I Love My Neighborhood — That’s Why I Want More People To Live Here
Photo of historic Albuquerque by Esther Ann on Unsplash.
“The most powerful thing a strong citizen can do is use their time at the microphone to highlight the things that make their community special,” Edward Erfurt, Strong Towns’ Chief Technical Advisor asserts.
For Erfurt, public comment isn’t just a forum for complaints—it’s a tool for shaping the future of your community by celebrating what makes it great. By shifting the focus from frustration to appreciation, public comment can strengthen community bonds and inspire action rooted in shared values. This kind of engagement fosters a positive, constructive dialogue, ensuring that growth and development enhance rather than erode the things that make a place special.
Strong Towns emphasizes that cities thrive when residents actively participate in conversations about their future. Public comment ensures everyday people—not just officials and developers—are part of the decision-making process.
Writing Op-Eds takes this engagement a step further by expanding the conversation beyond city hall. A well-argued piece in a local paper can challenge harmful policies, highlight overlooked solutions, and inspire others to get involved. It’s a way to reclaim the narrative, ensuring that growth and development reflect the needs of real people rather than abstract economic metrics. That’s exactly what Jordon McConnell, the communications chair at Strong Towns Albuquerque, did—using the power of the written word to advocate for a stronger, more resilient community.
Whether through public comment or the written word, speaking up isn’t just an act of protest—it’s an act of stewardship, a commitment to making our places stronger for generations to come.
Here’s Jordon’s Op-Ed in the Albuquerque Journal:
I love my neighborhood — that’s why I want more people to live here
Jordon McConnell, communications chair at Strong Towns Albuquerque
I love Albuquerque’s neighborhoods. I love jogging under the big cottonwoods in the bosque near my apartment, visiting local restaurants and having neighbors I actually know and that I can bump into at the brewery or coffee shop around the corner. But here’s the thing — these places can’t thrive if we don’t let more people live in them.
The best parts of our city — the places we all love — aren’t filled with just single-family homes on big lots. Nob Hill, Barelas, Old Town, the University area, Huning Highland and many of the city’s historic neighborhoods have a mix of housing types: apartments, townhomes, casitas, small houses and small duplexes next to single-family homes. This is what makes them dynamic, affordable and walkable. And yet, for decades, our zoning laws have prevented this kind of diversity in housing, and in turn, made these neighborhoods a rare commodity. O-24-69 helps fix that.
There’s been a lot of fear around this policy, but let’s be clear: Legalizing more housing options doesn’t mean bulldozing neighborhoods. It simply means allowing more kinds of homes in more places. That means young people who want to stay in Albuquerque can afford to do so. It means seniors looking to downsize don’t have to leave their community. It means families struggling with high housing costs might finally catch a break.
Right now, most new homes can only be large single-family houses on big lots, rather than townhomes, starter homes or smaller residences that help young families and individuals get on the ladder to homeownership. A variety of housing helps keep our neighborhoods lively, thriving and accessible to more people while a “monoculture” of housing makes it inaccessible over time.
If you’re passionate about advocating for more housing choices in your community but aren’t sure where to start, download “The Housing-Ready City: A Toolkit for Local Code Reform.” It breaks down six key code reforms that city officials can implement today to bring more housing to their communities.
