Friday Faves - Your Weekly Strong Towns Roundup
Each week, the Strong Towns team shares their favorite links—the things that made us think in new ways, delve deeper into the Strong Towns mission, or even just smile.
Has this week been slightly less crazy and stressful than last? Hard to say. Every week of 2020 seems to bring its own anxieties and challenges. But we’re all pushing through and doing our best. The Strong Towns team has been busy preparing to release several exciting announcements and resources for you all next week. Keep an eye on our website, and, if you want to be the first to hear our news, make sure to sign up for our email list.
One announcement we already shared is that we’re hosting a free webcast about how to end parking minimums in your town on Tuesday, Nov. 17 at 12pm CT. You can read the inspiring story of Ashley Salvador, who will co-lead the webcast, here.
Finally, Chuck Marohn has been out of town this week on a secret Strong Towns mission, but the results will eventually be available in a future Strong Towns Academy course. Grab the course bundle at a discounted price if you want access.
Have a relaxing weekend and we’ll see you back here on Monday for an exciting week!
Here’s what Strong Towns staff were reading this week:
Lauren: So much of the infrastructure that supports private property in urban and suburban spaces is out of sight and out of mind. Taxes are paid, and the rest is taken care of by someone else. But when it comes to sidewalks, things get up close and personal rather quickly. The lines between public space and private property blur, as do the responsibilities of the collective and the individual. This StreetsBlog story discusses Nashville’s efforts to get a functional network of sidewalks going with particular emphasis on landowners’ role in the process.
Daniel: A core observation here at Strong Towns is that resilient institutions must be built and sustained from the bottom up, not the top down. Writing for the Washington Post, three political scientists offer an interesting analysis of how America’s political parties—the article focuses on the Democrats, but the GOP is not spared criticism either—have become top-heavy and hollow underneath, alienated from local communities and their concerns. A staggering amount of PAC money sloshes around national races, whereas local civic life has atrophied. (Another Strong Towns theme comes to mind: when you flood a complex system with resources, it stops responding to feedback, and dysfunction is no longer self-correcting.)
The authors offer this as a diagnosis for why success at the top (in this case, Joe Biden’s presidential victory) is no longer a reliable predictor of winning down-ballot races, and I must say I find it more persuasive than much of the internal partisan squabbling over policy positions. I think it points at a much bigger problem than one election: our political parties are zombie institutions that neither serve our needs nor command our respect. Sooner or later, something else will replace an institution like that.
Rachel: This brilliant, thoughtful essay in America Magazine really moved me this week. In it, journalist Emma Green reflects on her conversations with people across America over the past few years, exploring what it means to live a good life—and that usually comes down to a sense of connection with one’s neighbors. In particular, Green is interested in movements to form intentional communities, holding this in tension with broader societal divisions and concerns:
Perhaps, if people were left alone to build their little ideal communities, there would be less fodder for the culture wars. No side would need to defeat the other in a battle for the soul of America. We could each define the soul of America as we wish. And yet, the challenge is in doing this without losing a kind of civic vocabulary, an ability to empathically imagine the life and perspective of our neighbors. No matter how much we may fantasize about a world perfectly crafted to reflect our beliefs, surrounded by people who share our taste and convictions, the truth is that America works only if starkly different people are willing to vote in the same precincts, to respect each other’s rights and traditions, and to remain civil at city council meetings.
Alexa: I always assumed that autopsies were done anytime there was a question about the exact nature of a death, but this article showed me otherwise. In the midst of a pandemic from a virus that we still don’t know enough about you would think there would be so much to learn from those who succumbed to it. But because autopsies aren’t profitable, they are being abandoned. It seems like there would be so much to learn from them that even if it didn’t generate material wealth, we stand to gain a lot from them.
Linda: In the past year or so I’ve become addicted to podcasts. I listen while driving, when I go on a run, while cooking and cleaning the house. A couple months ago I listened to Jon Meacham’s 5-part series called Hope, Through History, and it resonated so much that I decided to re-listen this week. Each episode explores one of the “most historic and trying times in American History, and how this nation dealt with these moments, the impact of these moments, and how we came through these moments a unified nation.” Topics include the Great Depression, the polio epidemic and the 1918 Flu Pandemic. I found comfort listening to the series. As Meacham quotes Winston Churchill, “The future is unknowable, but the past should give us hope.”
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Finally, from all of us, a warm welcome to the newest members of the Strong Towns movement: Erica Aitken, David Anderson, Christopher Fraleigh, Jerome Froelich, Charles Hall, Kyran Hamill, Grayson Koonce, Clifton Lavenhouse, Logan Millsap, Brendan Newcomb, John Ragan, Nathan Rak, Susan Ramonat, Brian Roche, Drina Schneider, Ed Sharrer, Brook Wiers, Peter Wilson, Jeffrey Yates
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What stories got you thinking this week? Please share them in the comments.