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 has been an apocalyptic week for those on the West Coast, and everyone watching around the world. Our Content Manager, John’s, town in Oregon is just a few miles away from an active wildfire. It’s a scary time and we’re keeping everyone in our thoughts. Today also, of course, marks the nineteenth anniversary of the September 11th attacks on the World Trade Center. We have a lot to reflect on, to remember and to honor.
This panoramic photo taken by John’s wife, Kate, near his town shows you just how terrifying things look in Oregon right now.
In closing, on a forward-looking note, just a reminder that there are still a few days left to apply to be the new Strong Towns Office Assistant. We’d love to find a great person in the Brainerd, MN area who will benefit from the flexible hours and become a solid member of our team. Apply here (and please share the post with any friends in Minnesota).
Here’s what Strong Towns staff were reading this week:
John: On Tuesday, my family and housemates packed our most precious belongings into our vehicles and left town. One of the last things we saw before pulling out was a caravan of firetrucks heading up our road toward a wildfire that had exploded in size overnight, about seven miles from our house. My six-year-old and I waved from the driveway, and I said a silent prayer for those brave men and women, and for my beloved Willamette Valley.
I don’t have an article to share this week. What time I’ve spent on the Internet has been spent hitting refresh on wildfire maps, or scrolling through Facebook looking for updates and checking in on friends. No, the news I bring you largely won’t show up in the news at all—something Gracy Olmstead wrote about this week on our site—but is instead compiled from social media, text messages, and phone calls. This is the news of neighbors checking in on neighbors, helping each other evacuate, offering rides out of town, and rescuing livestock; of churches opening up parking lots and buildings to the newly displaced; of restaurants and grocery stores giving out food and drinks to evacuees; of people opening their homes to friends, family and even strangers; of firefighters who haven’t slept for 60 hours, standing just a few feet from a wall of flame, pulling up vegetation to try and slow the progress of a monstrous fire.
Our house is still standing, though the air in our town is toxic with smoke and ash. Many people, including some friends and acquaintances, haven’t been as lucky. It’s still too early to talk about what comes next (the wildfires near our house are still 0% contained). When it is time, I’m convinced that the paradise we can build from this hell will be the result of a thousand small acts of neighborliness, most of which will never be seen.
Daniel: The often-heated debate about schools reopening or going virtual this fall has focused heavily on the public-health implications. What has received less attention is the implications of remote learning for students, and what we’re really asking of them. This brilliant essay in The Atlantic delves into the psychology of learning, attention, and memory, and why the social context in which students learn in school “is extraordinarily hard to replicate online for reasons that are not always obvious.”
This article is not a case for sending all students back to in-person classes, but it is a case for reckoning with the full, tragic scope of what our students (especially younger kids) are losing, and thinking creatively about how to replicate as much of it as we can. If I’m being honest, this article left me both grateful that my daughter (5 months) is several years away from school age, and heartbroken for my friends who are dealing with this particular disruption firsthand.
Alexa: “But it’s a dry heat!” is the common response I heard from people when I explained that growing up in Arizona was HOT. As the planet continues to warm up and experience extreme climate events, this article from High Country News delves into the consequences and explores what can be done to combat the extreme heat throughout the country, but specifically in the American Southwest. There is a spooky wisdom in the place-based architecture developed over the course of millenia by the Native and Indigenous peoples that was upended by the European immigrants. I would love to see future Strong Towns filled with buildings that are more responsive to their native environments.
Michelle: The other day I was reminded of this oldie-but-goodie video of Dan Burden explaining head-out angled parking. Dan tells you the benefits of this kind of parking option and the steps for how to park in this fashion.
Rachel: One of the things I’ve missed most during this time is going to church. Most religious communities have, at this point, figured out ways to do virtual church in some fashion, but—as a member of a fairly liturgical denomination where collective singing, communion, and the worship space itself are all very important aspects of a Sunday service—it’s really not the same. Because churches are filled with all sorts of people, including many elderly people, folks with health conditions, and so on, they have played things quite conservative when it comes to returning to worship together. And I understand that. But I applaud religious communities that have found creative to gather safely in person right now.
That’s why I couldn’t help but smile when I saw this article about a kayak church, where congregants paddled out onto a lake together to hold a service. This pandemic is requiring every ounce of creativity, adaptation and resilience that we can muster, but I’m awed by what we seem to be capable of.
—
Finally, from Alexa and all of us, a warm welcome to the newest members of the Strong Towns movement: Ronald Adamski, Judi Barrett, Katie Burnworth, Rachel Bush, James Cacciola, Lorraine Dick, Montavius Jones, J. Alfonso Katigbak, Michael Kilbride, Nick Riordan, and Nicholas Roach.
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.