The town council in Castle Rock, CO, received a shocking briefing at a recent meeting: that their single, mid-sized region within a single, mid-sized state has accrued almost a billion dollars of debt. But how?
Read More
In this follow-up to last week’s piece about Galesburg, IL, we’ll look at what the town needs in order to recover and thrive.
Read More
Citizens of Galesburg, IL, are trying to save their public indoor pool and create a new activity complex. City council is sympathetic, but there's just one problem: money.
Read More
Unless we start making better accounting choices today, we’ll be facing service cuts and tax increases every year going forward. …That is, until the day we can’t anymore.
Read More
If you pull back the curtain on North America’s financially insolvent cities, you’ll see what’s REALLY propping them up.
Read More
Maybe the one good thing you can say about municipal debt is that it’s on the balance sheets. We’re tracking it. But there is another type of future obligation that is like debt…only worse. It comes back again and again, and too many cities aren’t paying attention.
Read More
When is it appropriate for a local government to take on debt? And other common questions we’ve answered for you—new this week in the Strong Towns Knowledge Base!
Read More
Why build a downtown transit system if you’re just going to close it at peak demand?
Read More
Local governments can’t take on more and more promises without generating enough wealth to meet those obligations—not without a reckoning. We need a radical revolution in how we plan, manage, and inhabit our cities, counties, and neighborhoods. We need a Strong Towns approach.
Read More
In an earlier Strong Towns Podcast, Chuck Marohn chatted with urban analyst Aaron Renn, who made the case for Carmel, Indiana’s massive debt as an investment in a high-quality place for posterity. In today’s episode, Chuck pushes back more forcefully on the assumptions underlying Carmel’s big gamble.
Read More
This week on the Strong Towns Podcast, Chuck talks with Manhattan Institute Senior Fellow Aaron Renn about Carmel, Indiana, a city that has gone into nearly unparalleled amounts of debt in a bid to become Indianapolis’s premier suburb.
Read More
Local governments can’t take on more and more promises without generating enough wealth to meet those obligations—not without a reckoning. We need a radical revolution in how we plan, manage, and inhabit our cities, counties, and neighborhoods. We need a Strong Towns approach.
Read More
America’s cultural belief is that growing cities experience not only opportunity and prosperity today, but the growth allows them to experience success far into the future. There is a built-in assumption that new growth pays for itself today and generates enough wealth to sustain itself generation after generation.
These are flawed assumptions.
Read More
How can we best invest cheap money? With a Strong Towns approach to debt centered on true investments which pay a measurable return and legitimate cash flow in a city that understands its true balance sheet.
Read More