Michelle Wilde Anderson Wins the 2023 Zócalo Book Prize

The Fight to Save the Town Highlights the Work of Sewing Society Back Together

Michelle Wilde Anderson is the winner of the 2023 Zócalo Public Square Book Prize for The Fight to Save the Town: Reimagining Discarded America.

Zócalo awards the $10,000 prize annually to the nonfiction book that most enhances our understanding of community and the forces that strengthen or undermine human connectedness and social cohesion. Our 12 previous winners—a mix of distinguished historians, social scientists, journalists, and public thinkers—include Michael Ignatieff, Sherry Turkle, Jia Lynn Yang, and, most recently, Heather McGhee. Anderson is a professor of property, local government, and environmental justice at …

Interview by Sarah Rothbard | March 29, 2023

Why Won’t Policymakers Talk More About Drugs and Homelessness?

A Strict ‘Housing First’ Approach Oversimplifies the Complexity of a West Coast Epidemic

by Jim Hinch | May 23, 2022

More than half of America’s unsheltered population lives in just three states—California, Oregon, and Washington—and West Coast voters are demanding a response. Homelessness ranked as the top concern in a …

The Long, Violent 1962 Storm That Inspired the Environmental Movement

100 MPH Winds Killed Millions of Trees in the Pacific Northwest, Changing Its Forests Forever

by John Dodge | June 6, 2019

The Columbus Day Storm of 1962 was the largest, most violent windstorm in the recorded history of the West Coast. Starting on October 12, it swept from Northern California …

The State of Jefferson

by Erica Goss | March 15, 2019

Trucks shuffle in the slow lane.
Mt. Shasta’s a crazy white cone.
I drive as fast as I dare.
Car my shelter, my tiny house
of spiders’ nests and trash. …

Here Are Two Voting Reforms That Could Counter America’s Hyperpolarization

When Used Together, 'Ranked Choice' and 'Top Two' Elections Would Strengthen Major Parties and Favor Moderate Politicians

by John Gastil | August 1, 2018

Political polarization has spread across the globe. The ensuing ideological purity might make each warring faction appear stronger, but in reality, hyperpolarization weakens parties by making them less appealing to …

I Miss the Old Nuisances Of Voting

Oregon Has Us Vote By Mail, and It’s Much Easier. Sadly.

by Wendy Willis | November 1, 2012

Let me start by saying this: I am a Catholic. As an adult, I converted to Catholicism—despite my hostility to the institutional Church as a protector of power and patriarchy—for …

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