Want To Build Strong Towns? Step One: Don’t Be a Jerk.
Local Conversation leaders at the 2024 National Gathering. (Photo by ZED Images.)
There are many bright spots in the Strong Towns movement, but perhaps the brightest is our Local Conversations. In cities big and small across North America, hundreds of these groups are working to make their cities stronger. There may already be a Local Conversation near you that you can join (check the map). If not, you can always start one.
We didn’t start the Local Conversations program. Groups spontaneously formed in our name and started doing awesome work, from planting street trees to putting out benches at bus stops and sometimes even running for office. We studied the most effective ones and, in true Strong Towns fashion, took what we learned and shared it with others. New groups form every week.
As a bottom-up movement, we recognize that partisan politics sometimes push people on the periphery of our conversation into a fight-or-flight response. Since we purposely don’t code for Team Red or Team Blue, it is tough for people in a binary mode to engage with us in constructive ways. If your lens sees only friend or foe, we are often going to come across as frustratingly ambiguous. Election years are especially challenging in that way.
As our movement continues to grow and more and more Local Conversations start to be known, I want to make public the agreement that we ask our local leaders to sign. We call it the “Don’t Be a Jerk” Agreement, and it reflects the spirit of our work and the essence of this movement.
Local Conversation Leaders Agreement (The "Don't Be a Jerk" Agreement)
The Strong Towns movement is a bottom-up revolution to change the way we build our cities, towns and neighborhoods. There are thousands of people working across the continent to make their places stronger.
With this agreement, we are inviting you to be a leader in the Strong Towns movement.
We are going to provide you and your Local Conversation with tools and resources to help you grow your Local Conversation, reach others in your community and be an effective advocate for change.
We are going to allow your Local Conversation to use our name — Strong Towns — as part of your branding and communications. You will be, for all practical purposes, representing Strong Towns in your community.
For this to work out, we need you to agree to a few basic things.
First, we need a member of your Local Conversation to be a Strong Towns member at the Movement Builder level or above ($10/month or $100 per year). The Local Conversations program is broadly paid for by members, donors and sponsors, but we do ask our Local Conversations to signal their commitment in this way. We are all in this together.
Second, we need you to ensure that your Local Conversation stays current on its reporting. We promise this won't be burdensome, but we need you to formally check in once a quarter, with one of those check-ins being a slightly longer census. We'll send you the email link; we just need you to take a couple of minutes to respond to it.
Third, and perhaps most importantly, we need you to not be a jerk. Let us elaborate.
When you act as a local leader for a Strong Towns Local Conversation, you represent not only Strong Towns the organization, but the broader movement itself. Your approach and behavior reflect on every other local leader of every other Local Conversation.
We want to help you be really effective, so we are going to protect you from jerks that might ruin your credibility. To do that, we need you to agree — like every local leader has agreed — to not be a jerk.
At Strong Towns:
We stay above the partisan fray. We don't voice support, share memes, endorse candidates, or speak in any way on issues outside of our core mission and focus. We are very disciplined about this. You need to speak locally in a way that reaches your friends and neighbors, but there is no reason for a Strong Towns Local Conversation to have a position on abortion, guns or Israel/Palestine, for example. Keep it local. This doesn't mean you can't volunteer for a partisan political campaign or even run for office yourself. But within the bounds of the Local Conversation's work, we need you to stay above the partisan fray.
We are kind, even when it's hard. We are working to reform systems and change minds. To the extent that we have enemies, those enemies are systems and accepted practices/approaches, not individuals. We can't use the Strong Towns platform to demonize or personally attack any individual, no matter how frustrated we are with them.
We are polite. We don't curse. We don't use salacious imagery. Our communications will often be provocative, but it will always be safe for work.
We are trustworthy. We don't lie, deceive or conduct ourselves in a way that will undermine our credibility as a consensus builder. We are going to push boundaries and challenge deeply held beliefs, but we are known as people who say what they mean and mean what they say. Ours is a long-term strategy.
For Strong Towns to win, we need the broad culture to change. We change the broad culture by being a positive force, one that builds consensus around key insights and shared realities. By being a local leader, you are signing up to be part of this strategy. You are agreeing to not be a jerk.
If you aren’t part of a Local Conversation, you can still support the hundreds of groups out there doing important work by becoming a member of Strong Towns or making a donation in whatever amount works for you.
Charles Marohn (known as “Chuck” to friends and colleagues) is the founder and president of Strong Towns and the bestselling author of “Escaping the Housing Trap: The Strong Towns Response to the Housing Crisis.” With decades of experience as a land use planner and civil engineer, Marohn is on a mission to help cities and towns become stronger and more prosperous. He spreads the Strong Towns message through in-person presentations, the Strong Towns Podcast, and his books and articles. In recognition of his efforts and impact, Planetizen named him one of the 15 Most Influential Urbanists of all time in 2017 and 2023.