For Asheville, North Carolina, rebuilding might mean questioning some rules and getting creative to allow for the same kind of incremental development that made the city so unique and gave it such a quirky (and productive) local economy.
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Asheville's River Arts District, North Carolina's flagship for authentic incrementalism, was destroyed by Hurricane Helene. Here's why it's so important that people continue embracing incrementalism to bring it back.
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Since enacting broad housing reforms in 2019, Durham, North Carolina, has been experiencing an explosion of missing-middle housing and housing affordability. Here are the main reforms the city enacted and how they're helping it fight the housing crisis.
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In many cities, officials primarily rely on traffic enforcement to prevent car crashes and fatalities. This is unsustainable and ineffective. If city officials want to make Vision Zero a reality, instead of a slogan, they must address the systemic issues that put everyone at risk.
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Regulatory reform doesn’t always mean replacing or changing zoning codes. Great designers are experts at working within existing codes to increase housing options, and this method is often more attainable and scalable than actually changing the code. Here’s one such example of using existing code to create incremental housing.
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In this episode of Upzoned, host Abby Newsham is joined by Doug Barrick, the town manager of Rutherfordton, North Carolina, to talk about what it’s like to participate in the Strongest Town Contest and how Rutherfordton is working to become a stronger town.
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Local activists in Selma, NC, started small, but they’ve grown into a coalition of citizens, civic groups, and city leaders striving to improve housing, transportation, and the local economy.
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For the past four years, Jessica Peacock has been fighting her city’s zoning laws in order to get her great-grandparents’ neighborhood grocery store reopened.
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Durham, North Carolina, has become the ninth largest city to eliminate parking mandates for new developments citywide.
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Restrictive zoning can make it so that smaller residential developments face the same prohibitively expensive restrictions as larger commercial units. But the state of North Carolina has passed a new bill to address this issue.
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The police department in Oakboro, North Carolina, has been asked to address drivers misusing a left-turn lane—but this is not a policing issue, and no level of enforcement can correct it. Instead, let’s look at the street’s design.
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A new proposal to simplify zoning in Durham, NC is sparking controversy. Host Abby talks with special guest, Aaron Lubeck.
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As Asheville, NC, promises to make up for past harms done to its Black community, it glosses over an ongoing disparity: less-wealthy homeowners (who are disproportionately Black) are overpaying on their property taxes.
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Why local entrepreneurs should reject bad state-level codes and demand local ownership of roads.
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Reopening a neighborhood store that was a fixture in its community for decades shouldn’t be this hard.
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Data from North Carolina points to a nationwide problem: that services may be going unfunded in your community because of flawed processes, sloppy math, and lack of respect for the law in the property tax system.
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In Buncombe, NC, flawed computer formulas are being used to generate thousands of dollars in "tax breaks" for owners of larger, more expensive homes.
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Residents of Mooresville, NC, are outraged as a road-widening project and ensuing regulatory dispute pushed by city officials threaten the future of a longstanding farmers market.
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Neighbors in Chapel Hill, NC, mobilized to raise awareness of property tax inequities within their community…and ultimately brought about a $7-million reduction in home assessed values.
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When Strong Towns member John Holmes was fired for speaking against harmful development practices, he didn’t let that stop him. Working with other advocates, he’s paving the way to success for Charlotte, NC!
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