Strong Towns and Strong Households

I’m a long time member of the Strong Towns organization which advocates for financially solvent municipal governance. I’m also a member of the Congress for New Urbanism which strives to build walkable mixed-use neighborhoods of the kind our great grandparents would have taken for granted, but are rare indeed these days.

I often ask myself what good a financially stable town is if most of the people living there are heavily leveraged and living pay check to pay check. So I have a particular fascination with people who embody the Strong Towns ethos within their own households. My assumption is that if most individual families are strong and economically resilient then collectively the town will likely be too. Here are four examples of strong households from my travels.

Todd is a twenty something who lives in the Days Park neighborhood of Buffalo, New York. He purchased an affordable historic fixer upper duplex with the intention of renovating the property with sweat equity. He and his girlfriend live downstairs. He quickly got the upper floor apartment in great shape and began renting it for income. That covered his modest mortgage freeing up his salary for savings and investments in other projects. One of those projects involved the purchase of an adjoining vacant lot which Todd is in the process of developing into a new building in an historical style that will serve as his office as well as an additional rental apartment.

Unlike previous generations who placed themselves in great personal debt in order to acquire a large prestigious home to demonstrate wealth and status, Todd sees his home as a productive object to generate revenue. It’s precisely the opposite philosophy from the McMansion in a gated community. The value isn’t loaded on to the eventual speculative value of the home come sale time, but in the month-to-month productive capacity of the property. Status for him doesn’t come from a two story entry foyer or an extravagant master bedroom suite. Instead, he rejoices in the economic freedom of having a home that pays him each month rather than the other way around.

In the same way he’s an ardent bicycle advocate. Owning multiple cars to enable you to live in an isolated location and endure a long miserable commute isn’t considered “moving up”. For Todd a bike represents financial freedom which trumps the illusion of physical mobility promised by car culture. This is particularly true since a big chunk of your paycheck is dedicated to maintaining those vehicles. Why not live and work in a place where you can skip the car altogether and pocket the extra funds?