Can regional planning be antifragile?

Regional planning can be antifragile when it is empowered to address the quality of the system as a whole.

Top Story, Member PostBruce NesmithMay 31, 2016antifragile

Mithridatizing City Budgets

Can we help cities become antifragile by changing the way they receive aid from the state?

MarohnCharles MarohnMay 31, 2016antifragile, Nassim Taleb, local government, debt, tax revenue

Antifragile Book Club Update

An update on the Antifragile book club.

Top StoryCharles MarohnApril 26, 2016book club, antifragile, Nassim Taleb

Antifragile Book Club

We're starting a Strong Towns book club. The first book has played a key role in formulating Strong Towns' thinking.

Top StoryCharles MarohnApril 19, 2016antifragile, Nassim Taleb, book club

Understanding Growth, Part 5

Can we only satisfy our needs by increasing our neediness?

Marohn, Top StoryCharles MarohnMarch 25, 2016Tomas Sedlacek, economics, antifragile, Understanding Growth, ecosystems

Understanding Growth, Part 1

We've traded stability for growth, but now we find that we have neither.

Becoming Strong at Home

If one were to follow Schumacher’s advice and put the inner house in order, testing out our biggest goals at the household level, what does that look like?

Field Notes, #StrongCitizensGracen JohnsonMarch 16, 2016antifragile, resource, home, how to

The End of the Ponzi Scheme

It ain't pretty.

Growth Ponzi Scheme, Podcast, Marohn, Top StoryStrong TownsMarch 10, 2016Jared Diamond, Tomas Sedlacek, antifragile

What Flint Tells Us about Government and Citizens

The worst part of all of this is that it happened to a poor and largely Black community. But they set an example for what citizen activism should be.

Top Story, Quednau, #StrongCitizensRachel QuednauFebruary 12, 2016Flint, community engagement, race, water, pipes, HUD, antifragile

10,000 year old traditional development

Built and social environments are interdependent and right now, that relationship in the world around me is out of sync. Indigenous people who have lived on this land for thousands of years have a lot to teach us.

Field Notes, Top Story, Urban DesignGracen JohnsonFebruary 10, 2016antifragile, Canada

Trading stability for fragility

Change will always be less scary for those who don't have enough life experience to fear it.

Marohn, Top Story, #ChaoticButSmartCharles MarohnJanuary 4, 2016antifragile

What We Don't Know, and What We Can't Know

In an era of looming economic, social, and environmental disruption, the urban planning profession needs to be talking less about how to make cities efficient and attractive and more about how to make them resilient to the worst-case consequences of our actions. This is where Strong Towns thinking fits in.

Herriges, Planning Profession, Top Story, #ChaoticButSmartDaniel HerrigesDecember 15, 2015antifragile, resilient, Chaotic but Smart

Progress in an Uncertain World

A Strong Town is a resilient or antifragile town: one that can weather unforeseen disruptions to its economy, society, and environment. Building Strong Towns means creating the conditions for experimentation and being comfortable with the lack of a road map for what the future will look like.

Herriges, Strategies, #ChaoticButSmartDaniel HerrigesAugust 17, 2015Nassim Taleb, antifragile, resilient, Complexity

Efficiency

You can't adapt without surplus. Surplus DNA. Surplus farmland. Surplus building space. Surplus building materials. If you have no surplus, you have nothing with which to work, and so you have no adaptability.

There have been plenty of efficient creatures in the history of this planet—most of the extinct ones. They were not adaptable to change.

Discussion ForumCharles MarohnMarch 31, 2015density, resilient, antifragile

Talking anti-fragile with Chuck

1) Chuck made a video appearance in Fredericton!

2) Also, I had my first experience of going door-to-door on my street.

Field Notes, #StrongCitizensGracen JohnsonMarch 18, 2015antifragile, Fredericton, Strong Citizenship

Podcast Show 203: The Antifragile City (Part 2)

A continued look at a Nassim Nicholas Taleb speech titled Small is Beautiful, but also Less Fragile.

PodcastCharles MarohnJanuary 29, 2015Nassim Taleb, antifragile, Local Government Aid, finance

What happens when your cheap city is still unaffordable?

Last week, I was pulled into a task force conversation on affordable housing by a couple local champions. The situation is this: our government operating subsidies for affordable housing are drying up. I'm putting together a "next-steps" sort of document for this task force and my brain keeps running in circles. I'd love to crowdsource from the best. Please fill me in on your Strong Towns approach to affordable housing in the comments. What would you do?

Field Notes, HousingGracen JohnsonJanuary 28, 2015affordable housing, antifragile, Strong Citizenship

Podcast Show 202: The antifragile city (part 1)

This week Chuck Marohn dissects a speech that Nassim Nicholas Taleb gave recently titled Small is Beautiful, but also Less Fragile. This is part one of two on this subject.

PodcastStrong TownsJanuary 22, 2015Nassim Taleb, antifragile

Part 1: America's Suburban Experiment

America’s cities don’t need more growth. What they desperately need is a different development pattern, one that restores the resiliency and financial productivity of the pre-automobile approach to a modern America.