From The Atlantic Monthly, the boom towns and ghost towns of the new economy: New York, Houston, Washington, D.C. — plus college towns and the energy belt — are all up, while much of the Sun Belt is (still) down; Richard Florida maps the winners and losers since the crash. If New York is better than ever — and it is! It is! — why does it kind of suck? Choire Sicha wonders (and more at The Awl). Northern New England is dying: Too many communities are focused on keeping people from fleeing instead of attracting new and diverse talent. Neo-Nazi Craig Paul Cobb plans white supremacist town in North Dakota (and more). If the plan for a new state in Colorado is going to succeed, it will have to learn a few lessons from the 37 add-on states that preceded it. Tom Kenworthy on the untold story of Western ranchers and their epic battle against coal: From the Northern Plains to the Pacific Northwest, opposition is building to plans for exporting coal and increasing carbon pollution. Kings of the wild frontier: Clive Sinclair on the internal contradictions of Wild West myths. The American west is being overrun by wild horses. Half of the United States lives in these counties. Richey Piiparinen on what Detroit has really taught America. Sergio M. Marxuach on Puerto Rico vs. Detroit. What's keeping Puerto Rico in political limbo? No. 1 in wine and porn: Sommer Mathis on the idiocy of state rankings. Gus Lubin on 26 maps that show how ethnic groups are divided all over America.
