Friday Faves - Your Weekly Strong Towns Roundup
The national in-person event for Strong Towns advocates is here! Let us introduce you to your friends, allies, and kindred spirits from across the country in person at the all-new Strong Towns National Gathering in May 2023 in Charlotte, North Carolina.
This event is geared toward planning professionals, local government staff, and, most of all, everyday Strong Towns advocates. Look forward to inspiring speakers and hands-on workshops.
You’ll return home from the Gathering excited, emboldened, and equipped—knowing you are an indispensable part of an energetic, unstoppable movement.
Comment of the Week:
This comment came from a LinkedIn discussion about our article, “Great Wee Roads: What Driving in Scotland Taught Me About Driving in America.” Join the conversation here!
Here’s what Strong Towns staff were up to this week:
(Source: The Guardian.)
Daniel: Like everyone, I was horrified by the news last weekend of mass casualties in Seoul, as a gigantic crowd in the city’s Itaewon nightlife district packed into narrow, sloping alleys for a Halloween party, resulting in a crowd crush that left over 150 dead. If, like me, you’re shocked by how such a thing could happen, or unclear on exactly what a “crowd crush” is, this is a fantastic explainer from The Guardian. It explains lucidly the conditions that can result in this kind of preventable tragedy, which is ultimately a matter of physics, not psychology: At a certain density of people, a crowd may begin to surge unpredictably like a liquid, and individuals in it can suddenly find they have little or no room to maneuver or escape. The article debunks the “stampede” myth that these events happen because people panic instead of choosing to remain calm. “People don’t die because they panic. They panic because they are dying.”
(Source: Commercial Appeal.)
Chuck: Decades ago, Memphis made a contract with surrounding jurisdictions agreeing to provide sanitary sewer services to those places for decades. This agreement has been a huge financial loser for the city, obligating them to provide below-cost utility service to places that, in turn, use the Memphis subsidy to improve returns for developers and an artificial prosperity boost for residents. Memphis needs to get out of this agreement, or have places like DeSoto County pay the real cost of providing this service. DeSoto wants to keep their gravy train rolling, and now the two are in court arguing whether the city can cut off service or whether they must continue to provide it, despite the impact to Memphis’s poorer residents. We talk a lot about equity and justice in today’s America; here’s a clear case where we are taxing the poor to subsidize the affluent. Memphis needs to prevail here, despite the implications to suburban America.
Seairra: This is a photo of 43 women posed in the windows of a brownstone about to be demolished in Manhattan. It was the summer of 1960, and photographer Ormond Gigli was working in his studio across the street when he saw the windows had been removed. Knowing the building would soon be destroyed, he rushed to ask the supervisor for permission to create this photo. The supervisor agreed, as long as his wife was cast for one of the models. During lunch hour the next day, Gigli stood from the fire escape in his studio and snapped this iconic image. This is a great image and I love it, but after marveling over the colors and the composition I couldn’t help but wonder what this building was replaced with after it was demolished. I know for the old brick buildings in my hometown, they became parking lots.
(Source: Daily Yonder.)
Norm: Nerd Feeder, a game store that doubles as an unofficial community hangout in my town of Ladner, just reopened because of the passion of several young entrepreneurs who are making my community better. The Gray Duck Theatre in Rochester, Minnesota, and the Zumbrota Literary Society in Zumbrota, Minnesota, opened because of the skill and enthusiasm of my friends Andy and Anna Smith. Stores in Tenino, Washington, accept wooden money as a way of keeping money in the community. Both of these places came to mind as I reread Melody Warnick’s article about Elkin, North Carolina, and the energy injected into the community through their Elkin Explores program. One description in particular stood out to me: The program’s administrator calls herself a “chaos coordinator.” What a perfect way to describe the complex but smart way of building a sustainable community!
(Source: Wikimedia Commons.)
Edward: This week, the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority announced that six new, long-awaited metro stations will be opening along the Silver Line November 15. These new stations will finally connect Dulles International Airport to the nation’s capital by Metro. In addition to Metro, the new stations will include additional local and regional bus service.
These new stations provide additional opportunities for bedroom communities, like my own, to expand transit options. While working in Ranson, West Virginia, I worked on a pilot program for a new commuter bus connecting Martinsburg to Ashburn. This new service will not only connect to Metro, it will also connect to seven regional bus lines at the Ashburn Station. The plan for this new service has been highly received in the eastern panhandle of West Virginia, so demand is expected to be high. I plan on utilizing both the commuter bus and Metro in the future to get myself to both Dulles and National Airports.
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Finally, from all of us, a warm welcome to the newest members of the Strong Towns movement: David Amura, Kimball Bighorse, Amanda Dodd, Mauricio Fernandez, Christian Hubbs, Caleb Jones, Bruce McIntosh, Kurt Muchow, Alicia Prokos, James Stavig, and Jacob Woodard.
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What stories got you thinking this week? Please share them in the comments!