present “tremendous advantages” to a city or town, Jim says.
“I describe them as sort of being the equivalent of a natural port,” he says. “You have students coming from around the country, you have professors coming from around the world, and you have the real phenomenon of start-up industries being spun off from it.”
When a city can claim to have some of the best and brightest, businesses and economic activity usually follow, Jim says.
Th…
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