b. 1947
Alan Ehrenhalt is an American journalist and social critic best known for his communitarian analyses of community, authority, and political life in the United States. His landmark work challenges liberal individualism's assumption that maximum personal autonomy produces the good life, arguing instead that stable communities require shared norms, constraint, and deference to authority. He served for decades as executive editor of Governing magazine, focusing on state and local governance.
Authored The Lost City (1995), a communitarian critique arguing postwar American communities cohered through authority and obligation, not just choice
Advanced the thesis that atomistic liberal individualism erodes the social fabric necessary for genuine community life
Wrote The Great Inversion and the Future of the American City (2012), documenting demographic reversal in American urban cores
Served as executive editor of Governing magazine, shaping public-policy discourse on state and local government for decades
Contributed a journalist's empirical grounding to communitarian debates more often conducted in academic philosophy