After Hurricane Katrina ravaged the area, Mississippi Gulf Coast residents were forced to come together to deal with the aftermath. Then, just as they were starting to get back on their feet, the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster dumped millions of barrels of oil into the water just off their shores. Cumulatively, these events have made environmentalists out of a whole lot of Gulf Coast residents who may not have considered themselves as such… We tell an hour of stories about the fight for the natural world Gulf Coast bringing residents together, both with one another and with unlikely partners—and how, in some instances, that fight is turning out to be exactly what a community needed to survive. We would love to hear what you think about our newest episode, Defending the Gulf. Simply comment below to get the conversation started.

Refugees, entrepreneurs, visionaries—these are the historic roots of Oakland, California. The city has long been home for people building new lives and imagining even better ones. But dreams deferred also haunt this place, in its empty post-boom skyscrapers, its infamous homicide rates and deep budget cuts. In the face of entrenched problems, though, the people of Oakland characteristically answer back with diverse, revolutionary solutions. We would love to hear what you think about our newest episode, Oakland – The Self-Made City. Go ahead, give us what you got! Simply comment below to get the conversation started.

These days, two versions of Las Vegas occupy the public imagination. One is of Sin City, home to The Strip, to glitter and entertainment. The other is as a dramatic victim of the recent economic recession, a city where whole neighborhoods have been foreclosed upon, where the jobless rate shot up to double digits, where massive casino and hotel constructions were suspended, leaving hulking ghosts to remind residents of the boom times. We would love to hear what you think about our newest episode, Las Vegas – Bright Lights, Big City, Small Town. Go ahead, give us what you got! Simply comment below to get the conversation started.

Famous for its beaches and clubs, Miami is also the 3rd poorest city in the nation. If you own a store in South Beach, your customers are equally likely to be billionaires or homeless people . . . and likely to have started life somewhere else. Although Miami is an incredibly international city—instead of working towards assimilation and blending with one another, ethnic communities exist as a patchwork, remaining like isolated microcosms of their homeland. We would love to hear what you think about our newest episode, Miami – Bridging the Divide. Go ahead, give us what you got! Simply comment below to get the conversation started.

A couple of decades ago, Utica, New York, was dying, by even its residents diagnosis: a popular bumper sticker in the ‘90s read “Last One Out of Utica, Please Turn Out the Lights.” Once a bustling textile city perched on edge of the Erie Canal, Utica lost its mills in the mid-20th century, and has been losing population ever since. But something has changed in recent years, with a surprising influx of refugees to this part of snowy, cold upstate New York—the newcomers have given Utica hope for second chance. We would love to hear what you think about our newest episode, Utica – City with a Warm Heart. Go ahead, give us what you got! Simply comment below to get the conversation started.

Birmingham is a place that can’t escape its history—especially the painful parts. Almost fifty years later after the tragedies and triumphs of the civil rights era, Birmingham is still a community trying to put itself back together. Some have started trying to unearth the city’s past and face it. To do that, people are looking beyond the civil rights era: from slavery to vaudeville, and from Birmingham as a steel town to its post-industrial future. We would love to hear what you think about our newest episode, Birmingham – The Long Story Short. Go ahead, give us what you got! Simply comment below to get the conversation started.