Friday Faves - Your Weekly Strong Towns Roundup
All over the U.S., Strong Towns advocates are pushing for safe and productive streets…including in Congress! Check out the video above to see Representative Jake Auchincloss (MA-4th District) speaking on the Strong Towns approach, and entering the entire 2022 Strong Towns Strategic Plan into the Congressional Record.
In other news, have you heard about our Community Action Lab? It’s the most comprehensive resource Strong Towns offers. Join us on Zoom on July 14 at noon CT to hear how this 24-month program will put your community on track to becoming stronger and more financially resilient.
Comment of the Week:
This excerpted comment came from our Facebook Group. Join the conversation here!
Here’s what Strong Towns staff were up to this week:
(Source: The Brainerd Dispatch.)
Chuck: I have chosen to stay in my hometown of Brainerd, Minnesota—a community my family has been part of for more than a century now—and raise my family here. The event in this article is one of those “only in Brainerd” kind of things that reminds me that I can’t really escape, even if I wanted to. Someone put a bunch of fireworks on a pontoon boat, went 50 feet out from shore, and started lighting them off. Good fun. Unfortunately, all did not go as planned and an errant “mortar” set off a chain reaction that somehow lasted long enough for the fire department to be called, arrive, attempt to put out the blaze, and then launch an inflatable raft. The man who had this bright idea swam to shore safely and escaped injury, thus raising doubt about Darwin’s theories. I’ll empathetically note that I could picture myself, or at least some close family members, taking part in such an event at some point in the past. Happy Birthday, America!
Examples of the 0.5 selfie!
John: I can’t say why exactly but this New York Times article last month about “the rise of the 0.5 selfie” brought me delight. The Times article describes a new type of selfie, popular among Gen Z. The 0.5 selfies uses the ultra-wide-angle feature on many smartphones. Because of the wide field of view, and because you can’t see yourself taking the picture (the 0.5 lens is on the back of the phone), the results are often distorted, blurry, surprising, and partly out of frame. As a Gen X oldster I watched the rise of the traditional selfie with curiosity. (Can something be “traditional” if it was added to the O.E.D. only in 2013?) I admit to initially even being self-righteous about traditional selfies…before I started doing them, too, of course. I feel no such judgment about 0.5 selfies. People use filters to completely transform their faces and bodies to look more “Instagram beautiful.” May the whimsical 0.5 selfie push back on that.
(Source: Unsplash.)
Jay: There is still a lot of talk in the annals of the environmental movement about a river so polluted in Ohio that it caught on fire. Actually, the Cuyahoga River caught on fire multiple times in the late 1960s. It was cited as an example of why the United States needed the National Environmental Policy Act of 1970, which requires federal agencies to evaluate potential harm from large developments, and in the passage of the 1972 Clean Water Act. Those landmark federal acts have been bent to many ends for many reasons over the years. In this article by Brittany Mosely in NextCity, the return of otters to the Cuyahoga is chronicled along with amazing efforts by local governments and NGOs to nurture and support the river’s recovery. These local efforts, as much or more than any federal legislation, have helped take the community back to the river.
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Finally, from all of us, a warm welcome to the newest members of the Strong Towns movement: Ryan Auer, Gina Booth, Zack Cinquini, John Cooke, Clayton Daggett, Tim De La Motte, Amber Dickerson, Jimmy Duke, John Gardiner IV, Hayley Howard, Erica Hunter, Hannah Lah, Reid McLendon, Michael Murillo, Sam Otte, Kenneth J Peach, Daniel Prothe, Scott Robinson, John Russo, Sinclair Black Family Charitable Trust, Dylan Spencer, Katie Sulau, John Suter, Jeffrey Weinberg, and Melissa Wenzel.
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What stories got you thinking this week? Please share them in the comments!