Probably My Best Work. And the Hardest.

(A reflection from my new book: The Local Economy Revolution Has Arrived)

🧠❤️ One of the great challenges of this moment—this messy transition between old systems and whatever comes next—is learning how to reintegrate the intellect and the heart.

We are very good at talking about:
🏗️ tax incentives
📊 finance structures
🚗 parking ratios

And far less practiced at answering the deeper question:
Why does any of this actually matter—to us, to our families, to the places that shaped us?

The postlude of The Local Economy Revolution Has Arrived is my attempt to answer that question.
It may be the best thing I’ve ever written.
It was certainly the hardest.

👻 Walking with ghosts

This piece moves through Rust Belt towns, family histories, half-abandoned buildings, fading churches, old bridges, and deeply personal reckonings I would rather have avoided.

It forced me to revisit:
🏠 the hometown I left and never really returned to
🧱 the physical signs of decline we pretend not to see
💔 the quiet grief that comes from loving places—and people—that are imperfect and hurting

It’s not nostalgia.
It’s not policy.
It’s not optimism cosplay.

It’s about why people keep showing up anyway.

🎻 A violin in the void

Why do people open businesses where the market “doesn’t make sense”?
Why do artists hang lights under old bridges?
Why do community builders fight year after year for places the world has written off?

Because doing the work says something simple and radical:

👉 This place matters.
👉 Someone loves it.
👉 And that makes it okay for others to love it too.

Even when it’s potholed.
Even when it’s grieving.
Even when the outcome is uncertain.

Especially then.

🖕 Fuck mutability

The postlude could also be titled “Fuck Mutability.”
Fair warning.

It’s about flipping the bird at inevitability.
At decline-as-destiny.
At the quiet cultural agreement that some places—and some people—are disposable.

Revitalization doesn’t deny reality.
It insists that something here is worth caring about anyway.

And sometimes, that insistence is the whole point.

📣 If this speaks to you…

If you care about place, community, local economies, or the emotional side of systems change:

📚 Buy the book
The Local Economy Revolution Has Arrived
Available on Gumroad, Lulu, and Amazon

📬 Subscribe
Future Here Now / Wise Fool Substack — thoughtful, low-cost essays on how local economies are actually evolving

🎤 Bring us in
We work with cities, organizations, funders, and leaders through speaking, workshops, and facilitated conversationsabout the future of place, economy, and community courage

✨ This work isn’t just technical.
✨ It’s moral. Emotional. Human.
✨ It’s about choosing to love places despite knowing better.

To everyone out there still doing the hard work of caring for their place:
Go get ’em. And thank you.

#LocalEconomy #PlaceMatters #CommunityRevitalization #FutureHereNow #LoveYourPlace