Top 5 Stories from the Week (April 15–April 19, 2019)

Here's our most popular content this week.  Sign up for our email list to get this delivered to your inbox every Friday.

1. Strong Towns and Race

by Charles Marohn | April 15, 2019

We have a lot of work ahead at Strong Towns to meaningfully engage people of color and to grow the racial diversity of our movement. We’re committed to doing that work.

2. Losing Essential Services to the Suburbs is Bad For Everyone

by Jamie Littlefield | April 16, 2019

Now that my city’s downtown is starting to thrive, we’re facing a new problem: a barrage of attempts to move centrally-located public facilities to unwalkable, suburban (and even undeveloped) areas.

3. The Ben & Jerry's Theory of Transportation Economics

by Joe Cortright | April 16, 2019

Once a year, Ben & Jerry’s gives away ice cream for free—and people line up around the block because the price is so low. There’s a lesson here about urban roads and congestion.

4. Building Design Requirements Are Sometimes Bad For Cities. But Abolishing Them All Is Worse.

by Daniel Herriges | April 11, 2019

A new Arkansas law prohibits cities from regulating the design of single-family homes in almost all instances. This is a bad idea which takes away an important tool in a city’s toolkit to nurture strong, productive places.

5. Why Would a Town Ban Duplexes in Its Core Neighborhoods?

by Stronger Denton | April 17, 2019

Denton, Texas seemed to be on the verge of an important step toward financial resilience: allowing its core neighborhoods to incrementally evolve and provide much-needed new housing. Now, is the city on the verge of moving in the wrong direction instead?

(Cover image courtesy of Quint Studer)

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