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Signs of the Recovery: Share Your Photos and Stories

Jeremy Hobson Sep 9, 2010

Marketplace sent reporter Jeremy Hobson, who usually covers Wall Street from our New York bureau, out into the heartland to get a sense of how the recession and recovery are being felt by ordinary Americans.

We wanted a state with everything: urban centers, rural areas, mid-sized cities, manufacturing hubs and some good old American culture. In addition, we wanted to hear from people who aren’t often heard from by a national audience. We settled on Tennessee because it has all those qualities, and it’s not a political swing state, so the national press corps doesn’t descend on its population centers every four years.

Jeremy criss-crossed the state in a rented Kia Rio – putting 1,300 miles on the car and traveling from the Mississippi Delta to the Smoky Mountains and back.

He spoke with homeowners facing foreclosure in Memphis, country musicians writing songs about the recession in Nashville, cotton farmers in Milan, and manufacturing employees in Kingsport. He visited the blues bars of Beale Street, the Honky Tonks on Broadway, and sat in on an Optimists Club meeting in far eastern Tennessee.

For our special web series, Jeremy asked dozens of Tennessee residents who he met on his trip how the recession is impacting them, whether they are feeling a recovery, and who they blame for the whole mess.

But this story doesn’t start and end at the borders of Tennessee. We also want to hear from you, wherever you are. We want to open the conversation and find out where, if anywhere, the recovery is being felt. And how.

Share your photos of the recovery

Marketplace is on the hunt for signs of an economic recovery around the country. Share a photo of a scene that illustrates the recovery in action. Is your downtown peppered with “Now Hiring” signs? Has a new construction site popped up in your neighborhood? We want to see it. Use our submission form to send us a photo.

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