Friday Faves - Your Weekly Strong Towns Roundup
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Comment of the Week:
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Here’s what Strong Towns staff were up to this week:
Seairra: This week I flew to Brainerd, Minnesota, to work with Chuck on filming Strong Towns academy videos. It was a great time and we got a lot done in two and a half days. If you haven't signed up for academy courses yet, be sure to check them out!
(Source: Unsplash.)
Shina: This past year, I've been trying to use the library for all my reading needs, rather than buying digital or hard copies of everything. Being able to access titles on my phone through their online catalogue makes for a very different library-going experience than what I remember from my childhood. Online searches don't offer the same sense of delight that I got from roaming the shelves, surrounded by the smell of paper while looking through the checkout cards inside the books I pulled, to see who came before me… That said, it is convenient to be able to return items with the click of a button. No more late fees!
Along with my renewed nostalgia for libraries, I've been revisiting some of the books I read in childhood, to see if they still hold up today. If you've got a kid in your life who enjoys reading (or listening to audiobooks, because the production quality of this one is quite good), then I recommend The City of Ember by Jeanne DuPrau. Rereading the book now in adulthood, I'm guessing it was inspired largely by Plato's Cave, but it also features some Strong Towns-y themes about maintaining aging infrastructure—and how it might feel if your city reaches a point where it no longer can.
Kamloops, BC. (Source: Wikimedia Commons.)
Chuck: For many years, I wrote the Friday News Digest, a compilation of links and insights based on the news of the week. I loved writing it, but it was time consuming and the commitment was more about becoming a disciplined writer than it was about communicating content. Last week I was in Kamloops, British Columbia, and was given a blast from the past when reminded of this blurb I wrote about our host. It’s the first item in the digest, referencing a real Strong Towns analysis Mitch did almost a decade ago: “I have no clue where Kamloops even is, but it is now one of my favorite places in the country simply because someone there would put this analysis together.”
Norm: I’ve been really enjoying Strong Towns member Michael Natelli’s Hope in Cities substack newsletter and his piece on child-friendly or vulnerable-friendly places really struck a chord with me. He concludes, “The only people that don’t gain from building cities for children are those who seek to consume the city as a product, rather than investing in it as a community. And we should be comfortable with that. We shouldn’t date those who objectify us, and our cities shouldn’t, either.”
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Finally, from all of us, a warm welcome to the newest members of the Strong Towns movement: Taha Akhawala, James Avery, Andre Belanger, Susan Montgomery-Smith, Anthony Ou, Bradley Parrish, Maria Porter, Amber Rasmussen, Edgar Rodriguez, Brent Rystrom, and David Watkins.
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What stories got you thinking this week? Please share them in the comments!