I want to give you a metaphor you can keep in your back pocket.
This is meant to equip you. When you find yourself in a tense conversation about housing, especially with someone skeptical of change, you need something simple and grounded. A way to explain a core Strong Towns principle without sounding abstract or ideological.
Here it is:
No neighborhood should be subject to radical change.
No neighborhood should be exempt from change.
This requires a deep shift in how we think about stability, growth, and what makes a place strong.
Think about a matching set of china. When you first buy it, everything feels right. The plates stack perfectly and the cups rest cleanly in their saucers. The glaze shines and nothing is chipped. It feels finished and, best of all, complete.
Master planned neighborhoods are built on that same instinct. The houses match. The setbacks line up. The landscaping is coordinated. Everything arrives at once, polished and cohesive. It looks intentional and it all feels safe.
Our zoning codes reflect that mindset. They assume neighborhoods should be delivered as unified products and then protected from disruption. There can be minor variations, of course. A slightly different model. A slightly larger footprint. But it is all part of the same approved set.
In a recent presentation, I talked about a master planned community in Santa Clarita, California with nearly 3,000 homes, no retail, and the primary access being dependent on the I-5 freeway. At one point I said, “I’d like to meet the master who planned this, because it’s not very masterful.”
It got a laugh but the point was serious.
When we build complete neighborhoods all at once, we also lock in their limitations. If there is no corner store in the original plan, adding one later becomes a battle. If daily life depends on a freeway, that dependency is baked in. The neighborhood is treated like a finished product, not a living place.
The problem is we rely on a system designed to produce finished sets instead of adaptable environments. At the same time, when change finally does arrive, it often comes in disruptive waves. A large teardown. A sudden jump in scale. A transformation that feels imposed and out of character.
So we end up with two extremes. Some neighborhoods are frozen in time. Others experience rapid, destabilizing change. Strong Towns calls for something different.
We should not allow radical, sweeping change that erases the fine grain of a neighborhood. But we also should not freeze neighborhoods in amber and declare them complete.
Recently, I was visiting a friend’s patio and commented on how cool the deck furniture looked. Nothing matched. The chairs were different styles. The table came from somewhere else entirely. It felt intentional but relaxed.
I asked about it and Sean told me they had a simple rule of one. No doubles and no sets. That rule made everything easier. They could add a piece without worrying about breaking a pattern. They could remove something worn out without the whole space feeling incomplete. The variation was not a flaw. The varied collection was the pattern.
That is the kind of pattern our neighborhoods need.
Instead of delivering entire districts as matching patio sets, we should allow them to evolve like that patio. A house becomes a duplex. A garage becomes an apartment. A corner lot adds a small café. An aging building is replaced with something slightly more productive.
Not a universal leveling up. Not a sudden overhaul. Just steady additions and quiet retirements over time.
When you talk housing with skeptics, this framing matters.
You can start with empathy. Most people fear radical change. They do not want their block scraped and rebuilt overnight. That fear is understandable.
But you can also gently challenge the opposite instinct, the belief that nothing should ever change. A neighborhood that cannot adapt slowly will eventually face pressure for abrupt change.
The goal is neither chaos nor stasis. It is resilience.
To support that, we need practical policy shifts. We need to legalize small scale additions in existing neighborhoods without years of hearings. We need to allow neighborhood retail in places where people already live. We need to remove rules that lock entire districts into a single building type forever. We need to focus public investment on maintaining and adapting what we have instead of constantly expanding outward.
Each of these steps reinforces the same principle. Incremental change instead of radical upheaval. Ongoing adaptation instead of permanent freeze.
The matching tea set looks perfect on day one. But when it chips, the flaw stands out. When it dates, the whole thing feels dated.
A varied collection expects change. It absorbs it.
If you keep this metaphor in your back pocket, it can lower the temperature in hard conversations. You are not arguing for massive transformation. You are defending the idea that healthy neighborhoods, like healthy rooms, evolve piece by piece.
No neighborhood subject to radical change.
No neighborhood exempt from change.
That is not a slogan. It is a different way of building places that can last.
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