We drink it, we use it to clean ourselves and our dishes, and we use it for irrigation and food production.  Our survival and daily lives revolve around its use and availability.  Water is the most important resource used by individuals in the world, yet despite all its value, water pollution and conservation are overlooked [...]

A block away form northeast DC’s Union Market – a radically-remodeled culinary destination – dozens of businesses specializing in wholesale jewelry, clothing, groceries, and restaurant supplies operate from a group of run-down warehouses. The surrounding NoMA (North of Massachusetts avenue) area is becoming gentrified, but many of the bustling wholesale markets on both 4th and [...]

They call him Sabertooth. He talks over the whir of subway cars and clamoring passengers.  In his fire engine red beret and matching jacket, Marquett Milton, 21, could be mistaken for a security official. But he is an unpaid volunteer for Washington DC’s chapter of the Guardian Angels. For over two decades, this unarmed citizen [...]

In September 2012, a debate erupted in Selma, Alabama over a monument honoring Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest. Not only did the monument honor a commander of the Confederate States of America for his military victories, but it also noted Forrest’s leadership of the early Klu Klux Klan after his service in the Civil War. [...]

Just west of Shaw and south of Howard University, the tiny triangular neighborhood roughly five blocks wide and seven blocks long, colloquially known as LeDroit Park, is a place defined as being “in-between.” Occasional Lexuses, Mercedes-Benzes, and Land Rovers dot the wide, tree-lined streets, but an empty can of Schlitz malt liquor, wrapped in a [...]

A streetcar is coming to H Street Northeast late this year, but Austin Stubbs won’t be using it. “There’s absolutely no reason to get on the bus or Metro,” Stubbs said. Stubbs, 27, shapes his life and livelihood around the bicycle. The area around H Street is flat, and bike lanes plentiful, making the five-minute [...]

While carrying her reusable tote bags close to her on this windy day Eula-Mae White was not discouraged in stopping to say “hello” to passers-by as she walked down Georgia Avenue. No freezing wind that brings instant tears in her eyes would discourage her from her social obligations to chat with her neighbors that passed. [...]

Nothing much happens in Upper Dublin, Pennsylvania. It’s my hometown, a benign stretch of suburb where bored teenagers complain, grow up, and move out. On the outskirts of one of the deadliest cities in America, Upper Dublin feels like a protective bubble of affluence and sameness. Unlike Philadelphia, a city known to be dangerous, there [...]

Nestled in the southwest corner of South Dakota, the Black Hills rise out of the Great Plains like a new forest growing from its burnt ancestor. The surrounding scenery is light and dry like kindling, but the hills rise into view covered in lush dark pine trees. The ubiquitous “black” of the Black Hills is [...]

Every Sunday afternoon during spring and summer, there’s a place in the city where people get together to play drums and dance. Anyone can join, and many passers-by do, then come back again and again to become the regulars that fill up the park and create a community. Located between the neighborhoods of Adams Morgan [...]