From TNR, is California finished? John Judis investigates. Despite its woes, California's Dream still lives. From Texas Observer, the Pecos Insurrection: How a private prison pushed immigrant inmates to the brink. Don Yarborough’s Texas: It was an era when segregation and civil rights were still issues and liberals had a base from which to run — that Texas is gone. From Guernica, a suburban high school student finds love (sort of) when his sleepy Louisiana town — and his plans to rob the grave of Adolf Hitler’s horse — gets rained on by Hurricane Katrina (and more). Tales of Two Cities: What Chicago and Charlotte say about the future of America. A review of Hope and Despair in the American City by Gerald Grant. A radical plan to transform Detroit from a fast-shrinking post-industrial wasteland into the world's largest urban farm is pitting entrepreneurs against inner-city activists. Writers from around the country provide snapshots of their local economies: To make downtown Detroit a thriving destination again, restaurateurs have found only by working together will it happen; in Atlanta, G.M. left a plant to rot not sell — this sort of nonsense is why most car buyers are abandoning their old brand loyalties; more matter, with less art: How a New York City gallery crashed with the Wall Street banks; and most of Iowa city folk don’t realize how closely connected the economic fates of farmers and non-farmers, residents of the same state, really are. A review of Hollowing Out the Middle: The Rural Brain Drain and What it Means for America by Patrick J. Carr and Maria J. Kefalas (and more and more).