“The Strong Towns voice needs to be heard by elected and appointed officials across the US. ”
“Strong Towns is doing some of the most important work in this country.”
“Strong Towns is a simple concept with a never-ending depth behind it.”
How do you grow without losing what makes your town special? In Bend, Oregon, Jesse Russell is proving it can start with smaller homes.
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.
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.
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.
Calgary is cutting delays—not corners—to deliver more housing where it’s needed. And your city should be paying attention.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.)
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.
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.
While urban planning can sound boring, how we choose to live is as fundamental a question as exists.
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.
Student journalist William Donofrio is part of a growing group of changemakers who are noticing, documenting, and sharing the struggles their places face.
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?
How did one of the most dangerous streets in Rhode Island turn into a safe and comfortable place for people to walk, bike, and shop? It’s all about community and local context.
Harrisonburg skipped the renderings and went straight to the street—using a live demo to calm traffic and earn back trust.
Mayor Kevin McDonnell and Dave Alden, co-leader of Petaluma Urban Chat, join us from Petaluma, California. They discuss the Know Before You Grow initiative, a community-driven effort that's helped encourage housing development in the city's downtown.
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.