Elias Crim is the editor/publisher at Solidarity Hall and is working on a book about the utopian imagination.
Elias Crim
Articles by Elias Crim
Is Strong Towns “Right-Libertarianism Dressed in Progressive Garb”?
"Keep doing what you can to build strong towns": that's the motto of Strong Towns, a citizen-driven, localism-minded urbanist group now over 1,000 members nationwide and beyond. But a recent…
A Good Party: A Review of Breaking Ground
A Good Party, Tara Isabella Burton suggests, is “a place where bonds of friendship, fostered in a spirit of both charity and joy, serve as the building blocks for communal…
“We Hide behind the Tomatoes”: A Review of On Common Ground
Community Land Trusts, at their best, are less about development and more about stewardship, creating just places for the long-term. CLTs are thus the ultimate preservationists, the developer/landowner who never…
Dedication: In Praise of the Long-Haulers
Pete Davis lauds the “long-haulers,” people who long ago ignored the chorus which urges our younger people to “keep your options open,” and to keep building up for your Main…
“Blackest Land, Whitest People”
From here in my long-time Midwestern location, these lots are unshakeable reminders of a place in Texas where a shameful darkness once surrounded a part of my childhood.
Found: The Perfect FPR Presidential Candidate!
Over the last several years, our little band over at Solidarity Hall—myself, Susannah Black, Mark Gordon, Matt Cooper, Grace Potts, and a few more—have entertained ourselves by watching various Facebook political…
G.K. Chesterton in 1000 Words
I once knew a woman who met Chesterton. It was a brief meeting in the 1920s when she was a girl of about ten or so. Her older sister invited…
What I Saw at the High School Speech Meet
Here in northwest Indiana, I agreed to be a judge for a recent regional speech meet, partly because our middle daughter was a contestant herself and partly because I love…
Of “That Great Furnace, the Heart of Dickens”
A perennial question in this season: which version of Dickens’ Christmas Carol to watch? Somehow I can’t seem to muster much interest in any of them but one. After viewing…
“There Was Also Much Singing”: A Review of The Hound of Distributism
In his estimable history of distributism and its major figures, Jobs of Our Own, Australian economist and former MP Race Matthews records an account of the distinctive atmosphere of the…
Among the Mad Farmers: Chicago Good Food Festival and Conference
“If you’ve never worked a tradeshow booth,” a business pal once remarked to me, “you’re not a real American.” True dat. At the Good Food Festival and Conference in Chicago…
“You Ever Get Back There Any More?”
Down on the Square (as we East Texas natives refer to the downtown in Henderson, pop. 11,000), I make a visit to the backroom of the Strong-Hurt Pharmacy, site for…
The Closing of the Republican Mind (A Séance)
Lucky me, to be invited to try the beta version of Google’s newest and coolest app — Séance! After a quick download and install, I wasted no time in launching…
Paradise at Ground Zero
What I’m not expecting to hear is anyone asking how it was that about 25,000 people in the towers aided each other in an orderly evacuation, without which the casualty…
Cabrini Dreams
“You go two blocks one way, you're in public housing. You go two blocks the other way, you're at Banana Republic."