Best of 2018: Gentrification and Cataclysmic Money

Gentrification and concentrated poverty are two sides of the same coin. We’ve engineered our cities so that neighborhoods get either too much investment or too little: the trickle or the fire hose.

Herriges, Housing, Top Story, Best of BlogDaniel HerrigesDecember 6, 2018Best of 2018

Let Them Apply for Variances

If granting exceptions to your city’s planning rules is so common as to have become the norm, perhaps it’s time to reconsider the rules themselves.

Gray, Planning Profession, Top StoryNolan GrayDecember 6, 2018#OrderlyButDumb, zoning

Best of 2018: Most Public Engagement is Worthless

It is the experiences of real people that should guide our planning efforts. Their actions are the data we should be collecting, not their stated preferences.

Humility and How it Can Help You Get Neighborhood-Boosting Ideas

In this episode of our podcast It’s the Little Things, Jacob chats with Strong Towns President Chuck Marohn about how you can get ideas for making your neighborhood stronger, including how both the concerned citizen and the public official can act on ideas, how to share them with your tribe, and how to take the next incremental step in making your neighborhood stronger.

Podcast, It's The Little Things, Top StoryJacob MosesDecember 5, 2018Strong Citizenship, how to, neighborhood, fix it first, Brainerd MN

Best of 2018: Stop Playing Public Hearing Bingo

Here are a few ideas to make you a more effective—and interesting—public hearing participant.

If We Win, You Won't Hear About It

If Strong Towns is successful—really successful—you won't hear about it, because the vast majority of the change we produce won't be attributed to us at all. It will be embedded in the broader culture.

Herriges, Top StoryDaniel HerrigesDecember 5, 2018Overton Window, strong towns approach

Best of 2018: Why Walkable Streets are More Economically Productive

3 dollars and cents arguments that definitively prove the need for people-oriented, walk-friendly places.

Akron’s Homelessness Problem is at a Tipping Point. Will the City Lean in to These Small But Mighty Solutions?

Innovative models from around the country address homelessness by starting with small, inexpensive, and imperfect solutions. What can Akron, Ohio learn from these examples?

Akron, Donatelli, HousingJen Jones DonatelliDecember 4, 2018Homelessness, Tiny House

How Would a Strong Town Rebuild After a Wildfire? (And Other Questions from the November Edition of Ask Strong Towns)

Today we're bringing you the video—and audio, if that’s more your jam—from the latest edition of our live, bimonthly ask-us-anything webcast, Ask Strong Towns.

Ask Strong Towns, Ask Strong Towns webcast, Top StoryStrong TownsDecember 3, 2018

Amazon HQ2: Really, New York?

A few weeks ago, Amazon announced major new operations in not one, but three locations: Queens, NYC; Crystal City, near Washington, DC; and Nashville. Our biggest question is not for Amazon but for the cities and states that offered them massive subsidy packages: Why?!