Read These Stories Instead of Watching Hillbilly Elegy
Eleven pieces on identity, community, exploitation, and resilience in Appalachia.
West Virginians Were Promised an Economic Revival. It Hasn’t Happened.
The coal industry continues to decline. Natural gas isn’t bringing the prosperity it promised. And now the pandemic has wrecked the state’s economy.
The Poisonous Legacy of Portsmouth’s Gaseous Diffusion Plant
The plant was erected in Pike County, Ohio during the cold war to enrich uranium. Then people started getting sick. Now, they're stuck cleaning up the mess.
These Trespasses
"All over McKean County, we claimed the unwanted spaces that adults had left behind."
Path Dependency (Or, Appalachia is Not Post-Industrial)
How the region's industrial history continues to shape contemporary life.
What Happened to Northeast Ohio’s ‘Chemical Shore’?
In the middle of the twentieth century, industrialists tried to rebrand the coast north of Cleveland. Like many marketing ploys, it straddled the fuzzy line between aspiration and actuality.
Stella of Tremont
By the time she was four, my grandmother had survived her first global pandemic. A lifetime later, she is weathering another.
2020 Vision: Cincinnati’s West End
More than twenty-five thousand people lost their homes so a highway could be built in my neighborhood.
Loiterers
A requiem for the small-town "hang-arounds."
Finding Refuge in Southwest Detroit
Since the early twentieth century, the area has been a safe haven for Latinx—including my family.
Watershed Politics
A Pittsburgh-area test case in working across political boundaries to address flooding.
DuPont’s Lasting Legacy in Parkersburg
The West Virginia community is left to grapple with the consequences of C8 contamination.