What Can We Learn from This Year's Strongest Town Champion?
Each year, Strong Towns runs a bracket-style competition called the Strongest Town Contest. The contest is intended to identify and celebrate the cities that most exemplify the Strong Towns approach to building strength, prosperity, and resilience. It’s also just a lot of fun. Dozens of communities are nominated, 16 are chosen as finalists. Tens of thousands of votes are cast before the winner is crowned.
After four rounds of match-ups, and a variety of media (photographs, podcasts, webcasts, and more), we get to know the winning town well. Yet inevitably we hear stories we wish we could go even deeper on. That was certainly the case with this year’s winner, Lockport, Illinois.
As we wrote when we announced the city’s victory, Lockport may not have been as well known as some of its fellow competitors: Oxford, Mississippi; Bentonville, Arkansas; etc. Yet in round after round, this historic canal town thoroughly impressed Strong Towns staff and readers. Throughout Lockport’s winning run, Strong Towns staff found ourselves taking note of stories we wanted to explore further. We kept our eyes open too as Chuck Marohn and Lauren Fisher traveled to Lockport in May to celebrate the town’s victory with them.
This week, we’re going a bit deeper on Lockport, Illinois. In a couple articles as well as a podcast, we will further explore this year’s Strongest Town winner: some of the challenges it is facing, how it is addressing those struggles, and what other communities can learn from both. We want to start by revisiting Lockport’s championship run. There’s much to glean from the Lockport team’s written responses to our first round questionnaire, their photo essay, and podcast and webcast interviews. We also encourage you to watch the talk Strong Towns president Chuck Marohn gave at Lockport City Hall.
From housing and walkability, to economic development and its response to the pandemic—we’ll be proud to point to Lockport for years to come as an inspiration for other towns and cities. Here’s why.
Image credit: Neil Wheeler
Round 1: Written Q&A
In their Round 1 questionnaire, we loved reading about the tangible steps the town was taking to improve walkability and bikeability, create diverse housing options, provide businesses maximum flexibility to weather the pandemic, and become more economically resilient.
Image credit: Barbara Little
Round 2: Photo Essay
In the Round 2 photo essay, we were given a glimpse of Lockport, not just through the official Lockport team, but also through the eyes of its educators, entrepreneurs, and residents.
Image credit: Robert Morris
Member Commentary
We asked some of our members to weigh in on the eight cities competing in Round 2. Member Mitch Foster wrote this of Lockport: “Whether it is in the small, incremental investments in their commercial areas, or the success of their local arts community, they have co-created this amazing sense of community that engages all citizens.”
Semifinal Round: Podcast Interview
In this episode of the Bottom-Up Revolution podcast, Mayor Steve Streit talked with host Rachel Quednau about how the town has rallied to support businesses and residents throughout the pandemic—and not only at the city level (a grant program, giving businesses the flexibility to adapt, etc.), but at the citizen level too, as with the volunteer-driven Lockport Shield program. Listen to the podcast.
Championship Round: Webcast
In the championship round webcast (with Oxford, Mississippi), we learned more about how Lockport has made courageous choices around annexation, how the city takes its lead from residents, the creative ways it is addressing parking, and how the city is focused on making its downtown a vibrant and dynamic place.
Lockport Strongest Town Celebration
On May 20, Strong Towns president Chuck Marohn traveled to Lockport to celebrate the city’s victory. He also gave a talk on what it means to be a Strong Town and a strategic approach toward becoming more prosperous and economically resilient.
It’s time once again to sit down and answer some of the great questions we’ve gotten over at the Strong Towns Action Lab.