Digital intermediation could help offer this kind of access to what Zacka calls “the lively and diverse intermingling of strangers in the public arena” and what the urban planner Jane Jacobs described as the “great and exuberant richness of differences and possibilities, many of these unique and unpredictable—and all the more valuable because they ... See more

ON LIBRARIESI was visiting public libraries and ultimately writing my dissertation about them and realizing it’s not about people engaging with kind of romanticized documents. There is some of that in the library, but it’s also compromised bodies interacting with compromised bodies, often the most marginalized people in societies and also really be... See more

The challenges of many small towns in the US have been well documented, in some cases being nothing less than a fight for survival. Leckey commonly hears that the need for affordable housing, broadband internet, day care, and economic development, as well as the toll of the opioid crisis, are among the key struggles facing small communities. But he... See more