Is growth inherently bad? Are declining neighborhoods really a good investment? And, most of all, can we actually make the changes we need to make our communities stronger? Chuck Marohn answers these and other questions about his new book Strong Towns: A Bottom-Up Revolution to Rebuild American Prosperity. What questions do you have?
Read MoreSanta Ana’s Michele Martinez has an incredible story. She grew up in an environment with poverty, gang violence, and drugs. But she became a “positive disruptor” and used a Strong Towns approach to create big change in her community.
Read MoreWe chose Memphis to kick off the Strong America Tour for a reason: the city is both an object lesson in what has gone wrong in American cities, and what could go right. And Memphis’s example helps us see why in places that are going to experience a renaissance, it’s going to come from the grassroots.
Read MoreAn urbanist abroad discovers that Tokyo faces many of the same challenges as U.S. cities — off-street parking, pedestrian safety, utilizing space, etc. — but is addressing them in very different ways.
Read MoreEndless growth is a luxury we literally can’t afford. Here’s why the path to true prosperity requires local communities to opt out of an economy of greed and bring decision-making back home.
Read MoreThe wait is finally over. The Strong Towns book is out today! Here is information on where to buy, as well as one simple, 30-second thing you can do that could make all the difference.
Read MoreThe Strong America Tour isn’t just a chance for us to get out and talk about the Strong Towns vision. It’s a chance for us to capture firsthand how members of the movement are bringing that vision to life in their own places.
Read MoreAncient cities reveal the extent to which humans have co-evolved with their complex human habitats. As we were making our cities, they were making us. And yet we’ve discarded much of this hard-won wisdom of the past.
Read MoreThe ideas behind Strong Towns began in my small town of Brainerd. A tour starting in Memphis is designed to bring them home.
Read MoreAirbnb and rent control. Oh, and Jim Kunstler’s take on the end of civilization as we know it. Just a few of the topics covered in this week’s Top 5 recent stories from Strong Towns.
Read MoreStrong Towns believes towns need to be obsessive about their revenues. But does that really mean building more revenue-generating prison centers?
Read MoreThe actual tracks are gone, but the “other side of the tracks” divide remains. Can a community garden on the site of the old rail line help knit the town back together again?
Read MoreNew webinars in the Strong Towns Facebook group show how Strong Towns members are using their unique skills and perspectives to make their community stronger—and how you can do the same in your community.
Read MoreMost 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.
Read MoreWith the Strong Towns book releasing next week, now is the time to claim your pre-order bonuses. There’s something new too. It’s pre-shrunk, buttery smooth, and 100% cotton.
Read MoreWhat if Airbnb—maligned by urbanists everywhere—didn’t have to be part of the problem, but could rather be part of the solution for making our neighborhoods stronger, more adaptable, and more resilient? Drawing both from personal experience and historical precedent, a Strong Towns staffer makes just that case.
Read MoreVisit the Hyde Park neighborhood in South Los Angeles and you’ll find the usual culprits of a food desert, such as fast-food chains and gas stations. But enter Kelli Jackson’s corner store—Hank’s Mini Market—and you’ll discover how cities can address food deserts without forgoing future tax revenue.
Read MoreAt Strong Towns, we have a lot of good things to say about the kind of places we built before the automobile era. Does that mean it’s really all just about nostalgia for a simpler time? Hardly.
Read MoreLong commutes and those who must endure them are reliable stories for a transportation reporter. What’s not often talked about is what lies behind the “super-commuting” phenomenon—cheap gas, sparse housing and inadequate transit.
Read MoreTwo diehard urbanists swore they would never open a neighborhood-killing Airbnb. They changed their minds. Here’s why.
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