It’s not just those who work in or with local government who have something to offer to the Strong Towns movement. Our work touches on deeper questions of how we live in community, and this is why we seek to learn from psychologists, philosophers, historians, and—in one classic 2013 podcast interview—even a religious scholar.
Read MoreFour years ago, a fellow civil engineer in Minnesota tried (unsuccessfully) to challenge Strong Towns president Chuck Marohn’s license, in retaliation for Strong Towns’s criticism of infrastructure lobbying organizations. This incident still says a lot today about the need for reform in the profession.
Read MoreSome cities just can’t seem to get on top of clearing snow out of the streets—even if it snows every. single. year. Why?
Read MoreIs the engineering profession institutionally and intellectually prepared for a world in which we recognize that we need to slow down cars on urban streets? Revisiting one of our best podcast episodes of all time, in which Strong Towns President Chuck Marohn asks this question.
Read MoreSkyler Yost, Ecosystem Builder for the city of York, PA, shares how you can foster entrepreneurship in your community—and create an environment in which entrepreneurs support one another, too.
Read MoreRevisiting one of our most popular conversations ever, with well-known blogger and financial self-sufficiency expert Mr. Money Mustache. (Who has been in the news in 2019 for an amusing reason!)
Read MoreOnce a month we host Ask Strong Towns, a members-only live Q&A webcast. Here’s the video and audio from this month’s.
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Ryan Short—CEO of CivicBrand—shares how you can find your community’s true essence, including how to engage with your community to ensure the creation of your brand is a grassroots effort, how to ensure your brand actually aligns with what your community offers, and how finding your community’s true essence makes your city or town stronger.
Read MoreSpeed enforcement won’t fix what’s actually a street design problem. And the way we use speed enforcement as a tool to accomplish other goals unrelated to speeding ends up not making anyone safer.
Read MoreYou probably use Zillow to shop fantasy mansions in cities you could never afford. But would you sell them your house?
Read MoreStrong Towns’s own Kea Wilson discusses what her time as a bookseller at Left Bank Books in St. Louis taught her about making local businesses a third place, including what building a third place actually looks like, how third places are more economically resilient, and how you can make your local business a third place.
Read MoreRevisiting a 2017 conversation between Charles Marohn and Chris Arnade about the toll of economic and social disintegration in American communities.
Read MoreYour daily commute sucks. Is it also making you go broke?
Read MoreIn this episode of our podcast It’s the Little Things, Jacob chats with Dustin Ratcliff—founding member of Walk2Connect—about how you can connect with your community on foot, including how to motivate your neighbors to form a walking group, how to use your walking group to influence how your city or town is develop, and how connecting with your community on foot makes our cities and towns stronger.
Read MoreBuilding an accessory apartment is one of the gentlest ways you can increase the housing stock in your town. But does that mean that states should be the ones making the rules about how you can do it—even if those rules are permissive?
Read MoreIn this episode of our podcast It’s the Little Things, Jacob chats with Jordan Katcher—Community Development Specialist for the State of Utah, focusing on rural communities—about how government employees can break down silos in rural communities, including how to choose who to get involved in the process, how to understand the needs of rural communities, and most important, how breaking down silos can make rural communities stronger.
Cities need to be exposed to low levels of stress and disorder in order to become more antifragile over time. Technocratic planning which seeks to make our world too predictable merely sets the stage for future crises.
Read MoreWe’re sharing the video and audio from our January 2019 live webcast Q&A with mega-retail expert Stacy Mitchell.
Read MoreIf your city is struggling to pay the bills, could joining forces with the rich county next door be the answer?
Read MoreIn this episode of our podcast It’s the Little Things, Jacob chats with three local leaders in open data—Kyle Taylor, Jesse Hamner, and Habib—share how open data works, including how you can use open data to act on your ideas, how you can encourage your elected officials to adopt open data policies, and how open data can make your city or town stronger.
