Four examples of strong households from travels of Johnny Sanphillippo.
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Ask us a question; we'll find you an answer. This week we get caught up on some Ask Strong Towns questions including ones on stroad repair, traffic engineers and making cool maps.
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The stroad: A street/road hybrid. The futon of transportation investments.
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A ruling last week in U.S. District Court has potentially profound implications for road widening projects. This podcast features an interview with Steve Hiniker, Executive Director of 1000 Friends of Wisconsin, the plaintiff that prevailed in a recent lawsuit against the USDOT, WisDOT and others. We also speak with an appellate attorney, Mahesha Subbaraman, about details in the ruling and potential subsequent moves.
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The Power of 10+ is a heuristic to help target placemaking activities. It seems to be aimed at more institutional placemakers but after a visit from my family, I've started thinking: what am I doing to add to that list? When my neighbours entertain guests from out of town, what am I doing that makes them proud to show off the town?
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New York is frequently painted as the ideal city by urbanists, and this has resulted in a lot of justifiable skepticism from others. Here are some ways New York City’s big ideas can scale down to mid-size cities and small towns.
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This Thursday at noon central time we're going to have a member chat. Chuck will be in the chat room on the member site to take your questions and chat about what's going on at Strong Towns. No audio or video -- just an old fashioned chat.
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Transit supporters from Seattle and the region have been working hard to get Sound Transit to the ballot by 2016, and with good reason. We desperately need better rail transit. Unfortunately, our zeal for rail is being used against us to produce a transportation package that does far more harm than good.
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If someone lives in a place dominated by state/fed money where progress is continually are thwarted by state/federal mandates, it is not hard to imagine where the healthy skepticism of government would originate.
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Today I'm in Portland, Maine, for the Build Maine conference (follow the conversation on Twitter at #buildmaine) with my friends Mike Lydon and John Anderson. Here is one of the sessions I made, specifically to hear Jarrett Walker. Enjoy.
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Sadly, I sense PACs have been stuffed into the growing suite of orderly but dumb solutions. Imagine if we had to throw away the trendy instruction manual on how to become a "world-class city" and instead demanded of each other to just think. Imagine if we looked at our constraints (people, cash, geography, climate, culture) and then decided to work within them, creatively. That's what has always made places interesting and remarkable!
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Sovereign Hill is an 1850s themed mining town in Ballarat, Australia. Andrew Price takes us on a photographic tour while traveling through.
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When the media imposes a narrative on your narrative.
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CNU 23 highlights; aspiring developers are getting organized to Build Places People Love; a large apartment complex can't compete with productivity of the traditional design across the street.
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Video from the CNU session on reaching conservatives.
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The Move MN transportation financing proposal may be good politics, but it is bad policy. Enacting it will lead to a weaker Minnesota. Here are the reasons I oppose it.
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Somewhere inside you is that childlike itch to make-believe or draw funny faces on things. Play is such an amazing way to engage with the city and people around us. It creates an atmosphere of light-heartedness and curiosity. It humanizes an environment instantly and can lend your city a sense of humour. It's also good for you!
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The 10th Avenue Bridge is a local street with a local bridge that serves local traffic. Yet, in many cases, the general public narrative finds it necessary to criticize state legislators for not allocating money to support a project that has no state or regional significance. Herein lies the disconnect between how we think transportation financing works and how it actually works.
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There are as many models in the world as there are agendas. This is a particularly difficult lesson for those in the planning and policy fields who like to believe that models – particularly ones that give them the answers they want – can help them make precise predictions. Predictions are tricky, especially about the future.
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If you want your city to be wealthy and prosperous, stop obsessing about cars and start obsessing about your people, your wealth and the taxpayer's return-on-investment.
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