Cities on the Plain

“Don’t laugh.” It’s the very first paragraph, and Catherine Tumber is already worried that we won’t take her seriously. She has good reason, since the thesis of her new book is that small Rust Belt cities can help all of us turn green.

It’s a bold and hopeful thesis, but also a tough sell. After all, as Tumber notes at the outset of Small, Gritty, and Green, debates about urban issues have long been dominated by big-city people who tend to disparage or ignore the dull, diminutive towns scattered across “flyover country.” H. L. Mencken, the master of the “cosmopolitan sneer” in Tumber’s view,

print Sept/Oct/Nov 2007

It Takes a Crisis

Why do so many nations have economic policies more laissezfaire and social programs less generous than their citizens prefer? In her explosive counterhistory of global capitalism, against the glib accounts offered by mainstream economists and celebrity journalists, Naomi Klein argues that the answer lies in a simple two-step strategy, honed over three decades by an international cabal of freemarket fundamentalists: First, exploit crises—whether due to economics, politics, or natural disasters––to advance an agenda that would never survive the democratic process during ordinary times. Next,