Question of the Week: How Can I Build a Coalition of Strong Citizens in My Town?

Every week, we take one of the best questions submitted to the Strong Towns Knowledge Base, and we answer it here. This week’s question: How can I build a coalition of strong citizens in my town?

The Knowledge Base is a crowd-sourced repository of your questions and answers about how to build a strong town. We on the Strong Towns staff chip in when we can, but we can’t get to everything—which is why we encourage all of our members and readers to head on over and add not only questions, but comments with any additional advice, useful links, or wisdom you have to offer!


Strong Citizens are people who get involved in the life of their community and do whatever they can to make their town stronger, one small action at a time. This could mean:

There’s no doubt the outcomes of these small actions are inspiring. But it takes effort to build the coalitions you need to turn your neighborhood-boosting ideas into reality—and sometimes, that effort can be overwhelming. 

That’s why we’re going to share our best practices for creating Local Conversations, where groups of Strong Towns readers and members meet locally to discuss ways to make the Strong Towns approach to development real in their unique place. 

In this article, you’ll learn about: 

  • Starting a group

  • Finding people to join

  • Meeting in person or online

  • Discussing the Strong Towns approach

……