Choose Your Fate, Texas

The numbers don’t lie: business-as-usual suburban development won’t bring a booming town long-term financial strength. But it turns out that to #DoTheMath is only the first step toward changing your community's business model.

Shreveport's Highway Emperors’ New Clothes

Deeply 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?

If It Looks Like a Debt, and It Quacks Like a Debt, Then It Must Be a…Zombie?

Maybe the one good thing you can say about municipal debt is that it’s on the balance sheets. We’re tracking it. But there is another type of future obligation that is like debt…only worse. It comes back again and again, and too many cities aren’t paying attention.

Is Your City Infrastructurally Obese?

Many cities think they need to grow to get strong. But adding thousands of additional acres to the city and millions of dollars in infrastructure is usually the last thing a city needs. It’s like trying to lose weight by consuming more pizza and beer.

We Need Growth. But Only If It Generates Real Wealth.

We’ve been living for decades on the urban economic equivalent of anabolic steroids: it’s time for some good old-fashioned diet and exercise. The key is to reorient the way we approach growth. Instead of thinning out our cities and taking on more infrastructure liabilities, we need to wring real value out of the places we’ve already built.

$3.2 Billion to Fix Tampa's Aging Pipes? From Where?

Tampa has an epidemic of leaking and bursting pipes. But don’t worry, the city’s taking action! …by proposing an eightfold increase in the amount it spends on maintenance for the next 20 years, half funded by new debt. How did we get to this point?

My City Has Massive Infrastructure Liabilities. So Do 99% of the Cities in America.

My hometown of Plano, Texas is the midst of a bubble. Everything seems fine! Taxes are low. The city provides great services. It has an AAA bond rating. The music is still playing, and therefore everyone must remain dancing. But we have a looming problem: staggering long-term infrastructure liabilities that we haven’t even fully accounted for.

Member Post, Growth Ponzi Scheme, #DotheMath, Top StoryAlex ZhangApril 30, 2019Texas

Best of 2018: The More We Grow, the Poorer We Become

Local governments can’t take on more and more promises without generating enough wealth to meet those obligations—not without a reckoning. We need a radical revolution in how we plan, manage, and inhabit our cities, counties, and neighborhoods. We need a Strong Towns approach.

Best of 2018: The Real Reason Your Local Mall is Failing

The closing of the mall’s anchor store exposes how fragile the community’s business model is, providing an opening to shift approach.

Marohn, Growth Ponzi Scheme, Top Story, Best of BlogCharles MarohnDecember 12, 2018shopping malls, big box stores, Best of 2018, Value Per Acre

Dispatches from Spokane: Living a Soft Default

Spokane is an excellent illustration of a “soft default”. Like virtually every other city in the US, it is functionally insolvent, but functional insolvency rarely results in legal bankruptcy—just diminished services and deferred maintenance.

Gardner, Growth Ponzi Scheme, Top StorySpencer GardnerOctober 24, 2018infrastructure maintenance, Spokane, soft default

A Texas-Sized Pavement Problem

Collin County, Texas officials claim they need $12.6 billion for new roads in the next 30 years, and none of it for maintenance of what they’ve already built. That way lies madness.

Dallas's Ticking Time Bomb of Infrastructure Costs

A recent D Magazine story nailed the problem with Dallas’s development pattern: the city has way more infrastructure than it can afford to maintain. But its solution—assessing local taxes differently—didn’t go far enough.

Growth Ponzi Scheme, Top StoryStrong TownsSeptember 26, 2018Texas, infrastructure cost, Dallas, page highlight

But Rich People Live Here, So We Can't Be Going Broke!

If your growth strategy only works as long as wealthy people live in your town, your growth strategy is deeply fragile.

Impact Fees Don't Mean Development Is Paying for Itself

Development impact fees are supposed to “make development pay its own way.” But if your development pattern is fundamentally unproductive, they don’t. They’re a one-time cash hit in exchange for taking on a permanent liability.

The More We Grow, the Poorer We Become

Local governments can’t take on more and more promises without generating enough wealth to meet those obligations—not without a reckoning. We need a radical revolution in how we plan, manage, and inhabit our cities, counties, and neighborhoods. We need a Strong Towns approach.

The Road Ahead for Cobb County

Cobb County, Georgia, has long been all-in on debt-fueled, unsustainable growth, and faces a tough road ahead as poverty grows and its ability to provide services declines. What are some rational responses to this predicament?

Shut Out of Housing Gains

Homeownership is supposed to be the path to wealth and a comfortable retirement, but for millions of Americans, it never was. One central reason is that we’ve embraced a development pattern in which new places cannibalize the wealth of old places.

The Dollars and Sense of Annexation

When a city annexes surrounding land, it’s usually touted as a benefit for residents and municipal budgets. This could not be further from the truth. Here’s the data to prove it.

Nielsen, Growth Ponzi Scheme, Top StoryConnor NielsenAugust 6, 2018Value Per Acre

Cobb County: Addicted to Growth

Why do places like Cobb County, Georgia keep spending more and more, while their municipal budgets go further and further into the red? This week at Strong Towns, we’re going to dig into the tale of Cobb County: a poster child for the Ponzi-scheme approach to growth.