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Strong Towns
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How To Drive Change Through Civic Empowerment, With Brandi Thompson
How To Drive Change Through Civic Empowerment, With Brandi Thompson

Brandi Thompson is the co-founder and leader of Strong Towns ABQ, a Local Conversation in New Mexico. She discusses the strategies that have helped her group successfully advocate for zoning reform and against highway expansions.

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Podcast, Top Story 2Strong TownsJuly 10, 2025The Bottom-Up Revolution, podcast, local conversations, New Mexico, end highway expansion, zoning
Small-Scale Housing Wins Big in Bend, Oregon
Small-Scale Housing Wins Big in Bend, Oregon

How do you grow without losing what makes your town special? In Bend, Oregon, Jesse Russell is proving it can start with smaller homes.

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Top Story 2Strong TownsJuly 10, 2025housing crisis, housing affordability, oregon, Incremental Housing, infill
Forget Megaprojects—This Teacher Has a Better Way to Fix Cities
Forget Megaprojects—This Teacher Has a Better Way to Fix Cities

What if fixing your city didn’t require a billion-dollar plan—just a neighbor with a shovel and a bold idea? In Bloomington, a high school teacher is quietly leading a local revolution, one small step at a time.

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Top Story 2Strong TownsJuly 10, 2025local government, small bets, illinois, Social Media
The Sims Are Taking Over the City
The Sims Are Taking Over the City

If urban planning is playing SimCity in real life, then the Strong Towns movement isn’t made up of distant players — it's made up of the Sims who live and work in the city every day. And they're taking over the game.

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Top StoryStrong TownsJuly 9, 2025National Gathering, urban planning, bottom-up, strong towns approach, taking action
How To Build a Thriving Advocacy Group, With Alyssa Lee and Kay Crumb
How To Build a Thriving Advocacy Group, With Alyssa Lee and Kay Crumb

Alyssa Lee and Kay Crumb are leaders of Strong SacTown, one of the largest and most successful groups in the Strong Towns Local Conversations program. Today, they share their advice for building and sustaining a successful group.

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Podcast, Top StoryStrong TownsJuly 8, 2025podcast, The Bottom-Up Revolution, Bottom-Up Shorts, california, local conversations
This Canadian City is Ditching Red Tape for Rowhouses
This Canadian City is Ditching Red Tape for Rowhouses

Calgary is cutting delays—not corners—to deliver more housing where it’s needed. And your city should be paying attention.

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Top StoryStrong TownsJuly 8, 2025Incremental Housing, canada, housing crisis, missing middle, productive growth
West Virginia Is the Canary in America’s Infrastructure Coal Mine
West Virginia Is the Canary in America’s Infrastructure Coal Mine

West Virginia’s $1.6 billion Road to Prosperity program was supposed to cover maintenance costs and reignite economic growth. Seven years later, the money’s gone and the situation has gotten worse.

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Edward Erfurt, Top StoryEdward ErfurtJuly 8, 2025end highway expansion, west virginia, state government, infrastructure cost, growth ponzi scheme
The Intersection of Waste and Opportunity
The Intersection of Waste and Opportunity

An intersection redesign in Fairbanks, Alaska, proves that road projects are not always improvements—and that DOT priorities are often out of touch with reality.

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Norm Van Eeden Petersman, Top StoryNorm Van Eeden PetersmanJuly 7, 2025end highway expansion, alaska, Ask Strong Towns Anything, department of transportation, state government
Bangor’s Bold Moves on Housing
Bangor’s Bold Moves on Housing

Bangor, Maine, isn’t holding out for silver bullets. It’s getting to work—clearing the way for more homes in creative, community-minded ways.

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Top StoryStrong TownsJuly 3, 2025Incremental Housing, housing crisis, Maine, next increment, housing policy
How To Take a Holistic Approach to City Building, With Craig Cassar
How To Take a Holistic Approach to City Building, With Craig Cassar

Craig Cassar is a first-term city councilor in Hamilton, Ontario. He joins Tiffany to discuss the challenges his city faces and the progress it’s made. They also talk about the importance of synergy between urbanism and environmentalism.

