The Finance Decoder reveals the long-term trends hidden behind annual balanced budgets. For Kansas City, those trends are deeply problematic.
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Many people think that increased efficiency and economies of scale in the housing market are the key to affordability. However, these benefits are not actually appearing. We do need innovation, but not in the form of new interest rate manipulations or complex securitization schemes.
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The Trump administration’s elimination of congestion pricing was shortsighted, but NYC’s congestion pricing was deeply flawed from the start. If congestion pricing is ever going to work as intended, it needs to be revamped with the right priorities.
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Florida is celebrating reduced crash fatalities and injuries. But is this decline real, or is it simply a return to pre-COVID conditions? We have to answer this question before declaring victory. Otherwise, we risk learning all the wrong lessons.
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A new order from the U.S. Department of Transportation is proposing a different approach to transportation spending. If implemented, it could deliver long-overdue reforms, the kind Strong Towns has long supported. However, the specifics raise serious concerns.
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Last Wednesday, a plane crash claimed the lives of 67 people, making it the deadliest U.S. air disaster in over two decades. It prompted an immediate, coordinated response on a local, state and federal level. And yet, when over 100 people die in car crashes a day, nothing is done. It’s time for that to change.
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For decades, we've been living under an unspoken grand bargain when it comes to housing. Most people don’t think about explicitly, but it shapes nearly every conversation we have about growth, change and affordability in our cities and towns. It’s time to change the conversation.
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Today, I want to look at a utility investment near my hometown of Brainerd, Minnesota. At first glance, it seems like an extreme case, but looking at it with a touch of scrutiny reveals a lot of insight into why America’s basic infrastructure systems are failing and will not be maintained.
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I want to draw two insights relating human development to the way cities evolve. These insights are critical to understanding America’s housing crisis and our response to it — and why building housing in major cities can't meaningfully address the housing crisis.
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To escape the housing crisis, we need a lot of housing to be built quickly. The key isn't large, ponderous projects; it's fast, widespread incremental development. We know the types of units that can be scaled and we know how to build them. The only thing we need now is for cities to devote themselves to doing it.
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An annual tradition, here is Chuck Marohn’s list of favorite books that he read in 2024.
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The Christmas Cookie Inflation Index has risen 6.2% in the last year. This is compared to the official inflation rate of 2.6%.
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To build a Strong Town is to develop governing habits and shared cultural understandings that result in a long run of small wins that may be individually imperceptible but cumulatively result in broad and meaningful change. Today, I want to share one of those small wins with you.
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Liability caps mean that a city can’t be forced to pay victims of traffic crashes above a certain amount, even in cases of gross negligence. This may seem unjust, but this kind of protection can encourage city officials and employees to be proactive in addressing past mistakes and making streets safer. Here’s how.
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I’ve mostly left Twitter/X over the past few months. Strong Towns, the organization, has pulled back substantially, as well. I want to explain why because it’s for different reasons than the increasing partisan divide (although that doesn’t help).
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The U.S. is in a massive housing bubble fueled by widespread fraud. With banks incentivized to look away and Wall Street and Washington incentivized to keep housing prices artificially high, a bottom-up approach is the only hope for bringing sanity back to the housing market.
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Today, I’m going to show you what election years do to a nonprofit like Strong Towns, one dedicated to working from the bottom up, with everyone, regardless of how messy those relationships can be. It’s kind of ugly.
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However you feel about the results of the election, remember the power and agency you hold at the local level. Let’s keep our ideals and our vision for a better America while we simultaneously continue to do what we can to make our communities stronger.
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Strong Towns is dedicated to making meaningful progress in pursuing our mission, regardless of who wins elections. To that end, here are five things we want to see the next president do to support the prosperity of America’s cities, towns and neighborhoods.
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To make streets safer, we need to change the way people think about car crashes. And we need your help to do it. So, here’s the executive summary of the new “Beyond Blame” report, which shares the most important insights and recommendations from 18 months of Crash Analysis Studios.
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