The first step toward making your community a stronger place is articulating what’s wrong with the status quo. Strong Towns gives local advocates the vocabulary to do this—just ask member Michael Smith of Rockford, IL.

A deep, dredged ship canal is a recipe for catastrophic flooding in a hurricane, whereas a coastal marsh absorbs the surge of water in a way that lets life continue to flourish. This analogy has something important to teach us about urban streets.

Using routine traffic stops as a pretext to root out other types of crime is as disingenuous as it is unhelpful. We need to design intuitively safe streets—and then use traffic enforcement for the minority of drivers who are actually driving recklessly.

Two simple photos show the difference between a street simply designated 20 miles per hour, and one actually designed to be safe. We can't regulate our way to safety.

Learn to dispel the common myths you hear from transportation agencies with regard to safe streets. The guidance isn’t as sacred as they want you to believe.

Tragedy predictably occurs when our road designs combine high speeds and randomness.

As a cycling advocate, I avoid talking about the times when riding a bike in the city is scary, because I don’t want to deter would-be new riders from giving it a try. There’s only one problem with pretending I’m never afraid: it isn’t true.

I keep thinking about the efficiency of the human body. Each model year comes equipped with space-saving design, lots of leg-room, built-in entertainment features, and is bio-fuel-compatible with generally limited emissions.

Retrofitting an urban, neighborhood school to resemble a suburban campus is bad public policy. Doing it in the name of safety is incoherent.

Akron, Ohio is tackling its stroad problem, one oversized boulevard at a time. “Right-sizing” this neighborhood main street will make it safer and more inviting and hospitable for small businesses.