Will Allen started a food revolution in creating new urban farmers across the country. State of the Re:Union explores one of those farms in Milwaukee called Sweet Water Organics. Check out their incredible process that utilizes aquaponics and hydroponics, as well as their philosophy on taking another step to fighting the phenomena known as food deserts.

For more information on Will Allen’s Growing Power, Sweet Water Organics or our Milwaukee episode, visit our Milwaukee page!

Have a story of urban farming or how food availability has impacted your community? We would really like to hear what you have to say in the comments below.

For the first episode of our new season of shows, we spent the third week of June in the Española Valley of New Mexico, a place none of us had been to before.  It was truly eye-opening and exciting to spend time with farmers, santeros, mechanics, therapists, professors, oral historians, addicts, cashiers, musicians and poets…

The reason we ventured southwest-ward in the first place was because of water.  Specifically the way in which the people of the valley, for well over 400 years, have thought about, shared and used water.  In New Mexico, there are more than 1,000 acequias, which are not only man-made irrigation ditches, but also an entire culture and decentralized democracy in and of themselves. (more…)

Hello, Fellow Re:Union-Goers

A few weeks ago Brenton, our marvelous multimedia maker, told me about this outstanding idea he had. Now, Brenton’s an idea man through-and-through. When he’s not brainstorming ways to capture that elusive SOTRU story through the creative use of media, he’s strategizing effective ways to involve our audience and encourage them to tell stories about their communities. So, a clever concept from his area of the office is nothing new. But his plan for The My Community in One Picture Project, well this idea is absolutely genius. (more…)

Whether by default or design, all of us on the SOTRU team are gradually becoming city experts. With each fresh location we go to, we accumulate new perspectives on how different places are approaching a frequently overlapping set of challenges, be it how to stem a rise in crime or reverse a loss of jobs, halt a wave of foreclosures or repair an urban infrastructure that’s seen better days.  What if to solve some of these problems we turned not to the usual handful of urban planners and economic development honchos… but to a group of physicists? (more…)

Catching State of the Re:Union is now as simple as clicking “Subscribe” in your iTunes. That’s right, take us with you on long trips, for a jog, we even sound good pumping through the speakers at the club! Both an audio and video feed are available. May we suggest subscribing to both? Our audio feed includes all of our radio episodes and will include some extra audio podcasts created for our website. The video feed features Al’s podcasts, Sounds of the Re:Union and some of the slideshows and additional media that we’ve created. Thanks for listening and watching!

Click Here to Subscribe to Our Audio Feed

Click Here to Subscribe to Our Video Feed

One of our underlying intentions in everything we produce is to spark conversation. We would love to hear your thoughts on our shows and the stories that were part of them. Each of our episodes not only has a dedicated page filled with the full radio episode, the episode in segments, a video documentary, podcasts, images and staff blog posts, but a place to discuss the radio show. Whether it’s praise, criticism, suggestions, an insider perspective, we want to hear it. Put your thoughts in the “Leave a Reply” section on the page of the episode you want to discuss (links below). So go ahead and take the next bold step in kicking off the conversation!

Discuss Brooklyn – Change Happens

Discuss Greensburg – To the Stars through Difficulties

Discuss Milwaukee – City of Vision

Discuss New Orleans – The Big Easy

Discuss Oakridge – A Work in Progress

Thanks, we look forward to hearing from you.

Listen to the episode and check out our video documentary, podcasts, images and articles on New Orleans!

If you’ve listened to our NOLA episode, we want to hear from you. Please tell us what you liked, what you didn’t like and what you thought we could have done differently. The SOTRU team appreciates your feedback!

Listen to the episode and check out our video docs, podcasts, images and articles about Oakridge!

If you’ve listened to our Oakridge episode, we want to hear from you. Please tell us what you liked, what you didn’t like and what you thought we could have done differently. The SOTRU team appreciates your feedback!

Listen to the episode and check out our video documentary, podcasts, images and articles from Milwaukee!

If you’ve listened to our Milwaukee episode, we want to hear from you. Please tell us what you liked, what you didn’t like and what you thought we could have done differently. The SOTRU team appreciates your feedback!

The foliage is in bloom and spirits are high because spring is here! And that means that State of the Re:Union is ready to release its first five episodes. Al and team visited some truly amazing cities and towns and captured compelling stories of these communities and their inspiring residents. (more…)

Haven’t had the chance to listen to episodes from last season or our Black History Month special? What could be better than listening now? Get a cozy chair and your favorite snack and prepare to visit the following areas—in the meaningful, unique and stylish way that only Al Letson and the State of the Re:Union team can take you. (more…)

If it bleeds it leads.

That was pretty much the mantra in news media. I worked for a TV station in Miami many moons ago, producing local newscasts. TV news is an interesting beast. It’s a furious scramble to get the breaking news on first before your competition, where death and destruction take up a majority of your newscast and where there’s a buzz in the newsroom because of the “good pictures” the chopper got while over the scene of some fatal car crash. (more…)