American experiment depends on the acts of ordinary people

The article discusses six 20th-century thinkers—Jane Jacobs, E.F. Schumacher, Wendell Berry, Buckminster Fuller, John F. Kennedy, and Martin Luther King Jr.—who warned about systemic failures when decision-makers become disconnected from those affected. It highlights current issues like corporate consolidation, housing unaffordability, poverty, and infrastructure challenges as evidence of this 'catastrophe.'