Rates of loneliness and unhappiness are on the rise in the United States, but our European counterparts don’t seem to have the same problem. Why? Part of the reason is the way our built environment isolates us.
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Susan Graham and Ally Smither have very different life experiences — one as a former nurse and the other as an opera singer — but they’ve come together to pursue the same goal: Stopping highway expansion in Houston.
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From college students trying to make ends meet to older individuals who need support from live-in caretakers, occupancy limits make life unnecessarily difficult for a lot of people. Colorado has passed a law that’s going to change that.
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This special edition of Upzoned was recorded last week at the 2024 National Gathering. From business owners to zoning reform experts, Abby talks with attendees about their efforts to build stronger towns.
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When people first started building malls, they had no way of knowing that dramatic shifts in technology and consumer patterns would destroy their business models. What they should've known, though, was that betting all their funding and economic stability on a single project was a bad idea. Let’s not repeat their mistakes.
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How do you get more people to ride bicycles? This is a question that plagues every cycling enthusiast, advocate and industry member. Bob Giordano of Missoula, Montana, has a simple answer: Give them a bike.
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Megan Kimble, journalist and author of “City Limits: Infrastructure, Inequality, and the Future of America's Highways,” joins us to talk about highway expansion in Texas and the groups fighting to stop it.
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City engineers rely on faulty logic and misrepresentations to maintain the status quo. This was made blatantly clear in a recent letter from the City Engineers Association of Minnesota (CEAM) — and it’s why a growing number of engineers are breaking from the party line to support reform. Here are CEAM’s top four arguments against parking reform and why they’re wrong.
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Public bathrooms are an essential component of people-centered places. In addition to maintaining public health, they encourage foot traffic and community, as people are more likely to frequent an area when they know bathrooms will be available — especially if they have children or medical conditions.
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Habitat for Humanity offers a wide range of programs to help people become homeowners, giving the organization a unique perspective on the housing crisis. Strong Towns sat down with two representatives to learn about this perspective, including how Habitat is handling high building costs and why Habitat owners participate in the construction of their homes.
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With work patterns shifting as technology advances, retrofitting suburban office buildings has become increasingly important to developers and planners. Here are five ways you can make your office building more appealing and resilient.
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Last week in Colorado, advocates for people-centered cities and incremental housing pulled off a massive win, sending a bill package full of land-use reforms to be signed into state law. Here’s how they did it.
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The lament, “There’s nothing to do here,” might sound like teenage grumbling, but there may be more wisdom to it than meets the ear. Maybe we should look at our cities through the lens of organic social activities, both because they're enjoyable and because it gives us a chance to reconsider our values and the relationship between our design choices and our community’s social life.
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Social media tells us that snarky, callous remarks get the most attention and have the biggest impact. But when Tristan Cleveland sat down for a real conversation with his opponents, he realized that urbanists must approach people with empathy and understanding. That's the only way to change minds and create real change.
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The Messy City is a podcast that discusses urban planning and design issues. Its host, Kevin Klinkenberg, recently invited Strong Towns President Chuck Marohn to appear on an episode. Up for discussion: Chuck’s new book, sports stadiums, and Disney World.
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Do you know what it's like to have your housing be dependent on a country club membership that you can't afford? Renters across the United States do, as they're forced to pay for amenities like private parking spaces or pool access — even if they never use them.
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Vison Zero is supposed to represent a commitment to achieving zero traffic deaths, but it often devolves into empty platitudes — even when public officials genuinely support it. That’s because they’re looking for solutions in the wrong place. Instead of blaming individual drivers, officials need to look at the root cause of most traffic deaths: the contradictory design of city streets.
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When COVID-19 put her career on pause, opera singer Ally Smither found a new passion: fighting highway expansion.
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Hitsville U.S.A. is known for producing artists, recordings and a distinctive Detroit sound, but it also represents an important element of a strong city: mixed-use development. If Detroit hadn’t let Berry Gordy turn the first floor of his home into a recording studio, Motown Records might not exist today.
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Brian Boland is the founder of Bridge Forward Cincinnati, an advocacy group working to reclaim 19 acres of city land from urban highways by changing the design of the Brent Spence Corridor Project.
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