Patchwork Nation and ProPublica have teamed up to examine transportation contracts funded by the $787 billion economic stimulus package that President Obama championed and signed earlier this year.
With the release of the first reports about how that money has been spent, Patchwork Nation and ProPublica have looked at which communities are benefiting and which are losing out.
Patchwork Nation is a reporting project that aims to explore what is happening in the United States by examining different kinds of communities over time. Launched as a Christian Science Monitor project by Dante Chinni and James Gimpel to cover the 2008 election, this incarnation of Patchwork Nation will evolve to cover more communities and more topics, with a focus on the economy and how it affects different sorts of communities.
Patchwork Nation project director Chinni answers your questions about what the stimulus money is funding and what difference it is -- or isn't -- making across the country.