If we listen to those concerned about housing affordability, rents are already too high and may only go higher. If we listen to those concerned about housing finance, rents are about to collapse. Can both of these narratives be true?
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There’s a certain artistic quality to abandoned spaces—but if we look a bit deeper, these ruins also hold lessons about patterns of disinvestment and policy shifts that have adversely affected American communities.
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Sara Joy Proppe is the founder and director of Proximity Project, a consultancy that helps churches discover how they can use placemaking to connect with the local community.
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When housing is scarce, the affordability and quality of it tend to go down. If we want to solve this, we need more housing supply—but how do we make that happen? (Hint: Not necessarily through large-scale federal programs!)
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A bill to legalize certain forms of “missing middle” housing statewide in Minnesota appears dead in the legislature. Yet, here are 4 reasons why it’s still not a total loss.
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Everyone has an entry point on their journey to taking action for their place. For Bernice Radle, it was witnessing the steady depopulation of Buffalo, NY, and seeing a landscape of unused, unloved buildings headed for the wrecking ball.
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As the U.S. enters another election year, many Americans are going to be engrossed in the conversation about national politics. And many of our readers want to know where Strong Towns stands on the issue.
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The financial struggles of Houston and the cities of the Silicon Valley area—as well as tens of thousands of others across North America—have the same underlying cause.
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Would you wait a month to fix a leaking pipe that was damaging your kitchen cabinets? No? Then why do we wait so long to fix streets where people continuously die in car crashes?
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With regular repetition, community cleanups build something that’s lasting: a sense of commitment, pride, and place attachment.
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Like so many places, Muskegon, MI, has a shortage of housing and a surplus of vacant lots. That’s why it’s enacted a program that allows it to redevelop those lots into affordable housing—at a low risk to the city.
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Cincinnati is currently undergoing a significant planning reformation effort, which involves unveiling what’s being called the Connected Communities plan. Joining us to talk about it is Cincinnati urban planner John Yung.
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It's not that cities can’t or shouldn’t learn from each other. But there simply aren’t the kind of drag-and-drop solutions that some pundits (who are either naïve or dishonest) would like to claim.
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It’s hard for people to be excited about something they’ve never experienced before. How can we use positive experiences to change that?
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New York’s popular Open Streets program might not continue this summer, as it is purportedly getting too expensive to maintain.
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Like many U.S. towns, Maumee, OH, has a state highway that cuts through their Uptown. For decades, it’s been known as a dangerous road…but no longer: the city is taking back its streets and making them places for people, not cars.
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Norfolk, NE, knows that people are the indicator species of a successful place, and it’s doing all it can to make its public spaces friendly to its people.
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In 2015, Edmonton, a city of 1 million situated in the Canadian Prairies of Alberta, was the first city in the country to adopt Vision Zero—and they’ve taken that adoption seriously.
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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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Houston’s fiscal problems are less critical than other major cities with large budget shortfalls—yet, their mayor is correct when he said his city is broke, that the financial approach of the city is clearly not working. Here’s why.
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