Unless you are a modern day Istanbul and sit at the crossroads of trade and commerce with the ability to skim margins off the goods flowing through your community, why would a city rely heavily on the sales tax? The only reason is because it is easy. Unfortunately, for building a strong town, easy is not always productive.

A special thank you to everyone who became a member of Strong Towns this week. I knew you would pull through for us. It means so much. I’m exhausted after this long week but promise you to be hard at again Monday morning. Until then, enjoy your weekend and be safe out there.

If you aren’t yet a member, now is a great time to become one. I know a few of you have told me that you want to join but keep forgetting. Well, stop what you are doing right now, head over to strongtowns.us and get signed up. It is that easy.

Strong Towns is a high return investment. Not only does becoming a member have benefits, but your contributions are helping us accomplish amazing things.

While tens of thousands of different people read our blog and listen to our podcast each month, only a very small percentage – less than 1% -- actually support what we do by becoming members. That’s okay – we know not everyone will join the movement – but it means that we need a core group of committed people helping us see this through. We’re trying to find 50 more of you this week.

Today we are hosting a member chat at noon central time. This is all part of our weeklong member drive Fifty by Friday where we are trying to get fifty new members by the end of Friday.

So in the end, I find myself often with the historic preservationists in thought, if not in deed. If we want to save our historic buildings, we need to make doing so a lot easier. Incremental maturing is the natural, healthy state for a strong community. This means that we won’t put historic buildings under glass – preserving them as museum pieces – but instead acknowledge that they need to adapt, evolve and grow along with us. If we do that, we’ll have far more effective means to honor our ancestors and create a multi-generational legacy for those that will inherit our world.

We are a 501(c)3 non-profit organization. That’s a technical way of saying that your donation is tax deductible, but I also mention it to emphasize our mission. We want America’s cities, towns and neighborhoods to be financially strong and resilient. That is going to require enormous changes in our approach to land use, transportation, economic development and local finance. It also means that the way we interact with each other in our places – from how we get our food to how we care for the most vulnerable among us – will change too. We’re at the forefront of this conversation nationally and are impacting it in a huge way.

I had a full three days in Washington this week meeting with people in Dayton, Ellensburg and Spokane. We had some great conversations and laid the groundwork for some future action. I was really impressed with the sophistication of the conversation and all the potential that this part of the country holds. It doesn’t hurt that they have one of the best Main Street programs in the country in Washington State either. Thank you to everyone who made that trip possible. I can’t wait to get back. Enjoy this week’s news.

Friday morning at 9AM central time, I am going to be a guest on MPR’s The Daily Circuit with Tom Weber. We are going to be talking transportation funding.

Last week a friend sent me a link to a blog post on the American Society of Civil Engineer's website. The post, titled "10 Myths About the Highway Trust Fund," is the typical propaganda you always hear from ASCE. Things such as (#1) federal legislation ensures that "transportation projects are planned, developed and executed efficiently," (#5) decreases in vehicle miles traveled is recession-related and we can expect a return to increasing VMT as the economy recovers and (#6) we need to act now to save jobs and the economy.

Last week was a wild trip. As with much of my life, I was seriously overscheduled for CNU 22. My biggest regret at the end of the week was not being able to take the time for all the kind people who wanted a moment or two to chat. I’m so sorry but I squeezed in everything I could. That being said, I did manage to collect a ton of content that I’m going to be sharing on the podcast as well as a few other things that will be shared here in due time. CNU has become somewhat of an annual checkup on the growth of Strong Towns. From Atlanta and Madison where I spoke briefly with NextGen to West Palm Beach where I had a session on the center stage to Salt Lake City where I gave the closing plenary, I’ve watched our movement grow each year. While my speaking role was not as prominent this year (no complaint from me), the reception was overwhelming. Last week was another reminder of how we’ve built a really great team of people around this country. I came away physically exhausted but mentally enthused. You guys rock. Let’s get on with the news.