Changing Our Places (and Ourselves) One Step at a Time

Sometimes, small advocacy efforts seem like they’re not worth the time or effort. But every small action plants seeds for future change, both in your city and in yourself.

Emma Durand-Wood, Top StoryEmma Durand-WoodDecember 13, 2024advocacy, city council, little bets, canada, taking action

What’s So Special About Small?

The notion that there is strength in smallness can be found everywhere in the Strong Towns approach—but what’s so special about small?

How Wooden Benches Breathed Life Back Into an Emaciated Transit System

When this Texan city’s bus system fell into decline, local advocates took the next smallest (but highly effective) step toward making their public transit more hospitable: by installing homemade bus benches.

No Community Should Have To Wait a Year or More To Take Action After a Traffic Death

When someone loses their life on your community’s streets, everyone needs to be prepared to take immediate action to prevent future deaths.

Flushing Success Down the Toilet

This public toilet in Winnipeg, MB, is a case study in why city governments need to pay attention to the power of small bets.

Sweat the Small Stuff

Your city’s long-term resilience requires paying attention to the little things.

Pocket Parks: A Small Bet That Makes a Big Difference

This nonprofit is transforming pockets of St. Louis, MO, into delightful and welcoming parks—and at a low cost!

Top Story, Community StoriesSeairra JonesFebruary 28, 2023public space, Third Places, parks, small bets, little bets, nonprofit sector, missouri

The Question I Get Most Often

Many people who want to change things for the better in their place want an example of another town or city that’s already got it all figured out—somewhere they can copy. Here’s why that won’t necessarily work.

Marohn, Top StoryCharles MarohnFebruary 6, 2023strong towns approach, little bets, incrementalism, complex systems

I Feel Most Effective at a Small Scale

If you’ve ever thought, “I’m not a great advocate; I can’t make the big changes my community needs,” then you need to hear what this Strong Towns member has to say about the power of taking small steps.

Parking Is More Than a Number

Parking reform can be a hard sell when it’s done all at once. Here are some small steps you can take instead to start helping your community use less land on parking.

Springfield Gets Started on Fixing State Street

City leaders in Springfield, MA, recently started a project to calm traffic on State Street, one of the city’s deadliest places for walkers and bikers.

Build Community Wealth with Incremental Investment

We must stop building more infrastructure in our cities and switch instead to a model of intensive maintenance, combined with making better use of what has already been built.

Iterating the Neighborhood: The Big Returns of Small Investments

Conventional approaches to public investment tend to be expensive, dull, difficult (or impossible) to undo, and often divorced from the lived struggles of real people. There’s a better way.