Local Conversations Are Putting Strong Towns Ideas into Action
(Source: Strong Towns.)
All this week, we are unveiling the five priority campaigns that will help guide and propel the Strong Towns movement over the next five years. Strong Towns advocates won’t concentrate on these campaigns to the exclusion of our other core issues—but they are going to focus our work in a way that will make our international movement more effective, more energizing, and impossible to ignore.
Much of the on-the-ground change in towns and cities across North America will be driven by Local Conversations. A Local Conversation is a group of people in a particular place who come together to put the Strong Towns approach into action where they live.
Local Conversations are where the rubber meets the road of the Strong Towns movement, which is why we’re coming alongside these amazing neighborhood groups in 2022 as never before.
To correspond with each of our five campaigns, we are creating resources designed specifically to help Local Conversations end parking minimums in their cities, end highway expansions, make local government accounting more transparent, address the complex issue of housing, and make their streets safer and more productive.
There are nearly 110 Local Conversations around the U.S. and Canada, with more being added every week. We’re laying the groundwork to expand that total exponentially: 1,000 Local Conversations within five years.
Imagine a movement growing both in breadth and strength. Imagine a movement gathering momentum even as it achieves focus. You don’t have to imagine it—it’s happening right now.
Our members make it possible to grow the Strong Towns movement. And there’s never been a better time to grow the movement. Are you ready to be a part of that? Become a Strong Towns member today.
John Pattison is the Community Builder for Strong Towns. In this role, he works with advocates in hundreds of communities as they start and lead local Strong Towns groups called Local Conversations. John is the author of two books, most recently Slow Church (IVP), which takes inspiration from Slow Food and the other Slow movements to help faith communities reimagine how they live life together in the neighborhood. He also co-hosts The Membership, a podcast inspired by the life and work of Wendell Berry, the Kentucky farmer, writer, and activist. John and his family live in Silverton, Oregon. You can connect with him on Twitter at @johnepattison.
Want to start a Local Conversation, or implement the Strong Towns approach in your community? Email John.