I Feel Most Effective at a Small Scale
Strong Towns member Jennifer Gaughran. (Source: Jennifer Gaughran, with edits.)
When I told Jennifer Gaughran, a Strong Towns member living in San Diego, California, that I wanted to write about her involvement in the Strong Towns movement, her initial reaction was, “Gosh, I just don’t feel like I’m very interesting. Are you sure you want to interview me about this kind of stuff? I haven’t been involved in changing any infrastructure or anything significant where I live!”
Her reaction was precisely why I wanted to write about her experience as a member of Strong Towns. She is like me and like so many other members of Strong Towns: We’re just doing what we can to build strong towns in small but innumerable ways. Our member week theme of a million local heroes arises from the certainty that a growing community of local heroes are acting, in ways big and small, to change how we think about and act within our communities.
Every time I host a new member orientation session, I ask people to share one problem they feel compelled to address in the places where they live. Every problem shared is a big one: the lack of affordable housing, the shortage of adequate routes for cycling and walking between places, the environmental degradation of sensitive ecological areas by the expansion of a city, the lack of connection between neighborhoods and neighbors. All of these issues loom large and cast a massive shadow over the way that we think about what we can do to make our communities stronger and more resilient.
Jennifer’s perception of the problems facing her city was sharpened by a bicycle crash on Miramar Road on her first day riding solo to work. She wiped out in the middle of a sprawling intersection and faced the question of whether she would persist in riding in places not designed with regard for her or others like her. Growing up, her father told her that she wasn’t allowed to bike in her neighborhood because it wasn’t safe—but she learned to ride eventually. And, as she put it, “They’d always told me that it was dangerous but never told me it was fun! It felt like flying the first time I was on a proper road bike!”
Jennifer with her bike. (Source: Jennifer Gaughran.)
Jennifer challenged herself to ride through the barriers imposed upon her by the built environment around her. “I feel like we’ve been handed this pale shadow of the life that we could be living,” Jennifer explains. “Everything is so controlled and predetermined in the way that we live. We design our lives through the design of the cities where we live. I want the real stuff—the real flavor! I want to crash my bike and get back on.”
Hearing her rallying cry makes me think of the actions of local heroes who point out gaps in walking routes, disguised subsidies in municipal budgets, and missing housing types in neighborhoods. I hear her give voice to a yearning that I hear in the voices of other Strong Towns members for a messier and more prosperous approach to building towns and cities. I sense the optimistic spirit that gives rise to the commitment of Strong Towns advocates like Jennifer to change the little things which can be changed, so that big changes will eventually come.
Mr. Money Mustache → Happy City → Strong Towns
Jennifer discovered Strong Towns in February 2017 in an article about the book Happy City by Charles Montgomery on Mr. Money Mustache’s blog. Within seven days of reading the article, Jennifer signed up as a Strong Towns member and she’s been a member for nearly six years.
“It was awesome to find out more about infrastructure,” Jennifer said about her discoveries, “because I live in a city and I want to know more about it. I remember reading Happy City in particular because I had just come back from vacation and found out that my entire department got laid off at work. And that was not the most important thing that happened to me that week—the most important thing was reading Happy City. That book changed my life. It is phenomenally well written and so well researched. It’s an account of how people live and how their lives are affected by where they live. I loved the idea of structuring one’s life around the idea of a happiness index.”
With this concept of measuring life and building a life based on happiness, Jennifer made a point of volunteering with her daughter’s scout troupe, her local Toastmasters club, and her workplace. She began looking for ways to take what she was learning from the Strong Towns blog and apply it to her community. She walked more. She observed the patterns of her community and workplace more.
“I feel most effective at a small scale,” Jennifer explains to me. “As a society and as a culture, we will have to try a lot of new things to creatively address our current and ongoing problems. That means we need places to practice new things.”
(Source: Jennifer Gaughran.)
One Small but Effective Thing: The Strong Towns Toastmasters Club
I met Jennifer on Zoom after she asked for volunteers to help organize a Strong Towns Toastmasters Club. She was already a member of another club in her city and a district leader. But she wanted to start a club for people to become persuasive communicators of Strong Towns ideas. She wanted to carve out a space for people to have a way to talk about their frustrations with the ways the built environment around them was holding them back. She wanted to give people a platform to practice speaking up so that they would then go forth and speak up “for real” in the places they lived.
Jennifer hosts Toastmasters every Wednesday night on Zoom and shares her infectious energy with every participant. She coordinates the schedule and completes dozens of tasks behind the scenes to keep the club running smoothly. She remembers the contributions others have made and provides compelling feedback to allow other Strong Towns advocates a chance to improve.
Just last week, Jennifer and I cheered as another Strong Towns member—Linda from American Fork, Utah—shared that she spoke at her city council meeting about a vexing street safety issue in her neighborhood. As Linda told us, she would never have imagined doing this before joining the club and she felt incredibly empowered by the experience.
Linda, Jennifer, and so many others are taking steps to ensure a happier future and that makes them heroes.
Stay Curious and Ask Questions
When I asked her if she had any last thoughts to share, Jennifer paused for a moment and then said, “Stay curious. Ask questions. Find delight in the things around you. I know that the places I love today are the way they are because of the hard work of people working before me. I’m so appreciative of the hard work that others put in. We can have a hand in creating beautiful places that everyone can love.”
If you want to have a hand in this work, as well, then join Jennifer and others like her by joining the movement. Become a Strong Towns member today and take that first step toward creating a happier future for your place.
