No City Should Rely Primarily on a Sales Tax for Funding

At a glance, the sales tax is a nearly invisible revenue source that is also a cash cow. Yet, for local governments, it is the most distorting of taxes. Here’s why.

Marohn, Transparent Accounting, Top StoryCharles MarohnMay 1, 2023sales tax, Transparent Local Accounting, tax revenue, local government, city government, municipal finance, finance, financial solvency, local finance

Award-Winning Complete Street Just Another Deadly Stroad

Agar Road in Hyattsville, MD, has been lauded as a successful "Complete Street." But this so-called Complete Street is, in reality, completely dangerous—and a woman has lost her life because of it.

Safe & Productive Streets, Marohn, Trending, Top StoryCharles MarohnApril 10, 2023Complete Streets, Safe and Productive Streets, Crash Analysis Studio, Safety, safety, car crash, Pedestrian Safety, pedestrian safety, STROADS, transportation

We Can Have Both More Housing and Good Urban Form

It’s not difficult to have good urban design, the kind that respects neighbors and the neighborhoods they live in. It’s actually a lot less work than the processes we use to administer the suburban zoning codes we have today.

Marohn, Top Story, Trending, Community StoriesCharles MarohnApril 3, 2023urban design, NIMBY, YIMBY, Brainerd MN, Minnesota, housing, Housing, density, neighborhood, aesthetics

Is a Drunk Pedestrian Killed by a Driver Something To Care About?

People find it easy to blame a drunk driver for an accident, but what about a drunk pedestrian?

Safe & Productive Streets, Marohn, Transportation, Top StoryCharles MarohnMarch 27, 2023Safe and Productive Streets, transportation, Pedestrian Safety, pedestrian safety, pedestrians, car crash, Safety, public safety, Public Safety, confessions book, Confessions of a Recovering Engineer, Crash Analysis Studio

The Sensitivity That Killed Frank Radaker

We’ve become desensitized to the car crashes—and the factors that cause them—that kill people like Indianapolitan Frank Radaker every day on our streets. It’s time to change that.

Marohn, Safe & Productive Streets, News, Top Story, TrendingCharles MarohnFebruary 20, 2023bicycling, cycling, Crash Analysis Studio, Safe and Productive Streets, STROADS, car crash, Indiana

The Question I Get Most Often

Many people who want to change things for the better in their place want an example of another town or city that’s already got it all figured out—somewhere they can copy. Here’s why that won’t necessarily work.

Marohn, Top StoryCharles MarohnFebruary 6, 2023strong towns approach, little bets, incrementalism, complexity, Complexity

Warren Buffett Doesn’t Like Spending on Streetcars (but Has No Problem With Crazy Highway Spending)

Warren Buffet has broken his practice of “staying out of local politics" to criticize a streetcar project in his home city of Omaha, NE…but why does he have nothing to say on the city’s ridiculous and reckless highway projects?

End Highway Expansion, Finance, Marohn, Top StoryCharles MarohnJanuary 30, 2023End Highway Expansion, public transit, public transportation, Streetcars, finance, local finance, investing, public investment, highways, Nebraska

Vaccines Reduce Auto Crashes...?

The Reckless Driver™ narrative reaches a whole new level of absurdity, associating reckless driving with failure to vaccinate against COVID-19.

#SlowtheCars, Marohn, Coronavirus, Safe & Productive Streets, Top StoryCharles MarohnJanuary 9, 2023coronavirus, Safe and Productive Streets, car crash, STROADS, politics, Street Design, #SlowTheCars

Financial Outlook for 2023 and Beyond

What kind of financial challenges can our cities and towns expect to face in the new year?

Infrastructure, Marohn, Transparent Accounting, Top Story 2Charles MarohnJanuary 2, 2023financial solvency, Transparent Local Accounting, Infrastructure, infrastructure, infrastructure bill, infrastructure cost

The Reckless Driver Narrative: 2022 in Review

Let’s take a moment to reflect on the progress we made this year countering the Reckless Driver™ narrative that safety officials were pushing at the end of 2021.

Best of Blog, Marohn, Safe & Productive Streets, Top StoryCharles MarohnDecember 15, 2022Safe and Productive Streets, Best of 2022

The Best Books I Read in 2022

An annual tradition, here is Chuck Marohn’s list of his favorite books he read in 2022.

Marohn, Top StoryCharles MarohnDecember 12, 2022books

Christmas Cookie Inflation Index, 2022 Update

The Christmas Cookie Inflation Index has risen 12.0% in the last year. This is compared to the official inflation rate of 7.7%.

Marohn, Top Story, Transparent AccountingCharles MarohnDecember 5, 2022Inflation, economics, Economy, poverty, Poverty

Your City May Be Illegally Assessing You for Routine Infrastructure Maintenance

Part of having transparent local accounting is ensuring that the people living in a community know and understand the public costs associated with their homes and businesses. Right now, that isn’t the case in most places.

#DotheMath, Infrastructure, Marohn, Finance, Top Story, Transparent AccountingCharles MarohnNovember 28, 2022Transparent Local Accounting, local finance, public finance, maintenance, Maintenance, Infrastructure, infrastructure, infrastructure cost, infrastructure maintenance, financial solvency, #DoTheMath

A Million Local Heroes

It takes a million local heroes to change the multitrillion-dollar North American development machine. We’re getting closer, but this Member Week, we need your support.

Marohn, Membership, Top StoryCharles MarohnNovember 14, 2022member drive, membership

An Update on the Strong Towns Lawsuit

Here’s the latest on our ongoing legal action against the Minnesota board of engineering licensing—now officially Minnesota v. Marohn.

Engineering Reform, Engineering Profession, Marohn, Top StoryCharles MarohnNovember 11, 2022engineering profession, engineering ethics

MoDOT Is Proud of Their Highways. Missourians, Not So Much.

MoDOT recently put out a tweet celebrating the 50-year anniversary of a highway that tore up Kansas City’s downtown. Here are just some of the (rightfully) angry reactions they got.

McGilchrist Still Isn’t an Improvement, but Here’s the Math

We've said it'll take 39 years for Salem, OR, to recoup the money they're spending on the McGilchrist Street “Improvement” Project, and you've asked us to provide more proof for this assertion. So, let's do the math.

#DotheMath, #NoNewRoads, Marohn, Transportation, Top Story, Safe & Productive StreetsCharles MarohnNovember 2, 2022#DoTheMath, Safe and Productive Streets, Oregon, transportation, transportation spending, traffic engineering, projections, local finance, #NoNewRoads

Introducing Edward Erfurt as Our Director of Community Action

Join us in welcoming the newest member of the Strong Towns team!

Announcement, Marohn, Top StoryCharles MarohnOctober 19, 2022announcement, Strong Towns

That's Not an Improvement

Engineers who work on municipal infrastructure need to stop ubiquitously describing their projects as “improvements”—especially when the project is actually harmful, not helpful.

What Will Housing Prices Be a Year From Now?

If one thing’s clear about the housing market, it’s that it’s currently more sensitive to factors outside of your community—outside of your control—than anything within.

Finance, Housing, Marohn, Top Story, Incremental HousingCharles MarohnSeptember 26, 2022housing, housing cost, housing affordability, housing market, Housing, housing policy, housing finance, Incremental Housing, homeowners, Homeownership, homeownership, finance

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