In 1926, activists were using the claim that their cities had enough “zoned capacity” elsewhere to argue against allowing apartment buildings in their own neighborhoods. Today, they still do. And they’re still wrong.
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Building communities where people feel safe and loved is the key to moving our nation forward. There is no other option.
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The neighborhoods that are the epicenters of unrest in Minneapolis this week are also places of remarkable compassion, initiative, and a fierce loyalty to community.
Read MoreWe want to dismiss Detroit as an anomaly. But in fact Detroit is a glimpse into the future for nearly every American city and town. Increasingly fragile from auto-centric development, for Detroit—and for the rest of us—it was only a matter of time.
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As the demographics of a small Minnesota town change, people there are discovering the power of social capital and a rich associational life. Here’s how some residents of St. James came to feel at home for the very first time.
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Most Americans have never lived in a time when “the inner city” wasn’t a locus of poverty, physical blight and social disintegration. Yet many of us fail to grasp the extent to which public policy had its thumb on the scale from the start in creating those conditions.
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The killing of Michael Brown’ in August 2014 brought global attention to police brutality and racial inequality in the U.S. While there have been some reforms in Ferguson over the last five years, other structural issues — including a city infrastructure largely not built to benefit the people who actually live there — remain the same or have gotten worse.
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We have a lot of work ahead at Strong Towns to meaningfully engage people of color and to grow the racial diversity of our movement. We’re committed to doing that work.
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An interview with Dr. Adonia Lugo, author of Bicycle / Race: Transportation, Culture & Resistance, about broadening bike advocacy to look beyond physical infrastructure to the “human infrastructure” of the communities we build around bicycling.
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This week on the Strong Towns Podcast, Chuck discusses the role of planning in correcting for legacies of segregation and inequality. Is more enlightened policy enough to change course? Or do we need to more fundamentally rethink who has the power to shape cities?
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How can we be fair judges of city builders in the past while still maintaining a critical eye toward their failings?
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Attention freeway builders! Want to make up for dividing the community and destroying neighborhoods? How about replacing the homes you demolished?
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A lack of access to land and equity prevents Native communities from gaining real wealth.
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In the city of Milwaukee, like so many other communities, it is the poorest residents who bear the brunt of dangerous street design.
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Overheated rhetoric and protest from all sides over neighborhood change are a reflection of the insecurity many of us feel over the future of places we love.
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Kea Wilson interviews author Melody Hoffman about why protected bike lanes aren't always the best way to get people biking and why a more comprehensive, community-based strategy is needed.
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If urbanists want a successful, lasting renaissance of inner-city neighborhoods, they should allow the people who stuck it out through the lean years a controlling stake in their neighborhoods' rebirth.
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The things that get labeled as “gentrification” refer to a set of real, meaningful, widely held concerns, and that choice of label should never be an excuse to dismiss those concerns.
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Writer Chris Arnade talks about a life getting to know people on the margins of society—people living in poverty and dealing with addiction—and the struggles of small towns in America.
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