An interview on the Nonprofit Growth Show gets deep into the Strong Towns strategy for taking on the development pattern of North America.

Top Story, MarohnCharles MarohnFebruary 26, 2020Strong Towns Book, podcast, interview, nonprofit sector

Jenny Schuetz: Who's To Blame for High Housing Costs?

How do you solve a problem like the housing crisis? And who’s to blame? The answers probably aren’t as simple as we’d like them to be.

Podcast, Marohn, Top StoryStrong TownsFebruary 24, 2020housing affordability, housing crisis, housing, Brookings Institute, podcast

Just Say No

If you want to be a Strong Town, your community must redirect its energy to things that will make it financially better off and more prosperous.

Marohn, Top StoryCharles MarohnFebruary 24, 2020Public Return on Investment, public investment, infrastructure

A (Solvable) Epidemic of Loneliness

Studies show older people spend a huge part of each day alone. Reducing loneliness among our oldest neighbors benefits us all.

Marohn, Top StoryCharles MarohnFebruary 20, 2020family, community, aging in place

Tim Carney: “Alienated America” and the Rise of Populism

What do walkable neighborhoods and church attendance have to do with the surprising ascendance of Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election? More than you might think...and maybe different than you might think, too.

Podcast, Marohn, Top StoryStrong TownsFebruary 17, 2020Donald Trump, Populism, podcast

How we crowd out the best local investments

The Strong Towns approach to public investment is part of an overall strategy of shifting our local energy from chasing the next project to building real wealth.

Top Story, MarohnCharles MarohnFebruary 17, 2020public investment, Strong Towns Book, minnesota, neighborhoods

Coronavirus, Traffic Deaths, and Building a Strong Town

There is no better way to discredit a campaign to reduce auto fatalities than to compare the risk of death by auto crash to the risk of death by viral pandemic.

Marohn, Top StoryCharles MarohnFebruary 3, 2020safety, public health, risk, nassim taleb, antifragility, covid

What Should My City Do About Our Infrastructure Backlog?

If your community has a huge backlog of unfunded infrastructure maintenance — and it’s the rare one that doesn’t — there are some basic and obvious steps that need to be taken.

The Federal Government Should Stop Victim-Shaming Walkers

If the NHTSA wants to save lives, prevent injuries, and reduce vehicle-related crashes, they should stop blaming people who are walking when they are killed and injured by drivers.

Marohn, Top StoryCharles MarohnJanuary 8, 2020NHTSA, walkability, pedestrians, safe and productive streets

The Cost of an Extra Foot

For a traffic engineer, to be conservative in your design is to spend extra money building capacity you don’t really need. The spiraling costs of this approach are enormous.

Marohn, Top StoryCharles MarohnJanuary 6, 2020roads, narrow streets, engineers, minnesota

Should California Bring Back Redevelopment Agencies?

Eight years ago redevelopment agencies were abolished in California. Are they making a comeback...and, if so, is that a good thing? In the final podcast of 2019, Chuck Marohn is joined by Steven Greenhut and Mike Madrid for a roundtable discussion on the resurgence of these controversial agencies.

Podcast, Marohn, Top StoryStrong TownsDecember 18, 2019podcast, redevelopment, redevelopment agencies, blight, regional gathering, california

The Best Books I Read in 2019

An annual tradition, here is Chuck Marohn’s list of his favorite books he read in 2019.

MarohnCharles MarohnDecember 18, 2019Strong Towns Book, Reading

Best of 2019: My Journey from Free Market Ideologue to Strong Towns Advocate

When Strong Towns founder Chuck Marohn’s foundational beliefs about the market came up against how towns and cities were actually being built, something had to give. The process was often painful, and it left him wondering: Is a truly “free” market even possible?

Marohn, Top StoryCharles MarohnDecember 17, 2019Market Urbanism, markets

Best of 2019: What Democrats and Republicans Get Wrong (About Each Other)

A recent study on the “perception gap” between America’s two major parties gives some hope that, at least at the local level, we can find ways to work together, despite our differences.

Marohn, Top StoryCharles MarohnDecember 17, 2019Elections, psychology

Best of 2019: Four Ways Traffic Engineers Thwart Public Will

Public officials trying to make their city’s street more humane are often thwarted by the professional engineers giving them advice. If that’s your city, it’s time to make a change.

Marohn, Top StoryCharles MarohnDecember 16, 2019engineering ethics, traffic engineering, pedestrians, missouri, engineers

Best of 2019: If We’re Not Going to Maintain What We Have, Then Why Bother Building Anything New?

The mentality of “easy to maintain” needs to be replaced with a question of whether something is “worth maintaining.”

Marohn, Top StoryCharles MarohnDecember 12, 2019maintenance, Disney, neighborhoods

The Revolution We Need

Okay, so you want to build a stronger community. But where do you start? Chuck Marohn and Kevin Shepherd (of Verdunity) discuss why this question is so important—and why there is no one-size-fits-all answer. Also discussed: the role of APEs in making our towns and cities fragile, comprehensive plans, and much more.