From Amsterdam, a New Video Series about Strong Towns
Last month, the Strong Towns staff learned about a new video series being launched by Jason Slaughter, a Strong Towns member in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Jason is the content creator behind Not Just Bikes, a popular YouTube channel that explores the things that make cities like Amsterdam such wonderful places to live. Amsterdam and The Netherlands are well-known for their bikeability, and that is part of it…but only a part (hence the name).
One evening after work I decided to check out Not Just Bikes. Using the YouTube app on our TV, I turned it on in the living room. I loved the videos, and for a bunch of reasons—for how informative and interesting they are, for how funny they often are, and because The Netherlands, a country I’ve never visited, is such a fascinating place. But here’s the reason I most appreciate Jason’s work: I noticed that, one after another, my family and housemates got drawn into the videos too. They settled onto our couches or were stopped in their tracks traveling from one room to another. Not Just Bikes was making visible and accessible the concepts they’d heard me talk about but only in the abstract—urban design, bike infrastructure, traffic calming, the Downs-Thomson Paradox, etc.—as well as quite a few ideas that were new to all of us: why there’s no garbage day in Amsterdam, that city’s hidden street playgrounds, and the story of how a highway almost destroyed Amsterdam. Like 220,000 people before us, we sat transfixed as Jason took us on a tour of what must be the world’s most beautiful underground parking garage.
Jason recently launched a new series on Strong Towns and financially insolvent cities. Born in London, Ontario, Jason has lived in citieis all over the world—Toronto, San Francisco, the other London, and Hong Kong, to name just a few. During his wide travels, Jason has developed his own clear ideas about what makes a town or city great. What he finds interesting about Strong Towns is that we came to many of the same perspectives, but from a totally different route. “Once you learn about Strong Towns,” Jason says in the introductory video, “you’ll start to understand why car-dependent suburbia can’t continue. It’s not a matter of preference or how people want to live, these places simply cannot sustain themselves.” Future videos will explore key Strong Towns concepts, including the Growth Ponzi Scheme, why North American cities are broke, traditional development, and the stroad.
I encourage you to subscribe to Not Just Bikes and binge-watch, as I did, the channel’s first year’s worth of videos. And join me in following the new Strong Towns series. I’ll be watching it in the living room so that my family and housemates will finally understand what it is I work on all day.
Here’s how to connect with Jason and Not Just Bikes online:
John Pattison is the Community Builder for Strong Towns. In this role, he works with advocates in hundreds of communities as they start and lead local Strong Towns groups called Local Conversations. John is the author of two books, most recently Slow Church (IVP), which takes inspiration from Slow Food and the other Slow movements to help faith communities reimagine how they live life together in the neighborhood. He also co-hosts The Membership, a podcast inspired by the life and work of Wendell Berry, the Kentucky farmer, writer, and activist. John and his family live in Silverton, Oregon. You can connect with him on Twitter at @johnepattison.
Want to start a Local Conversation, or implement the Strong Towns approach in your community? Email John.