"Common Ground"

Here's a touching piece on the suburbanization of Illinois farm land by photojournalist Scott Strazzante. To tell this story the producers at Mediastorm did a great job weaving still images, video and music together.

The American family farm gives way to a subdivision - a critical cultural shift across the U.S. Common Ground is a 14-year document of this transition, through the Cagwins and the Grabenhofers, two families who love the same plot of land. See the project at http://mediastorm.com/publication/common-ground

While the story is sympathetic to the disappearance of the family farm, thankfully the video doesn't present a maudlin nostalgic view of local agriculture. Rather it describes methods of land use through the images and voices of the people that once farmed the land contrasted with those who live there now.