Friday Faves - Your Weekly Strong Towns Roundup
Strong Towns Program Director Rachel Quednau is currently out on maternity leave, but if you’re a regular listener of The Bottom-Up Revolution podcast, never fear! We’ll be running what we’re calling the “Top of the Bottom-Up”: a roundup of the best and most popular episodes of the podcast, curated for you by Rachel. Check out the first episode of the collection, which features the amazing success story of Alfred Melbourne, who runs a non-profit urban farm operation.
Comment of the Week:
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Here’s what Strong Towns staff were up to this week:
John: The Strong Towns staff all got a chuckle out of these street safety-themed costumes from the National Association of City Transportation Officials. The “Typical American Road” costume, for example, features wide lanes and high speeds that are guaranteed to terrify. These costumes, like real stroads, aren’t sized for children…but they are MUTCD-approved! In all seriousness, Halloween is a holiday that shines a spooky flashlight on the inhumane consequences of the suburban experiment. Consider the rise of trunk-or-treat events. I can understand the appeal of trunk-or-treat—and I’ve taken my own kids to a few—but they’re popular in part because so many of our streets are unsafe to trick-or-treat on foot. Is part of the solution handing out candy from the trunks of cars in oversized parking lots? Maybe, maybe not. I’d be curious to hear your thoughts in the comments below. In the meantime, here are some of my favorite Halloween-themed Strong Towns articles:
(Source: CBC.)
Edward: Family Services of Windsor-Essex (FSWE) recently completed a project in southwestern Ontario to house 10 youths that are facing homelessness. FSWE literally thought outside the box and utilized shipping containers to construct these new homes. One goal of this project was to explore an innovative solution to expedite the delivery of these much-needed homes.
These are some of the first homes constructed from shipping containers in all of Ontario. This CBC article shares the complexity the agency faced with the construction of these homes and the struggles they faced with a building code that never conceived of container home construction. This is a great case study for someone exploring the use of shipping containers to meet housing needs.
(Source: ArchDaily.)
Norm: I was fascinated by Matthew Maganga’s article on the complexities of life within large urban centers that are bisected by a national border. I knew a little bit about one such “transborder agglomeration” because I lived in San Diego, California, which is separated by a national border from Tijuana, Mexico. But I did not know that Kinshasha, the capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, is separated from Brazzaville, the capital of the Republic of the Congo, by the Congo River. This separation and distinction is furthered by the absence of bridges across the Congo River and there is very little direct trade between the two cities. The friction between nations is felt by individuals who find themselves on one side or the other—something we discovered in significant ways in Canada when the USA-Canada border was closed for a long time. This was a piece that made me pause and reflect on borders, walls, natural barriers, social rifts, and what it means to create cities and places that work for everyone.
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Finally, from all of us, a warm welcome to the newest members of the Strong Towns movement: Zach Adsit, Jacob Barker, Addison Bean, Daylon Brumfield, Mark Carron, Nathaniel Chapman, Edward Cotter III, Jesse Davis, Matthew Ducusin, Gary Edwards, Daniel Guthrie, Matthew Hillman, Ed Janoff, Roz Moskowitz Bielski, Emanuel Neves, Jain Redmond, Linda Rooney, and Nichole Smith.
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What stories got you thinking this week? Please share them in the comments!