Introducing a New Resource: The Not Just Bikes + Strong Towns Discussion Guides

In October 2020, a popular Amsterdam-based YouTube channel called Not Just Bikes launched a new series about Strong Towns. “Once you learn about Strong Towns,” Jason Slaughter, the creator of Not Just Bikes, says in episode one, “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.” 

The series has been phenomenally successful, racking up more than 15 million views across eight episodes. The videos are introducing tens of thousands of new people to core Strong Towns ideas like the Suburban Experiment, the Growth Ponzi Scheme, and stroads. Many of these folks have gone on to start Local Conversations, become Strong Towns members, and advocate for financial strength and resilience for their own cities.

We’ve heard from many advocates who are using Not Just Bikes to share Strong Towns ideas with friends, family, neighbors, colleagues, and local leaders. To help support  these conversations, we have created a set of discussion guides for all eight episodes of the Not Just Bikes Strong Towns series. We also created a discussion guide for an hour-long video discussion between Jason Slaughter and Strong Towns President Chuck Marohn on what North American public transit can learn from transit in Europe and Asia.

There are two ways to access these discussion guides. One is at our Not Just Bikes landing page. The other is in the Strong Towns Academy.

The discussion guide includes questions that will help you apply the content to your own town or city. They also include ideas for taking action, links to core Strong Towns content on that episode’s topic, and recommendations for those who want to go even deeper with Strong Towns articles, podcasts, and videos. 

While the guides can be a tool for solo reflection, they are most effective when gone through with others. We predict that many Strong Towns advocates will use these discussion guides to kickstart their own Local Conversations and make the Strong Towns movement go viral in their own community.

Here are a few of the topics you’ll be encountering through the Not Just Bikes + Strong Towns discussion guides:

• The core elements of the Strong Towns approach to building stronger, safer, more inviting, and more resilient towns and cities.

• How the suburban development pattern differs from the traditional development pattern, and how your city’s zoning regulations make the traditional development pattern illegal.

• The debt-fueled Ponzi scheme that drives the Suburban Experiment, and its consequences for your city.

• The difference between a street and road, and why that difference matters for your city’s safety and productivity.

• The street–road hybrids called “stroads” that are expensive, dangerous, and everywhere (you won’t be able to unsee this).

• How North American traffic engineers set speed limits, and why it’s backwards.

• How to spot the most financially productive neighborhoods in your community, and why the poor neighborhoods may be subsidizing the affluent ones.

• The important difference between transit-oriented development and development-oriented transit.

• And much more!

Accessible, informative, and engaging, the Not Just Bikes Strong Towns series has millions of people talking. We hope these discussion guides can help grow that conversation where you live, and then help you put the ideas into action to build your own strong town.

---

---