Adam Reilly

I was born in Pittsburgh in 1986 and grew up between there and the river towns south of it — a region with a long memory for what booms and busts do to a place. I studied geography and public policy at the University of Pittsburgh, then spent six years inside city government in Cleveland and, later, Oakland, working on the unglamorous end of urban planning: storm-drain capacity, zoning variances, transit-route reviews, and a great deal of GIS.

I started Field Letter in 2021, on a Sunday morning, mostly because I was tired of writing internal memos that nobody outside the building would ever read. The first issue went to forty-one people, most of them friends from grad school. As of this week, the list is just over twenty-two thousand. The work has not fundamentally changed; the audience has.

Three subjects keep coming back. The first is climate — specifically the slow, accreting version that shows up in actuarial tables long before it shows up on the news. The second is cities, the only level of government most of us actually have any leverage over. The third is technology, and the strange way every five years we agree, as a culture, to install one more thing in the middle of our days without ever having a conversation about it.

I write one essay a week, on Sunday morning. It is usually between fifteen hundred and three thousand words. I do not run advertising, I do not chase virality, and I am suspicious of any newsletter that promises ten things you can do in five minutes. Field Letter is meant to be read with a second cup of coffee and, ideally, an argument with somebody at the table.

I live in North Oakland with my wife Mira — a hospital nurse who is generally right about most things — and a fourteen-year-old beagle named Otis, who has opinions about routine.

What this newsletter is

Field Letter is one long essay every Sunday morning. The reading width is generous on purpose. The typography is set in Source Serif 4 because it is what I read most comfortably on a phone, and because the headlines look right in Playfair Display, which is older than every other element on the page. I make no apology for any of this.

I do not run advertising, I do not run an affiliate program, and I do not work with sponsors. The newsletter is free; reader support keeps the lights on. If you would like to support the work, the best thing you can do is forward an issue you liked to one other person.

Selected work elsewhere

• Contributing writer, Bloomberg CityLab (2022–2024)
• 2024 — Online Journalism Awards, finalist (Newsletter / Commentary)
• 2023 — National Magazine Award, Digital Commentary, long list
• Former senior analyst, City of Oakland Department of Transportation (2018–2021)

Get in touch

I read every reply to the newsletter. The fastest way to reach me is to hit reply on any issue. For accessibility issues with this site, write to accessibility@fieldletter.dcrader.dev and I will get back to you within five business days.