As an engineer, I once had property owners turn out en masse to oppose a project I was working on that would fix their potholed street and broken sidewalks. Find out why—and one key policy change that might have led to a different response.
Read MoreNot everything in a Strong Town can be about dollars and cents. The finances constrain us—they are an important check on our avarice—but the things that make a place worth loving go far beyond the balance sheet.
Read MoreIn this week’s top stories, we dug deep into the relationship between infrastructure spending and local economic productivity and resilience. From Minnesota to Florida to Texas, our approach to growth and development is producing massive long-term liabilities without the wealth to show for it. We need a paradigm shift.
Read MoreCould it make sense to put the onus on pedestrians to ensure their own safety—in Honolulu’s case, by considering making it illegal to cross the street outside of a crosswalk after dark? Maybe, but only if we had a system that actually gave people on foot equal opportunity to get around safely and conveniently. We don’t.
Read MoreSee the latest content in the Strong Towns Knowledge Base.
Read MoreThere’s nothing like taking to the streets on foot to understand the place you live a bit better. In this spirit, the work of Strong Towns helped inform a program of “walking audits” at a Florida university that teaches students to recognize how urban design affects both the financial and ecological sustainability of our cities.
Read MoreMy city council has been offered an impossible choice: spend millions of dollars we don’t have repairing our historic water tower, or permanently destroy an iconic landmark and a piece of our history. But there is a third option.
Read MoreAlix Taylor—Manager of Water Programs at Green Communities Canada—shares how to depave neglected concrete in your own neighborhood, including how to get your neighbors involved in the process, how to pitch the idea to city leaders, and how to find sites in your neighborhood optimal for depaving.
Read MoreYou might get more house for your money in an outer-ring suburb. But if you have to own and maintain multiple cars, are you better off? Common measures of housing affordability don’t include transportation costs, and so they fail to capture a realistic view of the true cost of living in certain places.
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