Our New E-book is a Blueprint for a Community Your Kids Won't Have to Leave
For over more than a decade, we've been honored to share the Strong Towns message in person with hundreds of communities, large and small, and with countless thousands more through our content—not to mention our amazing network of members and advocates. One thing that has become clear is that we hear many of the same questions and concerns everywhere we go. At heart, we're all human, and we really do want many of the same basic things for our communities.
One of the top questions that motivates people to seek out the Strong Towns message has always been the following:
“How do we keep our kids from leaving town?“
That is to say, how do we build the kind of community where they won't feel that they have to go elsewhere to prosper?
That is the question that motivates our newest e-book, Breaking Out of the Resource Trap. We're proud to release it to the public this week.
A Blueprint for the Strong Towns Approach to Economic Development
Breaking Out of the Resource Trap is a blueprint—perhaps the most thorough one we've ever published—to the Strong Towns approach to local economic development. It succinctly and accessibly lays out simple strategies your community can begin to take right now, without waiting for any sort of grant, or for state or federal permission. These strategies are intended to help you take control of your own economic destiny: to build wealth from within, that can be sustained across generations, and that is not dependent on expendable resources or outside subsidies beyond your control.
In Breaking out of the Resource Trap, you will learn:
How the traditional approach to community development differs from the prevailing modern approach.
How to retain capital in your community and create more opportunities for your citizens to provide for each other’s needs and wants locally.
How to make space for local entrepreneurs to experiment and thrive.
What kind of investments in your public realm best support the goal of a community that will grow in wealth and resilience over time.
And much more!
And you will read powerful case studies of communities struggling to move from an economy where the community is a cost to be minimized, to one where the community—its own ingenuity and initiative, pride, and care—is the ultimate source of prosperity.
You can find more articles and resources related to Breaking out of the Resource Trap at www.strongtowns.org/growstronger.
The Strong Towns message is here to guide and inspire you to take action: to do what you can to build a stronger and more financially resilient city. There are thousands of such champions all over North America. They come from all walks of life—citizens to leaders, professionals to neighbors, and everyone in between. They’re asking the hard questions, reckoning with decades of misguided decisions, and advocating for a better way. You can help grow this movement by becoming a Strong Towns member today.