Cities are complex systems, and wrapping your mind around them can be tough. Here are some frameworks to guide you.
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Can built environments grow even stronger after experiencing some form of destruction?
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If the U.S. is advancing in its ability to build things, why does it seem like our places are falling apart?
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Many people who want to change things for the better in their place want an example of another town or city that’s already got it all figured out—somewhere they can copy. Here’s why that won’t necessarily work.
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Let's talk about some core Strong Towns concepts: complexity, incrementalism, fragility, and more!
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Here are some touchstone concepts that help underlie the Strong Towns view of how to achieve a world full of places capable of growing bottom-up prosperity
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Planning must become a job that planners can actually do in a 40-hour work week. This will require a different approach to planning, altogether.
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Cities are complex systems…and maintaining a healthy system in a stable equilibrium is relatively easy. But restoring an unhealthy system back to equilibrium is very hard.
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This week on the Strong Towns Podcast, we’ve invited back a popular past guest and regular Strong Towns contributor: Johnny Sanphillippo.
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Centralized systems are good at getting us cheap food, cars, and toilet paper—until they’re not. They’re also really bad at isolating deadly outbreaks.
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If we want our cities to be more resilient and financially productive, we must allow them to become complex again.
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This is Part 1 in a three-part series about why our cities deserve better than cookie-cutter, state-level land use reforms.
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How have cities throughout history successfully grown and met their need for new homes? Two metaphors from nature provide the key.
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Cities are complex…which means that our regulations shouldn’t be.
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Just as the pandemic has revealed how interconnected we all are, it has also exposed the extent to which we have dis-integrated and dis-membered our society.
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Our cities are littered with the bones of policies that failed because we tried to solve complex problems with top-down, technocratic solutions. So how does change happen?
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Centralized systems are good at getting us cheap food, cars, and toilet paper—until they’re not. They’re also really bad at isolating deadly outbreaks.
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Why does a healthy pond suddenly become overrun with algae? And what can the natural principle behind this help us understand about how change works—or doesn’t—in cities?
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Cities evolve like ecological systems—a neighborhood, like a forest, has a life cycle. The fundamental question of planning needs to shift from “Should our neighborhoods change?” to “How should our neighborhoods change?”
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The best judgments are made with a “scout” mindset—your job is to survey the terrain and understand it—rather than that of a “soldier” whose job is to win a battle (or an argument). A social scientist explains the difference.
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