Friday Faves - Your Weekly Strong Towns Roundup
This week we launched two important series. The first is a series of articles about how resource-based communities—for example, communities where people mine, drill, log, and farm—can break out of “the resource trap” and grow stronger and more prosperous. The full series will eventually encompass more than 15 articles, including articles on how the Strong Towns approach to economic development can be applied to resource communities, as well as case studies from the United States.
This week also saw the launch of a timely series by Strong Towns senior editor Daniel Herriges on how Collier County, Florida, became a poster child for the Growth Ponzi Scheme. It draws on the work of our good friends over at Urban3. Parts one and two were published this week; the final installments will be going out next week.
In other words, you shouldn’t run out of reading material this weekend!
Here’s what Strong Towns staff were up to this week:
Michelle: My four-year old had his “end of year program” this week, so we were able to watch a gaggle of little ones singing songs. The event, which was very adorable and silly, was held outside on the front steps of his school at the local Methodist Church (pictured above).
Image via Up in the Valley.
John: For more than a dozen years I wrote grants, primarily for school districts, colleges, and universities in California’s San Joaquin Valley. As I got to know many of the towns and cities there, I remember being struck by the paradox that such deep and widespread poverty could exist in a place renowned as one of the most productive agricultural regions in the world. The San Joaquin Valley, sometimes referred to as “the Appalachia of the West,” faces huge challenges. It comes to mind when I read each new installment of Chuck Marohn’s series on resource-based communities. I was also struck this week by this photo essay. “It is difficult to overstate the sheer scale of industrial agriculture out there,” Andreas Samson writes.
The folks I met in places like Visalia, Tulare, Turlock, Modesto, Ripon, Merced, Reedley, and Corcoran were smart, creative, and hardworking. But it’s hard not to feel like the rest of us have been taking advantage of the people (and the land) of the Central Valley, all for the sake of a cheaper tomato. These communities need more than grant money; they need a Strong Towns approach to economic development that will help them build homegrown prosperity that endures.
Shina: I hope it's not too much of a history major cliché to admit that I'm obsessed with ancient Rome. In 2018 I got to finally visit Pompeii, and walking through those ancient streets was an absolute dream. At the visitor's exit, however, I was hit with a painful sight: the cases where they display the charred remains of victims who perished in the volcanic eruption. It was a reminder that no matter how much time has passed, respects must be paid to the dead. I revisited that lesson again while reading this recent article about a soldier whose skeleton was uncovered at nearby Herculaneum. The soldier is thought to have possibly been a member of a rescue party, sent to help with evacuation efforts during Mt. Vesuvius's eruption. If it's true, then it's an exciting find for historians, but it's also a sobering tale of a person who, almost 2,000 years ago, made the ultimate sacrifice in service of others.
Lauren: This article from January discusses the role Certificate of Need regulations played in hospital capacity during the COVID-19 pandemic. Twenty states suspended CON laws, which gave existing hospitals the ability to stop healthcare facilities from starting up or expanding in their region if there is no “need” for them, in March and April of 2020. Local health care systems that were already operating at nearly full capacity under normal circumstances were given only days or weeks to find extra space, beds, and equipment, rather than having these things on reserve. Strong Towns has written extensively about how prioritizing efficiency over resilience can lead to catastrophic fragility. This is one deadly example of just that.
—
Finally, from all of us, a warm welcome to the newest members of the Strong Towns movement: Tim McCoy, April Webster, Hunter Antonelli, Peter Bockoven, Peppy Jones, Jeremy Winter, Gina Hallisey, Kathleen Livingston, Karl Fisher, Ryan Wells, Justin Stackhouse, Kristopher King, and Barry Klein.
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!