Townward Field Notes

Field Notes

Essays and observations on place, hospitality, and the slow work of making towns more fully themselves.

Against Kitsch: How a Town Grows Without Becoming a Costume

Kitsch is placelessness in costume. How a town can be discovered and grow without dissolving into the long bypass of identical pretty places.

Appalachian gateway towns sit on a kind of inherited wealth most of them never claim. A look at the economics of the front door.

René Girard's idea that we want what we see others wanting, and what it teaches a town about becoming a place people actually choose.

Free for communities

The Stayover Test, seven reasons visitors leave your town too early.