Friday Faves - Your Weekly Strong Towns Roundup

 

Happy Friday, Strong Towns readers! We wanted to give you a little heads-up that we won’t be publishing on Monday, July 4, as the Strong Towns staff will be off for the holiday. If you observe Independence Day, then we hope you have a great time with friends and family—and if the celebrations aren’t for you, then we hope you just have a great weekend, in general!

 
 

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Here’s what Strong Towns staff were up to this week:

Visit our Life in a Strong Town Pinterest page here!

Tayana: Our Life in a Strong Town Substack has a new Pinterest page full of inspirational examples of Strong Towns principles! You can find photos, diagrams, how-to guides and articles on topics such as neighborhood events, how to create safer streets and better bike lanes, how to improve walkability and parks, and more. You can also find Strong Towns articles in pin form if you would like to save or share our content in that format.

(Source: Unsplash.)

Chuck: The more we learn about walking, the more we recognize how essential it is for humans. And why wouldn’t it be? Imagine if we took horses or wolves and had them no longer run, but be transported around everywhere in machines. Or, what if we made a device where fish could merely float and be propelled around by a motor instead of swimming? None of us would be surprised if the horses, the wolves, and the fish all became weak, sickly, and rather pathetic versions of themselves. Our cities evolved, as human habitat, in conjunction with us, to meet our needs and make us fully human. Walking long distances each day isn’t recreation or a luxury; it is essential to who we are, as important for our thriving as any other public health initiative (and perhaps more so).

Jay: I was on a jobsite in Northern California ​​a number of years ago  installing a concrete-anchored steel pole to support a photo-voltaic array for an off-grid solar system. There was the most magnificent pear tree I’ve ever seen in the front garden. The homeowner had dug the composted manure (many years old) from an old outhouse and fertilized the pear tree with it. We called it the Hu-manure Pear Tree and it was a solid producer for many years. The independent communities living in the mountains of Mendocino County are amazingly resilient and self-sufficient, but also bold and simple innovators. 

Off-grid homesites are not so difficult to design and build, even if you are not an experienced engineer or carpenter. Behold, my TikTok buddy Jack Leonard Birt, who is an amazing ambassador for this minimalist lifestyle. From his Tesla to his e-bike to his composting toilet to his 240-square-foot tiny house, this guy is full of off-grid style. I love his openness, humor, and willingness to accept and deflect criticism. I bet his TikTok skills are underrated by most.

(Source: Unsplash.)

Daniel: There’s a wave of interest across North America in re-legalizing the “missing middle” housing—i.e., a range of small-scale housing, from fourplexes to backyard granny flats to cottage courts to row homes—that used to be the building blocks of the American city. But if you’re following this wave, you know the big question is, “How much of this stuff will actually get built?” And maybe the number one city to watch is Portland, Oregon. In a piece for Dwell, Michael Andersen lays out the innovative changes Portland has made to its zoning code, and how they are convincing some builders who used to just do McMansions to switch gears. Designed in collaboration with a brain trust of incremental developers and nonprofits such as Habitat for Humanity, Portland’s code is intended not only to legalize new—or rather, reintroduce old—forms of housing to the city’s mix, but to ensure that it’s feasible to build the stuff. And it might just be working.

(Source: Independent.)

Rachel: I recently picked up this book because the author is a regular panelist on the best radio show ever, Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me, from NPR. Jessie Klein is also a comedy tv writer and producer, as well as, it turns out, an absolutely hilarious author. The book, I’ll Show Myself Out, is about the joys and challenges of mothering a young kid. I’m only halfway through, but I already had to leave the front porch where I was reading because I was laughing so hard I was crying, and I got worried the neighbors might start to think it was a little odd for someone to be sitting outside their house alone, giggling to themselves. I’m about to enter that journey of parenthood myself with our first baby due in the fall, so this book was a welcome read, but I bet even people without kids would still find it amusing.

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Finally, from all of us, a warm welcome to the newest members of the Strong Towns movement: Pamela Adams, Melissa Bowman, Kyler Bracken, Lori Cox, Emily Crawford, Logan Daum, Sam Eckert, Joe Frascello, Dillon Gardner, Jason Grant, Robyn Gray, Isabella Gruse, Jacob Haverkost, Andrea Hooley, Victoria Hresc, Chad Jones, Catalin Kaser, Josiah Klein, Matthew Limbu, Sean Maxwell, Robert McNierney, Mark Muggli, Peter Palafoutas, Suzanne Prince, Luther Propst, Jessica Richards, Ivan Rojas-Fuentes, Benjamin Sagritalo, Kenneth Schlegel, Bryan Smith, Danielle Soneff, Zachary Staggs, and Gregory Young.

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What stories got you thinking this week? Please share them in the comments!

 
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