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Podcast, Top StoryStrong TownsJuly 3, 2025podcast, The Bottom-Up Revolution, canada, city government, environment
Lessons From Buffalo: How To Stop Slumlords and Protect Urban Spaces
Lessons From Buffalo: How To Stop Slumlords and Protect Urban Spaces

Today, Abby is joined by Bernice Radle, a small-scale developer and historic building preservationist from Buffalo, New York. They discuss how two developing news stories could affect both small-scale developers and historic preservationists.

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Podcast, Top StoryStrong TownsJuly 2, 2025podcast, upzoned, Incremental Housing, small scale developers, historic preservation
3 Things To Keep in Mind When Removing an Urban Highway
3 Things To Keep in Mind When Removing an Urban Highway

In 2011, the Rhode Island Department of Transportation decided to do something extremely unusual: It removed an urban highway. Here are three lessons to learn from their success.

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Top StoryMya RileyJuly 2, 2025National Gathering, Rhode Island, end highway expansion, department of transportation, freeway removal
Stop Banking on Subsidies and Start Building What Works
Stop Banking on Subsidies and Start Building What Works

As Norwalk navigates a housing crisis, one thing is clear: the path forward isn’t scale for scale’s sake—it’s building smarter, more affordably, and with the community in mind.

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Top StoryAsia MieleszkoJuly 1, 2025Incremental Housing, housing affordability, subsidies, housing market
How To Remove Barriers to Good Housing Development, With Jesse Russell
How To Remove Barriers to Good Housing Development, With Jesse Russell

Jesse Russell is a small-scale developer from Bend, Oregon. He joins Norm to discuss the ways he’s helping create more attainable homes in his hometown. (Transcript included.)

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Podcast, Top StoryStrong TownsJuly 1, 2025podcast, Bottom-Up Shorts, The Bottom-Up Revolution, oregon, strongest town contest, Incremental Housing, small scale developers
How Culdesac Tempe Develops Freedom, Revenue, and Belonging, With Ryan Johnson
How Culdesac Tempe Develops Freedom, Revenue, and Belonging, With Ryan Johnson

Chuck sits down with Ryan Johnson, the founder of Culdesac Tempe, the first car-free neighborhood built from scratch in the U.S. They discuss the realities of living in and developing a community like Culdesac.

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Podcast, Top StoryStrong TownsJune 30, 2025podcast, Incremental Housing, car-lite, Arizona, developers, walkability
Answering the Top 3 Questions About Abundance and the Strong Towns Approach
Answering the Top 3 Questions About Abundance and the Strong Towns Approach

A couple of weeks ago, Chuck did a Q&A about how the book “Abundance” differs from the Strong Towns approach. There were some good questions, so we’ve consolidated his answers here.

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Marohn, Top StoryCharles MarohnJune 30, 2025top-down, bottom-up, Incremental Housing, local government, state government, strong towns approach
How to Build the Perfect City
How to Build the Perfect City

While urban planning can sound boring, how we choose to live is as fundamental a question as exists.

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Top StoryChris ArnadeJune 27, 2025National Gathering, urban planning, community, asia, social trust
Eric Higbee: How to Master the Art of Community Engagement
Eric Higbee: How to Master the Art of Community Engagement

Eric Higbee is a landscape architect who teaches university courses on community engagement and works on community design and planning projects through his award-winning landscape architecture practice.

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Podcast, Top StoryStrong TownsJune 26, 2025podcast, The Bottom-Up Revolution, placemaking, community engagement, urban planning
Student Journalist Goes "All Out" to Spotlight Car Dependency and Spark Change
Student Journalist Goes "All Out" to Spotlight Car Dependency and Spark Change

Student journalist William Donofrio is part of a growing group of changemakers who are noticing, documenting, and sharing the struggles their places face.

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Top StoryNorm Van Eeden PetersmanJune 26, 2025safe and productive streets, car dependency, students, taking action, journalism
When Parents Are Charged but the Stroad Is the Culprit
When Parents Are Charged but the Stroad Is the Culprit

There is nothing radical or reckless about letting your child cross the street. So why are parents across the country facing criminal charges for doing just that?

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Top StoryTony HarrisJune 26, 2025safe and productive streets, children, walkability, Street Design, stroad
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