Last month the ratings agency Moody's downgraded the credit rating of Ferguson, Missouri, to junk status. Let's not pretend this is solely the result of the events of August 2014.
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The Pope's visit last week meant many dramatic, though temporary adjustments for the cities where he stopped. One story that bears telling is the complete shut down of car traffic in Philadelphia.
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We talk a lot at Strong Towns about how a street designed around automobiles with little regard for people has an assortment of negative consequences. One of them is economic vitality. Particularly for store fronts in downtowns with a stroad running past them.
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This week's podcast is a conversation with one of the country's leading urban thinkers, Joe Minicozzi of Urban 3. Joe and Chuck talk about Brainerd, Lafayette, communicating complex ideas and Taco John's.
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A photographic follow up on some of my neighbourhood projects that are coming to a close.
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We need more people from diverse professional backgrounds to step up and take on roles in the government, even if they disagree with what it’s currently doing.
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A few weeks ago, we shared a post about Slow Streets, a Vancouver-based planning and urban design group. Today, they're back with an in-depth look at a dangerous intersection in their city.
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I spent some time last week in Rapid City, SD. Rapid City (pop. 70,000) is a regional hub with medical and educational offerings. It also has a robust tourism economy with Mount Rushmore and Sturgis being nearby. However, like many communities, its downtown had fallen into neglect over time.
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The Strong Towns Discussion Forum is a place to ask questions, get answers and engage in dialogue with fellow Strong Citizens. We wanted to bring your attention to an excellent discussion going on in the forum right now.
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Rachel and Chuck discuss last week's events in Louisville, KY and Peterborough NH, Chuck's new title as "Colonel Marohn," plus the schedule for Chuck's trip to Toronto and Peoria this week and the book, D-Day Through German Eyes.
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St. Paul's River Balcony project is a refreshingly incremental and promising approach to creating new public space and reconnecting the city's downtown with the Mississippi River. It has the potential to demonstrate the power of pragmatic planning in small steps toward a grand vision.
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Strong Towns advocates are jiu jitsu warriors -- outnumbered and outgunned -- tactically striking the weakest spot of the current myth: that the American development pattern builds wealth.
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In advance of our upcoming workshop and speaking engagement in Toronto, we connected with local bike advocacy blog, dandyhorse magazine, to get on-the-ground information about the transportation infrastructure in the area.
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A counterpoint to Chuck's recent piece about "Beautiful Ditches," today Matthias advocates for the merit of building beautiful places, even discounting costs and ROI.
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That in a few places bicycles are accommodated on streets alongside cars, only highlights how unaccommodating most places remain.
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The question and answer session of the debate in Lafayette, Louisiana, between Chuck Marohn and Randal O'Toole.
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We should be planting trees in places where they can provide shade for people walking instead of a prozac substitute for people driving.
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One of my favorite podcast episodes, and one I go back to fairly often, is Strong Towns Talking Transit. It was an off-site panel discussion during Railvolution.
A major theme from that discussion was that a good transit project connects productive places. I’ve been thinking about that insight a great deal this past week.
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Can we ever design a city devoid of the suffering and loss we've always experienced? I suppose the answer makes little difference in my resolve to minimize the hurt. But studying the forest does make me question the city - what is truly a problem and what is simply a feedback or system within a system.
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While our modern stroad environments discourage children from walking to school, George is fighting back, and helping his daughters gain independence in the process.
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