Strong Towns helped to catalyze the Small Scale Developers movement.
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Truck freight movement gets a subsidy of between $57 and $128 billion annually in the form of uncompensated social costs, over and above what trucks pay in taxes, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
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The Idaho legislature recently ended its 2015 session with a transportation funding compromise that included passage of a seven cent per gallon increase in the gas tax and additional registration fees.
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The best from Strong Towns members' blogs this week: Hawaii's "Lava People"—experimental housing in a minimal-regulation environment. The appeal of location vs. "unlocation." What makes people identify with the urban environment? The future of the corner store. When to use TIF. Pros and cons of regional consolidation of government. Dallas from a hotel's -eye-view. Unorthodox citizen participation tactics.
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Just because something is too wild to imagine doesn't make it too wild to be true.
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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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