What do you do when you need to change everything?
We can do better. This is not what a strong, successful America looks like.
Our cities are struggling financially. But culturally, we lack a common understanding to explain why this is, let alone decide what to do about it.
Many people want to believe we’re simply not paying enough taxes. Others believe that our tax rates are too high. We might have too little regulation, or not enough. Some say we need an active government, and some, more of a free market... But at Strong Towns, we don’t see things in such binary ways.
Plenty of Americans wish we would listen to the experts and hand things over to the people who claim they know what needs to be done. Others believe we have too many experts, and that they know a lot less than they think they do... We’re more nuanced here at Strong Towns; a little expertise combined with a lot of humility can be a powerful force for good.
A Cultural Consensus That Lacks Real Understanding
One area where we have something approaching an American cultural consensus is our need to spend more money on infrastructure. Left, right, center... it seems most people can agree on this. But Strong Towns advocates think differently.
What we at Strong Towns have seen so clearly is that our cities struggle not from the lack of a cultural consensus, but because of one. We’ve structured our economy around the principles of the Suburban Experiment, an approach to growth that provides lots of short-term rewards at the expense of our long-term strength and resiliency. Our cultural consensus on infrastructure spending is built on false statistics and short-term planning, but it lacks a common understanding about the root causes of financial failure and financial success.
If you believe in our mission and want to help us change American cities, towns and neighborhoods for the better, join the movement!
Prosperity and success has to start in our own neighborhoods. It cannot be artificially created by an outside force.
Strong Cities, Towns and Neighborhoods
If America is going to be a strong country, it must first have strong cities, towns and neighborhoods. We can't manufacture prosperity with infrastructure spending or federal dollars; it has to be built from the bottom up.
We understand that cities become strong and resilient when they grow incrementally, when they shun the easy path of simplistic solutions and instead do the hard work of making modest investments over a broad area over a long period of time. We know that local governments must focus on their financial productivity and that doing this math is not optional if we want to create prosperous places.
And at Strong Towns, we know that the cities that obsess about the struggles of their own residents—cities that make a commitment to observe where people struggle day-to-day within the community, and then focus on continuously doing the next smallest thing to reduce that struggle—these cities are not only going to help people; they are going to be making the highest returning investments they can possibly make. They are going to become Strong Towns.
These are radical insights. They run counter to our current consensus about growth, development and infrastructure. Yet, when we share these radical notions with others— when we have a chance to expose people to the Strong Towns message and our vision of the future—something amazing happens.
A Powerful, Radical Message That we can All Agree on
People who don’t agree — who can’t even productively talk to each other today — find something they agree on in Strong Towns. Something challenging. Something radical. Something that, if spread to enough people, can form that basis of a new cultural consensus.
A strong America made up of strong cities, towns and neighborhoods. That’s the vision.
We have a powerful message and we have built our organization around a movement to spread it. We’re attacking the complex problem of struggling cities by changing the current cultural consensus. We do this in three simple ways:
- We create content.
- We distribute that content as broadly as possible.
- We nudge people to take action.
And it’s working. Tomorrow we’re going to share some examples of how, but before we do, take a moment today to join us. A big part of our strategy for success involves you taking action. Memberships start at just $5 per month. Become one of our first 2000 members.
Charles Marohn (known as “Chuck” to friends and colleagues) is the founder and president of Strong Towns and the bestselling author of “Escaping the Housing Trap: The Strong Towns Response to the Housing Crisis.” With decades of experience as a land use planner and civil engineer, Marohn is on a mission to help cities and towns become stronger and more prosperous. He spreads the Strong Towns message through in-person presentations, the Strong Towns Podcast, and his books and articles. In recognition of his efforts and impact, Planetizen named him one of the 15 Most Influential Urbanists of all time in 2017 and 2023.