Break Out of the Resource Trap with a Strong Towns Approach

This article is part eight in a new in-depth series we’re launching on the economic challenges facing resource-based communities, and strategies that can help build lasting prosperity. Read part seven here. The next three parts of the series feature case studies provided by guest writer Sam Western, which you can begin reading here.

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There is a sense of urgency one acquires when grasping the extent of the challenges we face and the amount of work to be done. Meet that urgency with focus and intention. The work of building a Strong Town will never be completely finished. It’s a process, not a destination. 

That process is designed to shift a community from a long and slow decline, one where desperation induces bad decisions and short-term thinking, to a future that rewards hard work and sacrifice with greater prosperity and increasing capacity for success. It’s a future where we not only want our children to stay, but one where they see a more prosperous future for themselves and their families.

To have focus and intention means starting where you are and working with what you have. That will be different for each community, but a good start has you:

1. Forming a working group. Regardless of whether you are an elected official, a city-building professional, or a concerned citizen, you need a team to get something done. Start assembling yours.

2. Taking stock of where you are. As dispassionately as possible, make an accounting of the challenges your community faces and the assets you have to work with. Get a more complete picture by checking your insights with others who see things differently. 

3. Identifying the easiest first steps. What is the thing you can do right now with what you have? Don’t allow your momentum to stagnate by seeking comprehensive solutions. Instead, build up to bigger projects and endeavors. 

4. Getting started. Here is where the focus and intention can yield to urgency. Start making things happen.

Regularly circle back to the Strong Towns approach and the strategies outlined in this guide. They will help you keep the focus and intention you need to sustain success.

State and Federal Support for a Strong Towns Approach

Generally, with the best of intentions, state and federal lawmakers set up programs and policies to assist local communities and grow the economy. All too often, these approaches create modest short-term benefits with enormous long-term costs, especially for local governments. To support a Strong Towns approach, we need state and federal leaders to be more thoughtful and assist with reform efforts.

Here are four ways that can be done:

1. Fund maintenance, not expansion or new facilities.

Local governments already have more infrastructure, buildings, parks, and other facilities than their tax base can sustain. Helping them build more creates greater burden and makes them even more fragile. Don’t give cities more liabilities.

Instead, help them solve their maintenance problems. Shift funding formulas to prioritize basic maintenance, particularly of underground infrastructure in historic neighborhoods. Encourage policies that reconnect and thicken up neighborhoods, allowing communities to experience a greater return from what has already been built.

If communities want to expand their systems, there should be no obstacles for them doing that on their own, but state and federal funds should not encourage that type of response.

2. Recreate economic development offices to support economic gardening.

Align state and federal economic development efforts to support local economic gardening initiatives. States are particularly well-positioned to shift their approach to support bottom-up job creation. 

States can also best measure and document the success of these efforts, allowing the economic development conversation to move beyond superficial ribbon cuttings and subsidies. Don’t play the game of hunting for new businesses, outbidding other states in an attempt to import jobs, and don’t encourage local governments to operate in this way, either.

Provide staff, technical assistance, and other support for economic gardening efforts. When businesses are ready, help connect them to the private sources of capital they need. Instead of tax subsidies, change the tax code to give local governments more flexibility in how they structure their local economy.

3. Instead of subsidies, invest in platforms for building prosperity.

There is an overused adage about teaching someone to fish that applies here. Instead of subsidizing a new business or project from the top-down, plant the seeds for bottom-up innovation and job creation.

Facilities like commercial kitchens, co-working spaces, and makerspaces provide community capacity to innovate and solve problems. Providing financial support for these kinds of initiatives helps elevate their role in local economic development efforts.

Giving priority to communities that have undertaken zoning reform, repealed parking regulations, and streamlined their permitting processes is another way to accelerate reform.

4. Accelerate the benefits of economic transformation. 

The projects cities urgently need to do today tend to be small and nuanced, the kind of work state and federal programs struggle to do well. That doesn’t mean state and federal money can’t be well spent, but it needs to flow through a different mechanism.

For example, instead of injecting a million dollars into a single project, permanently endow a local entity with a million dollars to fund micro projects and small improvement grants. Support institutions that work at the block level, giving them the authority and capacity to direct funding to where it is needed. Provide technical support and assistance to help local communities as they address their own struggles.

A long-term shift won’t occur with a short-term patch. It’s only by building the local systems, institutions, and expertise that state and federal governments can support a Strong Towns approach.

The Path that Success Will Take

A final word about the path you are on…

The Strong Towns approach is a lot like switching to a healthy diet with regular exercise. There will be times when the gains come easy and there will be long stretches where it feels like progress is elusive. Stay the course.

There will be periods where the community performs well and others where you regress. Don’t beat yourself up. Don’t beat others up. Just get back to it.

Some of your little bets will fail. They will fail spectacularly. Remind yourself that you are failing small and failing early and that is a fair price to pay for insight. Others will fail big and fail late, but you will not be one of them. Stay confident. Celebrate success, even small wins. Even when you’re tired. You deserve it.

And never lose sight of why. 

Thank you for everything you do to make your place stronger and more prosperous. The entire Strong Towns movement honors your hard work and commitment.

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