The story of a neighborhood-led effort to address blight on Detroit’s East Side.
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Here’s what happened when a passionate community advocate in Detroit listened to what residents actually wanted, rather than imposing his will from the outside.
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Most of the actions we take in our cities aren’t “home runs.” They are usually singles, with some doubles thrown in. But they add up. Small ball gets results.
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Strong Towns is empowering thousands of champions for change to bring their places back to greater prosperity, little by little, through bottom-up action. Here’s what that looks like.
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AARP’s Livable Communities initiative is offering two new resources — a grant and a book — to help us make communities that work for everyone.
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The Strong Towns approach to public investment is part of an overall strategy of shifting our local energy from chasing the next project to building real wealth.
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The stars of a home makeover show are setting their sights on a much larger goal: a whole town. Strong Towns advocates weigh in on the worst—and best—that could happen.
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Transforming your community for the better probably doesn’t mean big, expensive, top-down projects. It’s the small neighborhood investments that can make your town or city truly strong.
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There are huge swaths of 1950s and 1960s suburbia that need a bit of TLC—and expensive, top-down “sprawl repair” isn’t going to be up to the task. What’s required is a more patient, grassroots approach. Urban planner John Yung has some ideas.
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Join us on October 29th in Akron, Ohio to talk about how to achieve lasting, positive change by focusing on strategic, small-scale, incremental investments—an approach we call Neighborhoods First.
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It’s pretty easy to destroy a walkable place. We’ve been doing it for so long.
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A neighborhood is an ecosystem, a quirky human habitat, and when it’s been damaged by generations of neglect, it probably needs help that has nothing to do with repairing roofs and bringing wiring up to code.
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Small bets are an affordable way to incrementally improve the places we love. They provide quick feedback from the community, and save us the time and money we so often over-invest in megaprojects.
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A sophisticated set of questions a city should be asking when they are looking at doing a major project.
Read MoreI’ve long been a proponent of the buy local movement for the warm fuzzies, but now I can bolster that with a more powerful motivator: guilt. Buying local has become a bit of a sport in our household as we try to create the most underdog windfall with each purchase. We feel obliged to help pick up the tab for the beautiful streetscapes and social capital that locally-owned businesses provide.
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You have to be willing to say no to the bad if you want your city to be built with the good, especially with the development incentives rigged as they are today. Sometimes this can create pro and anti-development factions in your city. A tool to diffuse that animosity is to remember that every time you say no to a proposal, you could be saying yes to something better.
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Sick of being the tail end of someone else’s big project process? Want to get something done right now? By focusing on small, incremental neighborhood projects, you can not only make positive progress right now but you can directly benefit the constituents that elected you.
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Tactical Urbanism is not a cute fad. It is the foundation for how every city needs to be developing projects. It is the way we are going to build strong towns.
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