Chad Aaron Hall

The first step is to decide what to work on. The work you choose needs to have three qualities: it has to be something you have a natural aptitude for, that you have a deep interest in, and that offers scope to do great work.

As I talk to people about my city, they tend to want simple, practical work done to make life better. But our leadership and many activist groups instead seem to be obsessed with big, utopian ideas, policies, and projects. Those big ideas might captivate the imagination, especially of the young, but the overall track record is they nearly always... See more

The more rural areas are hollowing out the middle of the workforce. They contain lower percentages of people in the prime working ages of 25 to 54 because of persistent outmigration.

Others define the population losses in terms of widespread declines in demand for middle skill jobs due to automation and outsourcing in manufacturing, as well as... See more

"If you have a substantially similar license and are in good standing in another state, there's no reason you shouldn't have a license on day one in New Hampshire," Sununu said. "We are committed to breaking down regulatory barriers, lowering the cost of entry to do business here, increasing free-market competition."

When I first met the Brunch Bunch, in June of 2007, one of the women showed me a roster of all of the families who had moved out of town. She said those people could no longer afford to stay, because wealthy urbanites’ holiday homes had driven up property taxes.