A Little More Of Something Like This

Introducing my new "American Diary" column

Readers: I’m excited to tell you that I’m starting a column over Discourse, where I’m a contributor. I’ll be writing once a month on sort of the topics I cover here but a little more broadly: place, localism, ordinary fascinating things, interesting towns and old suburbs, restaurants, country roads. My column is called American Diary, and take a look at this artwork:

Yeah, I’m looking forward to this.

Here’s my introductory column, up the other day. This is what I’ll be doing here:

Finding the joy and wonder and uniqueness in a common place, seeing the continuities through time, seeing places with fresh eyes and appreciating the history we walk by every day. G.K. Chesterton once said, “The world will never starve for want of wonders; but only for want of wonder.” I think it’s healthy, and maybe more importantly delightful, to find ordinary things interesting.

And, contrary to what you might think “urbanism” would suggest, most of the places I explore and write about are not cities. They’re suburbs and old small towns and country roads. Those are the places I’ve lived, so that’s partly why; I’m familiar with them. But I also think many of these places are every bit as culturally interesting in their own ways as the big cities. The earliest suburbs are getting old; it would be a shame if we allowed an outmoded narrative about boring, conformist bedroom communities to get in the way of seeing how many of these places have grown into themselves.

I think a lot about how what we think we’re seeing is often what we think about what we’re seeing. The world looks so different when you choose to see it differently. So much of urbanism is really psychological. Some people think we’re arrogant master-planners, but I think to be an urbanist requires a great amount of humility. And also discernment.

And I also emphasize this, contra a tone/tendency of so much online content that I really don’t like:

You can also expect me to be earnest. I don’t “unironically” think an old diner or motel or dime-a-dozen Main Street is awesome and particular and unique; I just think it’s awesome and particular and unique. I’m not subtly making fun of the things I write about, or making arguments that I don’t believe because they might convince someone I don’t agree with.

Next month, my second column, the first one on a full topic, will be out. That one will be about growing up in the orbit of old small towns, and how the suburban communities I grew up around were actually rather different from the Northern Virginia suburbs. I find that the presence of lots of old small towns imposed a sort of order on the landscape that is missing here, even though most people in both places live outside of old towns.

And after that, I’ll be writing more of this sort of thing. I’ll try to mix a couple of different themes into each column, so they’ll have a bit of a grab-bag element. I’m really thankful that I have the opportunity to write about delightful, unremarkable things, and to tell their stories.

Take a look at this photo I took during my last visit to Flemington, New Jersey:

I’m standing in the display window area of an old storefront—a Hallmark when I was a kid, then a series of antique shops, but apparently, back in the day, the town’s department store—looking at the giant crane on Main Street lifting construction materials into the site of the town’s big project, restoring the facade of the historic Union Hotel and building a new hotel, apartment building, parking garage, and public plaza. The only limit to what’s in this picture is what you know and what you’re willing to see.

So here’s to American Diary!

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Related Reading:

Roadside Delight

An Embryonic City

Down On The Corner

Iconic Hometown Restaurant, Obsolete Dining Concept?

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