Your Community Is Ready for the Next Step. Now Here’s How To Take It.
As the Strong Towns movement has grown, more members have asked for more nuanced guidance and examples of how they can apply Strong Towns principles in their town. The Community Action Lab was our response to this request. This program helps cities that are already interested in change take their efforts to the next level, through virtual coaching and community-specific Strong Towns curriculum meant to shift the conversation on what it looks like to build a strong, financially resilient place. This year, four communities have considered their finances, looked at the big picture, and considered (and taken!) the next smallest steps toward prosperity.
Over the course of a year, all those small bets have added up to big successes.
Medicine Hat, Alberta
During our first event, Mayor Linnsie Clark challenged the Action Team to identify the “speed bumps” that got in the way of progress.
Over the past year, city officials have worked to find a solution to a public bathroom shortage downtown, but most of the options on the table were expensive, required lengthy timelines, and did little to address the immediate need.
After humbly observing where people were struggling, Action Team members realized a lack of washrooms wasn’t the only issue. People weren’t using the current washrooms because they couldn’t find them.
The Medicine Hat Action Team took the next smallest step with simple laminated 8.5x11” signs that directed people to the closest public bathroom. This quick response addressed an urgent need in a matter of days instead of months or years—and saved the city thousands.
Norman, Oklahoma
A simple, one-word change from “required parking minimums” to “recommended parking minimums” has resulted in four new development projects in core Norman since the code change 18 months ago.
This approach of finding small, one-word or one-line code changes is now being applied to the affordable housing crisis in the city: The Action Team will be proposing further simple text changes that will allow casitas and garage apartments, which will support citizen developers and provide additional housing options.
Lake County, Florida
The Lake County Action Team represents the widest diversity, where conservationists and developers are working together to shift the development conversation in 14 incorporated communities in Lake County.
The recent adoption of a pre-approved building program in Groveland lowers the bar to entry for smaller-scale development while aligning city staff with the vision for infill opportunities in the historic core of the city.
The Action Team is sharing the pre-approved building plan approach across the county as a strategy to support both affordable infill development in one of the fastest-growing states in the country.
Chisholm, Minnesota
The Chisholm Action Team is composed of doers who are willing to take risks and embrace the chaos synonymous with the bottom-up approach.
Like other cities, the bar to entry for new entrepreneurs in the Iron Range is tough. Team members were inspired by the chalets in Muskegon, Michigan, and decided to take the next smallest step by exploring the resources they could provide for a local hair braider who wanted to open a business on Lake Street.
Within a matter of hours, a portion of a community gathering space was transformed, and the locals came together to outfit the space with a salon chair.
This small risk is now a model that can be repeated as an approach to support local businesses in Chisholm.
If you’ve ever thought:
How do we make people get engaged with public issues in a way that is actually productive AND fun?
Why does my city always need a big project with a lot of money attached to it before making even the tiniest of improvements?
The Community Action Lab might be the next smallest step for you and your community.
What would 2024 look like if you had a Strong Towns coach to call on for guidance and accountability?
How much more could you accomplish if you had a unified Action Team committed to working toward tangible change together?
How amazing would it feel to see how all those consistent next smallest steps add up over the course of a year?
Click here or email me (edward@strongtowns.org) to bring Community Action Lab to your town in 2024.
Edward Erfurt is the Director of Community Action at Strong Towns. He is a trained architect and passionate urban designer with over 20 years of public- and private-sector experience focused on the management, design, and successful implementation of development and placemaking projects that enrich the tapestry of place. He believes in community-focused processes that are founded on diverse viewpoints, a concern for equity, and guided through time-tested, traditional town-planning principles and development patterns that result in sustainable growth with the community character embraced by the communities which he serves.