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.
This is Daniel’s daughter and he shared this cute photo with us this week, asking: Is this baby play mat A) Harmfully normalizing the auto-centric development pattern at an impressionable young age, or B) Instilling the importance of streets for all users, including ladybugs? - What do you think?
This week, we began a series of intentional conversations with our members to discuss our upcoming strategic plan and focus on ways to better serve you as you take action to make your communities more resilient. Interested in having the insider look at Strong Towns and helping shape the future of this movement? Become a Strong Towns member today.
We also officially welcomed two new staff members to our team—Linda and Christa—who do a lot of important Strong Towns work behind the scenes.
Finally, keep an eye on your podcast feeds next week: We’ll be dropping a new podcast series and reprising (at last) the Strong Towns Podcast!
Here’s what Strong Towns staff were reading this week:
Daniel: Front Porch Republic published this wonderful interview with three members of an initiative called Braver Angels, which seeks to foster respectful and honest conversation across partisan divides. This is something Strong Towns is also deeply committed to, at a time when many Americans find the idea implausible or even offensive. I appreciate the point made by multiple participants that engaging in good faith with the “other” doesn’t mean subscribing to a mushy centrism or abandoning deeply-held convictions. And I particularly love the discussions of “civic populism” and “shifting consumer democracy to producer democracy” by reinvigorating old traditions of working together locally to build civic institutions and venues for public life and conversation. The interview concludes with a sentiment that is both true to my experience and central to our mission here at Strong Towns: the hope that “our red/blue conflicts might lessen if we attended to the small and near-at-hand, rather than obsessing about, and ultimately losing ourselves in, what is big and far away.”
Alexa: This week, I read an article about Will Bonsall, a man who has amassed an enormous collection of heirloom seeds. I find the concept of heirloom seeds really compelling. When we think of exploring the history of an entity — whether that be a people, a nation, or anything else—we tend to imagine the written word or artifacts that support a historian's interpretation of past events. But heritage seeds tell a history as well. When you have a lima bean that is particularly well suited to drought, that is a history. Or a seed of corn once cultivated by Indigenous people, that is a history.
But this article also explores how an increasing over-reliance on efficiency rather than resilience leaves us more vulnerable than ever. What happens when we begin to experience widespread drought or other climate disruptions? We will find it more and more difficult to grow the monoculture crops across vast regions and will instead have to turn to the wisdom of the past and choose varieties that are uniquely suited to their environments.
Lauren: This is part of the story of Nicole and Dan Virgil, Chicago suburb residents who, after maxing out production in their backyard raised garden beds, tried to extend their vegetable growing season by building a hoop house on their property. “Nuh-uhh,” said the city, starting a two-year struggle. The structure wasn’t permitted… but there was no process through which the Virgils could get a permit. There’s something seriously wrong with situations like these, where existing rules prevent people from maximizing how much of their sustenance they can bring up from their own resources.
Rachel: A Strong Towns advocate in Washington state wrote a thorough and thoughtful op-ed published in the Kitsap Sun this week, which breaks down unhelpful dichotomies between urban and suburban places. Kevin Walthall encourages a return to local governance and decisionmaking when it comes to determining the future of our communities. Suburbs and cities shouldn’t be bickering with one another, he says, they should be recognizing their unique strengths and challenges, and orienting towards their residents to figure out the best path forward. From the op-ed:
Local politics might be contentious and weird at times, but at least there’s a sense that we’re all generally gunning for the same things: safety, accessibility, jobs, education, greenery, engagement in public or private life at will. Our cities know their own strengths and weaknesses, and don’t need federal dictation. Seabeck and Bainbridge Island should look very different from one another. Silverdale relies heavily on commuters and retail for its economy, so it should be car-centric. Bremerton, with the inverse geography of Silverdale and very little chain retail, not so much. That’s okay. Variety is the spice of life. Decisions are best made by the stakeholders who will feel the effects of those decisions, and hence, decisions should be made at the most local level possible.
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Finally, from all of us, a warm welcome to the newest members of the Strong Towns movement: Jeffrey V Bibb, Gene Hopper, Jordan Kohl, Rachel Oglesby, Gordon Shaw, Peggy Sonoda, Lisa Sudbury, Bayley Vanderpoel, Dan Virgil, Edgar Walker, and Margaret Zeidler.
Your support helps us provide tools, resources and community to people who are building strong towns across the country.
What stories got you thinking this week? Please share them in the comments.