WHO WE ARE
Jay Walljasper
Director of Strategic Communications
Jay Walljasper is Director of Strategic Communications for PPS, as well as the Executive Editor of Ode magazine, an international news and culture magazine published from the Netherlands. He was editor of Utne Reader from 1984 to 1995 and 2000 to 2004, during which time the magazine was nominated three times for a National Magazine Award for General Excellence. He is co-author of the book Visionaries (New Society, 2001) and co-editor of GoodLife (Utne Reader Books, 1997).
For many years, Jay has writte about urban planning and public place issues. An extended essay of his appears in the book Toward the Livable City (Milkweed, 2003) and he writes the Town Square column for the PPS e-newsletter, Making Places. He examined positive urban initiatives in places like Portland, inner-city Boston, Copenhagen, and the Twin Cities for a series, “What Works?” in the Nation magazine (1997-2000).
For The Nation magazine, he has written a series of articles on positive political initiatives, "What Works?" For more than a decade, Jay was the American columnist for the British magazine Resurgence, and he now writes a column about American affairs for the Belgian magazine Enjeux Internationaux. His articles have appeared in Mother Jones, Preservation, the New Statesman (London), the Chicago Tribune magazine, Philadelphia Inquirer magazine, Toronto Star, Tikkun, L.A. Weekly, Yes!, E magazine, Courrier (Paris), The Idler, Rock N Rap Confidential, Planeta Humano (Madrid), and New Woman (Australia). Previous to joining Utne he was Culture Editor at In These Times and a travel editor at Better Homes & Gardens. He lives in Minneapolis.