6 Podcasts with Strong Towns All Stars
Today we're busy with the Strong Towns Summit in Tulsa so we're not able to release our usual Thursday podcast. Instead, we've pulled six podcasts from our archives that feature Strong Towns members who are speaking at our Summit.
If you're on your way to the Summit in a train, car or plane today, these would make for some excellent listening while you're in transit. And if you're at home or work, wishing you could be on your way to the Summit, these podcasts are a way to get to hear from our wise and thoughtful speakers. Most of these conversations touch on the issues that our speakers will address in workshops and presentations at the event. Happy listening!
Podcast recording at CNU in Detroit, 2016
- Kevin Klinkenberg—long time Strong Towns member— speaks about his book, Why I Walk, in this 2014 interview with Chuck Marohn. His workshop at the Summit will take a serious look at what sorts of places have the best chance of becoming successfully walkable.
- Michael McGinn—former mayor of Seattle—discusses his thoughts on the impending infrastructure spending surge as part of our ongoing #InfrastructureCrisis series in this interview from September, 2016. McGinn's workshop at the Summit will be an interactive discussion about how citizens can become more engaged in local decision making. McGinn will also be featured in a live podcast interview at our summit, along with former mayor of Lafayette, LA, Joey Durel. We'll be publishing that later this month on our podcast so stay tuned.
- Heyden Black Walker, a planner based in Austin, TX, also chatted with Strong Towns in late 2016 about infrastructure spending and how to build accountability into a federal transportation spending plan. Walker's workshop at the Strong Towns Summit is about managing transportation demand as an alternative to simply building more and more.
- Jason Roberts, who co-founded the Better Block, did an interview with Strong Towns at CNU 23 back in 2015. In it, he talked about his hometown of Dallas, his work to improve neighborhoods across the world, and his travels. Roberts will give a feature presentation at the Summit, discussing the story of Better Block and how this approach can be used in other towns and cities.
- Marielle Brown, a planner and tactical urbanism expert, spoke in a group podcast interview with several Strong Towns "all star" members at CNU last year. Her workshop at the Summit will demonstrate tactical urbanism strategies to calm traffic and make streets safer for everyone.
- Tony Dutzik—senior policy analyst at Frontier Group—was featured in a Strong Towns podcast interview in 2015, discussing a report he coauthored entitled, "Who Pays for Roads? How the "Users Pay" Myth Gets in the Way of Solving America's Transportation Problems." Dutzik will lead a workshop at the Summit about "highway boondoggles" and how to stop wasting our money on useless road projects.
We hope these podcast will tide you over until next week and help you get to know these fantastic Strong Towns members who will be key voices during our Summit.
Related stories
If you love Jane Jacobs or want to learn more about her views and how Strong Towns advocates are working to make them a reality, you will want to explore this conversation between Chuck Marohn and Charles Pignal.