Friday Faves - Your Weekly Strong Towns Roundup
This week, Strong Towns President Chuck Marohn made the announcement that he has officially retired from the engineering profession. Read about it, and the letter he addressed to the Minnesota Board of Engineering (which has repeatedly harassed Marohn and Strong Towns for our advocacy work) here.
In less somber news, stay tuned next week for a big announcement: the release of our 2022 Strategic Plan update! We’ve been working on this for a while and are so excited to share it with you, as it will guide our mission for the next five years. Sign up for our emails to get notified when it drops!
Comment of the Week:
This excerpted comment came from a discussion on our article, “I'm Retiring From the Engineering Profession.” Join the conversation here!
Here’s what Strong Towns staff were up to this week:
(Source: Anchorage Daily News.)
Jay: In the past few years, there have been some monstrously difficult moments for all of us. As a parent and a community activist, I’ve met folks who have been straight-up on the edge of the abyss since the world went into a gray, pandemic-fueled uncertainty. The other night, we went to my daughter’s first-ever school choir concert, the first time since we lived in our new town these past two years where we got to sit with our neighbors in an auditorium and watch our children perform. It was amazing and reminded me how much each personal, real-life relationship in our community matters.
We’ve written in these pages (rightfully!) about how drive-thru businesses on stroads are not an ideal part of a Strong Town. Ironically, this story is set in a drive-thru and it’s about another kind of strong town where the kindness of people in face-to-face encounters transcends our built environment. It’s from the Pulitzer Prize-winning Anchorage Daily News and it’s written by Julia O’Malley, a great journalist, mom, and neighbor I knew in Anchorage. (One time, I sided a chicken coop with recycled cedar boards from Julia’s old fence.) Hope it touches you as much as it touches me.
(Source: Seairra Sheppard.)
Seairra: One of my favorite topics to read about is writing. As a writer, I love diving into the mind of another’s process. It’s fascinating, as each writer’s process is completely idiosyncratic. A few weeks ago, Joe Minicozzi from Urban3 recommended I check out Draft No. 4: On the Writing Process by John McPhee and it has consumed me entirely with its engaging and visual details of McPhee’s writing process. So far, I’ve found it incredibly relatable. If you’re a writer (especially in the realm of non-fiction) this is definitely a book you want to read.
(Source: Tayana Panova.)
Tayana: Today I saw this medieval street and it made me think about the concept of quantity versus quality, especially in regards to the streets we build today. We’ve been building them all around the U.S. for decades, as though money and resources are infinite, and perhaps because of this mistaken mindset they are often not well-designed, too big, and get damaged fairly quickly, requiring expensive maintenance. I’d venture to say that this street, on the other hand, and others like it have lasted for centuries with minimal maintenance because it was designed with the understanding that a long lifespan would be required, and that resources to maintain and remake it would be limited and could/should be redistributed to other projects. It was created with intention and quality under constraints of scarcity, rather than with the expectation that quantity is king and big money will always be available. And because of this, the old street is well-preserved, functional, durable, fits the character of the town, and does not drain the maintenance purse, which cannot be said about many of our modern streets. I understand that the scale of this street and this town do not compare to the scale of the U.S. and its distances, so it’s not really comparing apples to apples, but it nevertheless illustrates what lessons we can take from principles of the past.
Linda: On a day when I needed reminding that even seemingly insurmountable obstacles can be overcome, I came across this article in The Guardian about Sarah Biffin, a 19th-century British woman who was born without arms and legs, and who went on to overcome “life’s adversities, finding recognition for her outstanding talent as a painter in an age when the artistry of women and disabled people was generally ignored.” She used a paintbrush “sewn into the sleeve of her dress that she would manipulate using both her shoulder and her mouth.” Her watercolor painting Study of Feathers, pictured in the article, is stunning.
Sala House, designed by Christopher Alexander. (Source: Wikimedia Commons.)
John: Years ago a friend loaned me her copy of A Pattern Language, a book written by the late architect Christopher Alexander, along with Sara Ishikawa and Murray Silverstein. Though I’m not an architect, the book was a revelation, as it showed how towns and buildings alike come alive when—and only when—they are made “by all the people in the society.” This was long before I started working for Strong Towns, and years even before I encountered Jane Jacobs’ assertion that “[c]ities have the capability of providing something for everybody, only because, and only when, they are created by everybody.” Christopher Alexander died in March. In a recent appreciation, Matthew Schmitz writes that the “architectural populism” that endeared Alexander to laymen like me alienated him from his colleagues. Yet Alexander is now receiving posthumous vindication, says Schmitz.
Writing about their hopes for their books (Pattern Language is the second in a trilogy), Alexander et al. said they hoped to present ideas about architecture, building, and planning that would “gradually replace current ideas and practices.” Strong Towns has a similar goal as it relates to the North American development pattern. For many in the Strong Towns movement, including me, Alexander has been an important guide.
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Finally, from all of us, a warm welcome to the newest members of the Strong Towns movement: Aidan Breen, Damian Davies, Joseph Davison, Kevin Hardman, Abby Hungaski, Erik Kennedy, Eric Marnadi, David Page, Jason Smith, and Chris Wheeler.
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What stories got you thinking this week? Please share them in the comments!