Friday Faves - Your Weekly Strong Towns Roundup
Starting next week, Strong Towns Senior Editor Daniel Herriges will be taking a break from writing to spend time with his newborn son, Oliver. (Congratulations, Herriges family!) For all you readers out there who are fans of Daniel’s articles, though, don’t worry: We won’t leave you in the lurch during his parental leave. Just for you, we’ve cultivated his best writing from before 2021 to share over the coming weeks, in a series we’re calling Herriges, Rezoned. We think you’re going to love it, and again: Congrats to Daniel and his growing family!
Comment of the Week:
This came from a discussion prompted by the question, “If you have devoted hours of study and practice to what makes a good place, why leave the construction and renovation of buildings to big developers?“ Join the conversation on our Facebook Group!
Here’s what Strong Towns staff were up to this week:
Lauren: Last week, I shared my “song of the day” with the Strong Towns team. Our “water cooler” Slack channel blew up with recommendations from Jay, Michelle, Linda, Daniel, Grace, Seairra, Shina, and Tayana. Here’s an exclusive link to the resulting unlisted music playlist on Youtube. Only John’s “song of the day” is missing, because it was the music from a baseball season opener advertisement and, I get it, but it didn’t really fit. ❤ Take your best guess at who’s listening to what, if you’re the sort who likes to gamify things. If not, I hope you just enjoy the tunes.
(Source: Flickr.)
Chuck: My daughters are at the age where I can share BBC articles with them and I’m not speaking past them, which creates a whole new level of delight (especially when I’m traveling). I couldn’t help but be the dad who forwarded this article to my science-loving (yet bored-with-high-school-science-class-instruction) kids. How cool is it that we can harness bioluminescence—the condition of some evolved organisms to emit light—and use it to actually produce useful light, organically! I keep telling my youngest, Stella, that biology is not only the most important of her science classes, it’s also the most exciting.
(Source: Flickr.)
Rachel: My colleague Lauren put together a great Twitter thread this week all about big box stores, inspired by the recent news that Kmart has just three stores left in operation in the U.S. It walks through some key Strong Towns arguments against big box stores (and all the parking that comes with them). If your town is contemplating a new big box development, grab the articles in this tweet thread and bring them to upcoming community meetings or send them straight to your local leaders so they can see what a costly, harmful choice this is for any city.
(Source: Flickr.)
John: Here at Strong Towns, we return often to the work of social psychologist Jonathan Haidt. In an excellent article last December our senior editor Daniel Herriges wrote about Haidt’s Moral Foundations Theory and how it has helped shape a Strong Towns movement that appeals to “liberals, leftists, conservatives, libertarians, and those (a greater number than you’d think) who are too outside of the binary to label their political thought in one of these ways.” Haidt’s work has been helpful on a personal level, too, as I try to cultivate deeper community with friends, family members, and neighbors who often have very different political views than I do.
All that is to say that when Haidt speaks, I pay close attention. And speak (or write) Haidt has, and powerfully, in a new essay in The Atlantic. Haidt explains why the last 10 years of American political and cultural life have been “uniquely stupid.” He compares the situation here to what life must have been like for the confused and suddenly incomprehensible people sifting through the ruins of the Tower of Babel. American democracy is “now operating outside the bounds of sustainability,” warns Haidt. “If we do not make major changes soon, then our institutions, our political system, and our society may collapse during the next major war, pandemic, financial meltdown, or constitutional crisis.”
A scene from Japanese television show Old Enough!
Jay: Would you send your three year old on a half-mile solo walk to the grocery store to get a couple things? That’s the conceit of a long-running Japanese show called Old Enough! which celebrates the independence of children. A Slate article about the show coming to Netflix was shared in-house by our Senior Editor Daniel Herriges, who is himself an active daddy of two preschoolers.
I watched the first episode with my own kids, aged 7 and 9, and they rooted for young Hiroki, two years and nine months old, as he made his way a little more than a half mile (1 km) to buy some sweet curry for his papa’s favorite dinner. He (Oof!) got distracted by buying his mom flowers and forgot the curry, but then (Wow!) he remembered his curry mission on his way home and returned for it.
Watch it as a live action dramedy, or like Slate author Henry Grabar, ponder what it says about the difference between North American urban design (especially fast moving stroads which are neither streets or limited access roads) and the layout of streets and homes in Japan.
(Source: Seairra Sheppard.)
Seairra: Have you ever walked around your city at night? Probably one of my favorite things to do as the weather warms is saunter about in the crisp moonlight. Much like strolling through the city in the day, I feel like you notice different things about your town once the sun has set—even if it’s simply an odd corner that while in the day is nothing special, carries a magical beauty in the darkness. I’m curious to see your nighttime city photos. Send me an email with your favorites: seairra@strongtowns.org.
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Finally, from all of us, a warm welcome to the newest members of the Strong Towns movement: Nathan Bohan, Paul Boys, Patrick Corcoran, Sidarth Dasari, Joel Fox, Jeffrey Guidry, Bill Katzenmeyer, Cory Kertz, A A Ragan McNeely, Justin Petty, LaVonne Poteet, Deb Robison, Evelyn Smith, Charles Twardy, and Kim Whittemore.
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What stories got you thinking this week? Please share them in the comments!