“Fountain Society” Named One of the Best Essays of 2023

Over the past decade, Places contributing writer Shannon Mattern has published more than two dozen articles in our pages and attracted a wide and enthusiastic following. Which is why we’re thrilled to share that “Fountain Society” was recently recommended by New York Times columnist David Brooks in his annual roundup of the best essays of the year.

In the essay Mattern describes drinking fountains as a vital form of civic infrastructure, “humble contraptions that provide free access to a vital resource.” Fountains, she argues, “have long embodied enduring tensions around public things and their politics and ecologies, around promises of purity and fears of contamination.”

In his column, Brooks not only offers a selection of extraordinary essays. He also sings the praises of small, independent magazines.

If you want to change the world, support a small magazine. … Small magazines cohere a community of thinkers. They develop a body of ideas. They plant flags and inspire social movements. They create a persona that serves as an aspirational ideal for people, a way to live their lives. Small magazines can alter history in a way big media outlets just can’t.

We’d have to agree with him wholeheartedly.