Charles Marohn
Charles Marohn (known as “Chuck” to friends and colleagues) is the founder and president of Strong Towns and the bestselling author of “Escaping the Housing Trap: The Strong Towns Response to the Housing Crisis.” With decades of experience as a land use planner and civil engineer, Marohn is on a mission to help cities and towns become stronger and more prosperous. He spreads the Strong Towns message through in-person presentations, the Strong Towns Podcast, and his books and articles. In recognition of his efforts and impact, Planetizen named him one of the 15 Most Influential Urbanists of all time in 2017 and 2023.
Building affordable housing seems like a win for cities struggling in the Housing Trap. But between its top-down nature and the public subsidies it requires, affordable housing can actually make things worse.
We often get questions about our hiring process, so we’ve laid it all out here so that others can put it to use in building their own teams.
Engineers are great at building roads, but we should never ask them to build our streets.
This observation of human behavior has long been a source of frustration for safety advocates, but that doesn’t make it wrong.
The American pattern of development creates the illusion of wealth. Today we are in the process of seeing that illusion destroyed…and with it the prosperity we have come to take for granted.
Contrary to what has been asserted elsewhere, the suburbs are not about to have a renaissance. In fact, there are many reasons to believe we are nearing the end.
Making better use of what we have already built is a hyper-local undertaking, one done at the block level.
It is the experiences of real people that should guide our planning efforts. Their actions are the data we should be collecting, not their stated preferences.
The closing of the mall’s anchor store exposes how fragile the community’s business model is, providing an opening to shift approach.
We can make low risk, high returning investments in our cities while improving the quality of life for people, particularly those who are not benefiting from the current approach.
Problems have solutions. Predicaments have outcomes. We're in a predicament.
Respected economists know that investing in infrastructure clearly makes us richer. It's obvious. No further discussion needed... Respected economists are wrong.