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Why Is Your Hometown Located Where It Is? [35min]

Why is Atlanta where it is? Or Phoenix? Or Mason City, Iowa? And what happens when a city or town's original justification disappears? Can it survive? Guests: Joel Kotkin, author of The City: A Global History and senior fellow at the New America Foundation; Donovan Blackburn, city manager of Pikeville, Ky.
Read entire article at NPR "Talk of the Nation"