The Town That Refused

For decades, a small ski town in Vermont has quietly enforced one of the most distinctive zoning rules in America: no chain stores, no franchises, no formula retail. This episode is the story of how Stowe decided what it wanted to be — and what that decision looks like today.

On May 4, 2007, an EF5 tornado erased 95% of Greensburg, Kansas — a prairie town of 1,400 people. When federal agencies and construction consultants arrived with standard cookie-cutter rebuild plans, the residents voted instead to do something almost no disaster-struck town had ever attempted: rebuild as a certified green city, powered by wind, one of the most ambitious post-disaster sustainability pledges in American history. This is the story of how a grieving town on the Kansas plains refused the path of least resistance — and what it looks like today.

Carmel-by-the-Sea, California is a place that has spent a century saying no. No street addresses. No chain stores. No ice cream on public sidewalks — technically, at least. This episode unpacks the civic machinery behind Carmel's famous quirks, what it cost them, and what they got in return.