In this episode, co-hosts Abby Newsham and Chuck Marohn discuss the impact of natural disasters on the insurance industry, the feasibility of government-run insurance programs, and what this might mean for California in the long term.
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The way we design our places forms a lesson in being in that space. Children learn important lessons from third places that bring us together — lessons they can’t learn in private spaces like yards that isolate us in the name of privacy.
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In this episode, Local Conversation leader Michael Bassili explains how his group created a parking campaign that convinced their city council to eliminate parking mandates in their downtown.
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Today, I want to look at a utility investment near my hometown of Brainerd, Minnesota. At first glance, it seems like an extreme case, but looking at it with a touch of scrutiny reveals a lot of insight into why America’s basic infrastructure systems are failing and will not be maintained.
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In this episode, Chuck discusses the common misbelief that an incremental approach to housing development is inherently slow, what that means for major cities, and how to make incremental housing more appealing to people who don’t want their neighborhoods to change.
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In this episode, host Tiffany Owens Reed is joined by Matt Harder, the founder of a participatory budgeting company, to discuss the importance of resident input on city budgets and the process of implementing a participatory method.
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While long-term safety initiatives like updating street design standards or starting a crash response team are important, they must be paired with immediate action. A recent crash in Rochester, New York, shows why.
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A mysterious plastic sign appeared on a Houston street, raising the speed limit to 60 mph — double the actual limit. Drivers didn’t seem to notice the difference.
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In this special episode of Bottom-Up Shorts, host Norm Van Eeden Petersman is joined by Edward Erfurt, chief technical advisor for Strong Towns, to discuss real-world examples of a transformative 4-step approach to public investment.
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After a fatal crash, Rochester citizens and officials got to work, identifying factors that contributed to the crash, updating street design policies to make streets safer, and establishing a Community Traffic Safety Team to address other dangerous factors before crashes occur.
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Chuck was recently invited onto The Building Culture Podcast to debate the housing crisis with California YIMBY’s Nolan Gray. It was a great conversation that explores how these movements align and differ in their approaches to housing.
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I want to draw two insights relating human development to the way cities evolve. These insights are critical to understanding America’s housing crisis and our response to it — and why building housing in major cities can't meaningfully address the housing crisis.
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To create change, you need community engagement. Unfortunately, many cities have complicated systems for engagement that take a lot of time and effort to work with. Here's how one community in West Virginia is cutting through that red tape.
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Fletcher Williams was hit by three cars in a 13-month period — all within a half-mile radius in Bradenton, Florida. And he’s only one of many crash victims. The design of these streets is inhumanely dangerous and must be changed.
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In this episode of Upzoned, host Abby Newsham is joined by Kevin Klinkenberg, an urban designer and planner, to discuss how a middle-class life has become increasingly difficult for younger generations to attain.
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After a cyclist was killed in a car crash, residents of Indianapolis worked with Strong Towns to conduct the first Crash Analysis Studio. City officials have taken notice and instituted new initiatives to create safer streets.
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In this episode, host Norm Van Eeden Petersman is joined by Jake Loftis, a pastor and Local Conversation leader. They discuss the ways that North America’s built environment can lead to social isolation and how Loftis used his local paper to combat that isolation.
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In Blair, Nebraska, Jake Loftis and his Local Conversation are turning the idea of New Year’s resolutions into a powerful tool for community transformation.
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To escape the housing crisis, we need a lot of housing to be built quickly. The key isn't large, ponderous projects; it's fast, widespread incremental development. We know the types of units that can be scaled and we know how to build them. The only thing we need now is for cities to devote themselves to doing it.
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Over the years, Chuck has added audio clips to the Strong Towns Podcast outro music to memorialize influential moments and experiences. Today, in honor of that music being retired, he breaks down these clips, explaining why they’re significant and how these experiences influenced him and the Strong Towns movement.
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