As an engineer, I once had property owners turn out en masse to oppose a project I was working on that would fix their potholed street and broken sidewalks. Find out why—and one key policy change that might have led to a different response.
Read MoreNot everything in a Strong Town can be about dollars and cents. The finances constrain us—they are an important check on our avarice—but the things that make a place worth loving go far beyond the balance sheet.
Read MoreMy city council has been offered an impossible choice: spend millions of dollars we don’t have repairing our historic water tower, or permanently destroy an iconic landmark and a piece of our history. But there is a third option.
Read MoreThe Strong Towns Podcast is back with brand new episodes. And to kick things off, we’re offering you a sneak peek into the upcoming full-length book by Strong Towns founder Charles Marohn—including details of the contents that haven’t yet been shared anywhere else. And you can pre-order your copy today!
Read MoreWe should require our local governments to develop some discipline and reliability in their permitting approach. These are practices that demonstrate respect for both our civic institutions and the people they are supposed to serve.
Read MoreHuman behavior can be influenced in subtle—and often very pro-social—ways through design of place.
Read MoreWe have a lot of work ahead at Strong Towns to meaningfully engage people of color and to grow the racial diversity of our movement. We’re committed to doing that work.
Read MoreApp developers are promising that any citizen with a smart phone can take part in planning their city like never before. But is there more to community engagement than what you can fit within the borders of a screen?
Read MoreIt’s hard to have a coherent conversation on affordable housing when most of those involved in the discussion directly benefit from — and in some ways depend on — higher housing prices.
Read MoreUsing routine traffic stops as a pretext to root out other types of crime is as disingenuous as it is unhelpful. We need to design intuitively safe streets—and then use traffic enforcement for the minority of drivers who are actually driving recklessly.
Read MoreLast week, we announced the biggest news in the Strong Towns universe in a long time: our founder wrote a book. This week, we’re taking you behind the scenes.
Read MoreStrong Towns has been an international movement for change for over ten years. Now, it’s becoming a book—and this fall, we’re embarking on a continent-wide tour to promote it.
Read MoreIf electric vehicles become the norm, our fuel tax-funded infrastructure might suffer. What should cities do?
Read MoreThe property tax punishes modest improvements and rewards steady decline. People who take steps to add value to their property pay more taxes, while slumlords and speculators pay less. There are a lot of reasons for cities to switch to a tax on land value, and more states should allow cities to make that change.
Read MoreSlowing down drivers can save pedestrian lives. But is a little widget in your car the best way to do it?
Read MoreModern Monetary Theory suggests that recessions can be avoided – along with lots of unnecessary pain – if policymakers will commit the resources to preempt them. Sounds like the same promise the Forest Service made fighting fires last century.
Read MoreYou probably use Zillow to shop fantasy mansions in cities you could never afford. But would you sell them your house?
Read MoreRevisiting a 2017 conversation between Charles Marohn and Chris Arnade about the toll of economic and social disintegration in American communities.
Read MoreAmazon has pulled out of the deal with New York City. It’s unlikely subsidies are going away, so what can other cities learn so they don’t repeat mistakes?
Read MoreModern Monetary Theory is the financial foundation of the Green New Deal. It’s an experiment our cities don’t want to undertake.
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