New Tool Sparks a Wave of Financial Self-Awareness Across North America

What if you could look at your city’s finances and actually understand what’s going on—not just this year, but over the long haul? What if you could spot trouble before it shows up in a budget crisis?

That’s exactly what the Strong Towns Finance Decoder is helping people do. Launched in 2025, this free tool is giving residents, advocates, and local leaders a way to see the big picture—and ask smarter questions about the long-term health of their communities.

Henrik Bechmann, an advocate in Toronto, Canada used the Decoder to analyze his own city’s finances. His results, posted on Bluesky, show a steadiness in Toronto’s fiscal position over the past decade. Yet, the charts revealed that debt is rising while assets and flexibility are shrinking—a trend that could quietly undermine the city’s ability to respond to future needs.

I just applied @strongtowns.org new Finance Decoder worksheet to Toronto. Here are the results. 🧵 (ignore 2024 - statements not available until July) First, the surprise...
— Henrik Bechmann (Toronto) 🇨🇦 I try to be woke (@henrikbechmann.bsky.social) April 7, 2025 at 10:27 PM

Over in Spokane, Washington Erik Lowe made a similar discovery. Despite not having a background in finance, he found the Decoder easy to use—and the results sobering.

“I’m no finance guy,” he posted, “so it was incredibly helpful for @strongtowns to release their municipal finance decoder yesterday. In the last decade, Spokane has seen its financial position weaken considerably.”
— @eriklowe.bsky.social

Both advocates were able to download a few key numbers from publicly available reports, plug them into the Decoder, and immediately see seven charts that visualize their city’s financial trajectory.

In Layton, Utah, the results caught one resident off guard. “I’m grateful that Strong Towns released their Finance Decoder,” he wrote in a LinkedIn post. “I only had data from 2016 onward, but my city seems to be doing well despite looking like most suburban cities.”

The upward financial trend raised questions. Was Layton in the early phase of what Strong Towns calls the Growth Ponzi Scheme—a pattern in which cities appear financially healthy during periods of rapid expansion, only to face mounting liabilities when the bill for infrastructure maintenance comes due? The Decoder helped open the door to deeper scrutiny of the city's financial foundation.

“You have a great asset-to-liability ratio,” replied Strong Towns founder Charles Marohn. “But you’re taking in a lot of outside money and I wonder why. Is it for growth? Is it just general aid?”

Grounded in Public Accounting Best Practices

The Finance Decoder isn't just a novel tool; it's grounded in established public accounting standards. Specifically, it draws from the "Indicators of Financial Condition" methodology developed by the Public Sector Accounting Board (PSAB) in Canada and aligned with the Governmental Accounting Standards Board (GASB) in the U.S. These indicators—focusing on sustainability, flexibility, and vulnerability—are recognized as best practices for assessing long-term financial health.

While these indicators are not legally mandated, they provide a structured framework to analyze budgets beyond short-term balances, helping local leaders make informed decisions that will benefit communities not just this year, but for generations to come.

A Conversation Starter

The Finance Decoder isn’t about giving you easy answers—it’s about helping you ask the right questions.

That’s why we’ve made it free and accessible to everyone. If you’re an elected official, ask your finance team to walk through the Decoder—it only takes a couple of hours with the right data. If you work in city finance, use it as a conversation starter with your leadership before budget season begins.

And if you’re a resident? Bring this to city hall. Ask your leaders to complete the analysis and share the results. Or follow the guide and dig into the data yourself—many Strong Towns advocates already have.

Asking the right questions is how we get on a different path. That’s what it’s going to take if you want to turn your place into a Strong Town.