WHY WE HIT THE ROAD

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Communities are recognizing the importance of revitalizing their Main Streets, once decimated by the rise of megamalls and fast-food outlets. Whether they're restoring a downtown or starting a day-care center, people are less likely to plot ways to get federal grants or insist that the government come fix the problem.

There are still issues pulling us apart. The most prominent, as it has been throughout our history, is race. At a town meeting on affirmative action in Sacramento, we saw glimmers of potential accord, but there remains a conflict between two basic approaches: giving no special preferences based on skin color and finding ways to ensure that all citizens share equally in the American Dream. We also met people, like those in the coal mines of West Virginia, being left behind by the new economic forces.

But the most important--albeit most obvious--thing we found was that when the economy is expanding, Americans are a lot less polarized. In the stories that follow, there are even some hopeful signs of ways this attitude can root firmly enough to prevent a resurgence of the resentments that can occur when times get tougher. In a period of peace and prosperity, in a land as rich and beautiful as ours, that is the real test of America's backbone.