Elias Crim

Elias Crim
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http://www.solidarityhall.org
Elias Crim is the editor/publisher at Solidarity Hall and is working on a book about the utopian imagination.

Recent Essays

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...

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 life overall.” With 52 contributors filling almost 500 pages, we’re speaking of something close to a block party, one at which we run into some familiar faces, meet a number of wonderful new people, and even glimpse a few Almost Famous People.

“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 abandons the property.

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 Chance in life, the payoff after all that meritocratic, sweaty ladder-climbing.

“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...

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...

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...

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...

“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...

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...

“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...