Cities need to be exposed to low levels of stress and disorder in order to become more antifragile over time. Technocratic planning which seeks to make our world too predictable merely sets the stage for future crises.

Cities are complex, organic, emergent things—and we impose top-down order on them at our own peril.

The most important thing for a local government is to avoid ruin.

A few reflections during the middle of a marathon of travel.

Hilton Hotels sacrifices their customers in the name of efficiency. There is a lesson there for your city about the tradeoffs of efficiency.

This week on the Strong Towns Podcast, Chuck talks with behavior change and sustainability expert Ruben Anderson about the good life, and how we fool ourselves into thinking we can use systematic rationality to create it for ourselves.

The most important thing for a local government is to avoid ruin.

The line between optimism and reality can be a fine one to walk.

You cannot build a place of enduring value that isn't homey, that isn't loved.

We never calculate—let alone track—the public's actual return-on-investment (dollars in versus dollars out over multiple life cycles) when we do a project. We never even ask the question.

The trials and tribulations of getting things done, and why change is so difficult for government agencies.

Reintroducing some risk, or rather, making the risk that is already there more evident, may be the best thing we can do to help re-build a culture where small mistakes don’t have devastating consequences.