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Articles About A Small American City
Duncan Crary talks about his newly-launched podcast
The Record, Troy, NY
January 03, 2013
TROY — Duncan Crary sits down at Finnbar’s with a pint of Guinness to discuss his newly launched podcast “A Small American City.” Even though it is 11 a.m. on New Years’ Eve, the scene is really just a metaphor of what his podcast is all about.
Crary’s new podcast features conversations with Troy notables; in the first three episodes, he chats with James Kunstler, Jack Casey and Peter Albrecht…
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A Small American City
All Over Albany, Albany, NY
January 04, 2013
There are currently three episodes available, and the main part of each is an interview. Our favorite of the three was the interview with local author Jack Casey. (He tells a good story about the time a judge asked him if he was going to stop being an asshole.)
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Bringing Troy to the world
Times Union (Places and Spaces blog), Albany, NY
January 08, 2013
“A lot of Americans only think of giant metropolitan areas like New York as ‘The city.’ But our smaller cities were once very vibrant urban centers, built at a rewarding human scale, and I believe they will be that way again as events unfold. It’s not just the number of people or the concentration of buildings that make a city. It’s also the quality of characters that enliven the place.”
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A Small American City
American Oikos, Des Moines, Iowa
January 12, 2013
No offense to Troy, but I’ve never thought much of it. I wouldn’t expect the average Trojan to have put much thought into Des Moines, either. I wouldn’t listen to a podcast from the Troy Chamber of Commerce telling me the selling points of the city every week, but Crary’s podcast uses Troy as a template to discuss broader issues of sustainability, urban planning, community life and localism.
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Size doesn’t matter: Character makes urban living, host says
Better! Cities & Towns, Ithaca, N.Y.
January 29, 2013
Troy, New York, a city of 50,000 people on the Hudson River, is growing again after a half century of decline. Internet radio host Duncan Crary, whom many urbanists know from his four-year hosting of The KustlerCast, thinks cities like Troy have a bright future.
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Episode #56 // So Much Magic
The Extraenvironmentalist, Ontario, Canada.
Feb. 12, 2013
Duncan Crary tells us about his years of podcasting on the Kunstlercast and his new podcast A Small American City. Duncan tells us about life on the inland waterways of New York and about pioneering a new American way of life in the small towns abandoned over the second half of the 20th century.
Localist Goes Home!
Solidarity Hall
Feb. 13, 2013
The talented Duncan Crary, whose Kunstlercast made him for the last few years a patient Boswell to the irascible James Howard Kunstler’s Johnson, has done what many would-be localists find difficult: he’s up and moved back home. And admirably so. His new website-with-podcast is not a bunker in which he plans to wait out the Long Emergency JHK has written of. Rather, it’s a celebration of the smalltown life and characterful characters he knows in Troy, a city on a human scale, pop. 50,000.
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A Small American Village
The Studio Stoop
Feb. 17 2013
This is a poignant portrait of what can and should be. Many people profess the belief that it takes a village to raise a child, but this endearing family has shown what it really means. As I was listening I couldn’t help but imagine, even long for, such a life for myself and my family.
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Talking Troy
Hudson Valley Magazine, Poughkeepsie, N.Y.
Feb. 19, 2013
His goal is to inspire people around the U.S. to think about their living arrangements and interactions with their fellow man. “I want other small cities to hear what’s going on in Troy and emulate it,” he says. “One of Troy’s claims to fame is that it’s the hometown of the man who was Uncle Sam. It’s fitting that I’m using the place where the personification of the United States came from as the model of the small American city.”
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Full circle after three generations
All Over Albany, Albany, N.Y.
Feb. 21 2013
In the latest episode of Duncan Crary’s A Small American City podcast, William Kennedy talks about growing up in North Albany, how the city changed, how his family ended up in the suburbs — and about his grandkids living in… a city.
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Review: A Small American City (new podcast series by Duncan Crary)
Resilience.org
Feb. 28 2013
Radio has a rather special character as a performance medium: it is intimate, immediate, wonderfully expressive and quaintly old-fashioned. As such, it’s a perfect fit for a show extolling the bygone virtues of small-city life. Crary wholly understands these potentialities of radio and uses them well.
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Small town charms
Planning Magazine, Chicago, Ill.
March 2013
See Troy, New York, through the eyes of a fan (and transplant). Duncan Crary, producer and host of a podcast series called “A Small American City,” says his goal is to introduce his audience to the benefits and daily rhythms of small city living, using this old industrial center as a template. His guests include social critic James Howard Kunstler, who is also a resident of Upstate New York. To listen, visit: http://asmallamericancity.com.
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An Urban Ubringing
Home-grown podcast extolling virtues of small city life, features one Troy’s family’s take on raising kids in a metro setting
Capital District Parent Pages, Delmar, N.Y.
May 2013
One of the main reasons young professionals leave cities or opt to not raise families there is because they believe the environment, urban schools and overall conditions are not good. Troy resident Duncan Crary battles this believe in episodes of his third original podcast series “A Small American City,” which attempts to “re-acquaint listeners around the world with the concept of small city living.”
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Troy needs to swing downtown playground
Chris Churchill, The Advocate
Times Union, Albany, N.Y.
June 13 2013
If you want to hear more about the Kennedys’ experience in Troy, including what Brendan Kennedy’s famous father, William Kennedy, thinks of their decision to live there, then go online for the excellent “A Small American City” podcast, which tells stories of Troy.
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The KunstlerCast: How One Podcast Becomes Two
James A. Brown
The Evening Paper
August 30, 2013
A Small American City exists in the vein of This American Life, an anthology of stories of resurgence in Crary’s corner of the rustbelt. City’s stories are centered on his beloved adopted hometown of Troy, New York. Troy is nestled in the shadow of Albany, New York. A favorite among these episodes is The Night Jack Quit Drinking. In Drinking, bohemian novelist Jack Casey describes how battle with booze, led him to go to law school and eventually become a New York State Parliamentarian. A Small American City episodes are sporadic, only 8 have been released since its premiere.
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Troy Story: Renovations and Entrepreneurial Spirit turn Troy into Ideal Urban Center: An American Brigadoon in Upstate New York
Word From the Workshop
February 25, 2014
Crary depicts Troy as a place that is organically drawing people out of the dislocated suburbs and into a more relevant urban fabric. His podcast conversations with New Urbanist and Saratogian James Kunstler on urban design and Troy have gained him international following. Crary launched a new series of essays and podcasts “A Small American City” that focus on Troy as an urban organism, a walk-able, living city–”an American brigadoon.” Crary’s lyrical tellings on Troy are both convincing and inspiring. The Enjoy Troy campaign was launched in the same authentic grassroots spirit by other Troy residents.
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