Until America gets its infrastructure priorities straight, the last thing we need is to pump more spending into a broken system. 2019 felt like a breakthrough year for our call for #NoNewRoads, one in which we had more influential allies and receptive ears on this point than ever before.
Read MoreDeeply held beliefs, supported by flawed assumptions, blind us to realities and facts. The supposed wealth and prosperity generated by cut-through urban highways was always an illusion—but who will dare to point out the obvious truth?
Read MoreBuilding stronger towns isn’t just about planning, engineering and development. We need to address questions about cultivating rich and abundant lives in our neighborhoods. How do we live out our values when so much of the built environment seems to be working against us?
Read MoreFlawed methodology. Lack of accountability. Discrepant data. Egregious assumptions. The new Urban Mobility Report will be used to make or justify transportation policies around the country, which makes it too wrong to be ignored.
Read MoreLove to hate congestion? We’ll never fix it by obsessing over speed or traffic delays. We need to rethink our whole transportation debate, starting with this premise: it’s not about how fast you can go. It’s about what you can get to.
Read MoreWe’ve been taught that a growing city inevitably needs wider highways. Even those who oppose specific road projects often accept this premise. But is it actually true?
Read MoreWhy does infrastructure cost so much to build in the U.S.? The fundamental reasons aren’t technical. We’ve structured our postwar economy to use overspending on infrastructure as a way to induce short-term growth.
Read MoreThe drumbeat from the lobbying organizations behind Infrastructure Week is, as usual, that we need to build more in America—and it scarcely seems to matter what we build, where, or why. This view is as shortsighted and dangerous as ever.
Read MoreMany would have us believe that America is failing to invest in its infrastructure. If only it were that simple.
Read MoreAmerica has an infrastructure crisis, but it's not the one you think it is.
Read MoreA twisted look at the twisted federal transportation bill.
Read MoreDensity is not our problem or our solution. Insolvency is our problem. Productive places are the solution.
Read MoreFor local governments, the Growth Ponzi Scheme has allowed national politicians to promise a free lunch while forcing those lower on the food chain to absorb the long term costs associated with hitting this quarter’s GDP targets.
Read MoreA reference list of Strong Towns terminology.
Read MoreMoDOT management gives every indication that they have a serious cultural problem, a deep misunderstanding of their role and responsibilities. This needs to change before they get another dime.
Read MoreThere is a fraction of Americans who reflexively oppose any tax increase and a similar fraction of Americans that reflexively support any tax increase where they sense a need. That 40% in the middle point the way to a rational approach: fix what we have before we even think of building more.
Read MoreA vast majority of our infrastructure is predicated on treating non-automobiles as second-class citizens. This is the status quo. One doesn't need to look far to find examples.
Read MoreHave environmental and conservation advocates become comfortably co-opted within this nation's corridors of power to the point where they have become an obstacle to real reform?
Read MoreThe thinking exposed in the Cappuccino Congestion Index is just another one of the reasons we have a #NoNewRoads mantra and have opposed all efforts to spend more money on this broken system. Reform must come before more money. If we don't reform this system now, we're just going to blow the little remaining wealth we have hastening our own insolvency.
Read MoreOur audience growth continues to accelerate – we have doubled in size since November – and, as we continue to experience, Strong Towns readers and listeners don’t comprise a nice, clean demographic profile (one of the greatest compliments you all provide).
In short, I appreciate that I sometimes need to slow down and connect some dots. I’m going to try and do that today.
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