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.
2020 has us all in need of a good nap. Gryffindor (Chuck’s dog) has got the right idea.
This week, Chuck Marohn was featured on an episode of the Livable Cities podcast, hosted by long-time Strong Towns member, Jim Hodapp. We love seeing all the ways that members are bringing Strong Towns ideas to their places and thinking about how to put them into action.
The Strong Towns team has also been busy looking ahead to future plans, courses, and strategies. As part of that effort, we’re working to improve our website experience, particularly our Articles page. If you have any feedback for us, please email quednau@strongtowns.org. Thanks!
Here’s what Strong Towns staff were reading this week:
Chuck: I’ve written extensively about Lafayette, Louisiana, but it continues to fascinate me. In many ways, it’s a perfect natural experiment. Much like the contrast in my hometowns where Brainerd is the traditional city with neighboring Baxter being the pure auto-oriented suburb, the consolidated government of the City of Lafayette and the surrounding Lafayette Parish have a similar dynamic.
This article goes into excruciating detail, pointing out all the ways Lafayette Parish—the supposedly wealthier and more prosperous of the pair—is really the financial millstone around the community’s neck. This same thing is happening in nearly every North American city, only the funds are mixed and so the subsidy is opaque.
Daniel: I really enjoyed this essay from Streets.mn about a single median of a single street in my hometown of St. Paul, planted with appealing daffodils—until it wasn’t. It reflects the Strong Towns approach to a tee in its recognition that so much of what matters in making a great place is in the tiny particulars. Are we willing to humble ourselves to maintain small and detailed things, year after year? And are our systems set up to support that?
Personally, I’m more comfortable by default in the planner’s abstracted world of demographic statistics and design standards, but the fact that there are people out there who know exactly what dozen species of plants are growing in the median of a neighborhood street is something worthy of our admiration and appreciation.
Lauren: I found James Altucher’s account of how New York City is weathering the coronavirus (or not weathering it) fascinating this week. Several media figures and comedians I listen to on a somewhat regular basis are sharing their fears about the future of NYC—and their decisions to leave—on their platforms. What I think Altucher is failing to address with his account, however, is that those who don’t have the resources to uproot quickly will remain; and they will bring the city into its new future.
Rachel: In my internet browsing time, I enjoy a good design blog. Style by Emily Henderson is a site I particularly respect for its candor and willingness to walk people through home projects step by step, not sugar-coating the challenges along the way. This week, they ran a story about one staffer’s search for her first home in the Los Angeles area. It’s a wild ride, involving everything from city planning offices to dodgy inspections to homeowners associations, and gives a realistic glimpse of what it’s like to try to purchase a marginally affordable house in an expensive area—even if you’re financially well-off, have the time and knowledge to navigate formidable bureaucratic processes, and are willing to go through a massive renovation process. What would it take to have cities where young people could actually achieve that dream of first-time homeownership? Asking for a friend…
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Finally, from Alexa and all of us, a warm welcome to the newest members of the Strong Towns movement:
Beverly Alexander, Catherine Diamente, Ed Jaroch, Bret Jones, Steven Karn, Carol Moore, Steve Rossi, Lorna Smith, and Alec Taliaferro.
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 or continue the conversation in the Strong Towns Community.