I used to design big, expensive development projects. Then I realized the most successful places don't depend on huge grants and megaprojects, rather, they have strong local economies and people-oriented spaces.
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The best kind of horror filmmakers, like the best kind of placemakers, find ways not just to survive their budgetary shortcomings, but to make work that is more creative and exciting because of that constraint.
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Get out there and start making your streets safer.
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For cities, failure is not an option.
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Memphis is a shining example of how taking small, low-cost steps can lead to more permanent change that benefits a neighborhood and a city, without risking detrimental public backlash or precious money in the city budget.
Government – particularly local government – needs to be about redundancy, not efficiency. We need spare parts. We need slack in the system.
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This week we covered the Strong Towns Summit, housing issues, and fire safety (and what's wrong with using it to justify wide streets).
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Accessory dwelling unit legalization represents a low-profile free-market solution that requires little from government actors beyond getting out of the way.
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While she had no professional background in planning, engineering, or even community organizing, Dana Dunbar used her passion for her neighborhood and resources on websites like ours to rally her neighbors against a harmful road widening project.
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A visual depiction of just how much American land is full of shopping malls and big box stores.
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In this podcast interview, recorded live at the Strong Towns Summit last week, Chuck Marohn speaks with Joey Durel—a Republican former mayor of Lafayette, LA—and Michael McGinn—a Democrat former mayor of Seattle, WA.
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I’m not sure what hurts more—knowing that people are willing to trade off that much of their income to not live “here”, or that someone I really respect has to pay so much to live in a way which, apart from the size of the home, is just a standard living arrangement in most parts of the developed world.
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Our public works department utilizes outdated, suburban-type engineering judgment when calculating "sight triangles" in my walkable downtown. How can we avoid sacrificing on-street parking at the altar of out-of-context design rules?
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Ugliness isn’t the problem and newness isn’t any kind of solution.
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These four steps will help you assess whether your town is a safe place for children to walk and bike on their own.
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If planners learn to determine what the public will is and apply themselves in service to that public will, our municipalities can be that much closer to towns well planned.
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If America's dysfunctional approach to transportation is going to be solved, it's going to have to be solved in places that look like Tulsa.
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Traverse City, MI was just crowned the winner of our 2017 Strongest Town Contest so we're sharing a collection of insightful maps and charts that illustrate Traverse City's financial strength (as well as areas for improvement), created by our friends at Urban3.
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Your ability to share how you came to care and to reach out to others to hear their stories is the starting point to finding a common vision and taking action.
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Chuck and Rachel debrief about the Strong Towns Summit and share the highlights of the event.
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