The #StrongestTown contest marches on! Find out who made the final four, and catch up on our best content you may have missed this week, including a look at the history of the humble fourplex, the power and potential of a local music scene, and a new report on what’s broken in state DOTs and how to fix it.
Read MoreThe fourth annual Strongest Town Contest dominated this week’s content on our site, but there were also some great stories published this week (not to mention a brand new video!) that you don’t want to miss.
Read MoreThis week we made two big announcements about Fall 2019: At long last, Charles Marohn is publishing Strong Towns the book—and we’re going on a national Strong America Tour to support it! Check out our most popular content of the week, a sampling of a message that’s going to reach more people this year than ever before.
Read MoreThis week we explored an eclectic range of housing solutions for a changing America, revisited a favorite podcast about the limitations of traffic enforcement, explored what it means for cities to ask themselves whether they’re competing on price or quality, and more.
Read MoreThis week we offered our take on what cities and states should do in the wake of Amazon’s NYC debacle, took a tour of Memphis’s own economic-development gamble gone awry, explored a counterintuitive truth about North American vs. European development patterns, and more.
Read MoreThis week we talked about megaprojects, from the precarious future of California high-speed rail to the precarious financial math behind the ambitious Green New Deal proposal. And we shared a couple lessons in how to productively think small about our cities instead.
Read MoreThis week we talked about Atlanta’s backwards approach to transit; why suburban infrastructure used to be more frugal than it is now; and the surprising financial and social wealth of poor neighborhoods. And the podcasts on the list have something for you whether you’re an entrepreneur, citizen advocate, or hardcore policy wonk.
Read MoreThis week we examined what can happen when a small town does away with parking minimums (hint: a lot of good things). We also looked at the ups and downs of tax-increment financing, how much is too much traffic on a neighborhood street, double standards for cars and other forms of urban transportation, and more.
Read MoreThis week we took a good look at the sustainability of infrastructure costs, both in micro (a single street) and macro (a whole city), discussed why complex housing problems and brute-force solutions don’t mix, and more.
Read MoreThis week we examined what the design of our places says about isolation and social trust, and why that matters when tragedy strikes. We explored the value of bottom-up experimentation in cities; celebrated a victory for free speech and public input; questioned whether all growth counts as economic development; debated a controversial solution to affordable housing shortages, and more.
Read MoreThis week we looked at how to design streets to slow cars without speed enforcement; how traffic engineers still don’t know how to think like pedestrians; what we can and can’t control about urban growth; the myriad benefits of local bookstores; the far more dubious benefits of dollar stores; and more.
Read MoreIt’s 2019 and we’re back in action! This week we looked at how a big snowfall can illuminate your town’s resilience (or lack thereof); the excuses transportation officials use to justify inaction on deadly street design; why a Strong Town should resemble not a through street, but a destination; and more.
Read MoreIn our final week of new content in 2018, we looked back on some of the best articles of the year, and published new stories about how Strong Towns principles show us better ways to address deadly roads, broken planning processes, affordable housing shortages, and more.
Read MoreIn the past two weeks, we’ve re-run some of our best content of 2018, and explored new topics including how to know when your town is ready for a parking garage; how to double your city’s bus ridership through a smart, iterative strategy; a novel intersection design for people on foot; why cities work better when we tolerate imperfection; the value (or lack thereof) of a planning certification; and more!
Read MoreThis week, we revisited a city in Indiana building an urbanist paradise… through the antithesis of a Strong Towns approach. We examined public safety issues as they affect schoolchildren and bicyclists; discussed how to make cities friendlier to small businesses; and featured economic research on the complex social feedback loops that drive neighborhood change.
Read MoreThis week, we looked at how local development regulations get the details wrong, how the American Dream of homeownership is evolving, another way to measure a community’s underinvestment in maintenance, the challenges of transportation in rural America, and more.
Read MoreThis was an unusually interview-heavy week for Strong Towns. Our top content of the week includes conversations with community developer Derek Avery, cycling advocate Chris Bruntlett, and urban researcher Aaron Renn, as well as a sneak preview of walkability guru Jeff Speck’s new book Walkable City Rules.
Read MoreThis week, we talked about the pitfalls of valuing “efficiency” in government and business; why speed is the wrong measure of a successful transportation system; how unproductive land uses undercut the value of rail transit; how a good local newspaper can make your city stronger; and much more.
Read MoreThis week, we explored the history of wide streets as a political project, why a successful place isn’t as simple as plopping down the right kind of buildings, how local planners find themselves hostage to decades-old “lines on paper”, the power of placemaking and art to bring a downtown back to life, misconceptions about what causes traffic congestion, and more.
Read MoreThis week, we explored out-of-control infrastructure costs in Texas, a “road diet” in Akron, workforce housing in Maine, and asked whether our local governments ought to be failing more often—and owning up to and learning from those mistakes.
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