The latest ideas, insights and action from around the Strong Towns movement.

Thank you! Your submission has been received!
Oops! Something went wrong while submitting the form.

Latest Podcasts

(Transcripts Included)

How Floor Plans Drive Families from Cities (and What Helps Them Stay)

How Floor Plans Drive Families from Cities (and What Helps Them Stay)

Bringing the Strong Towns Conversation to a Growing City

Bringing the Strong Towns Conversation to a Growing City

Is Crowdfunding A Good Way To Fund Local Projects?

Is Crowdfunding A Good Way To Fund Local Projects?

The Best Street Safety Win Is One Nobody Notices

The Best Street Safety Win Is One Nobody Notices

Subscribe to Our Email Newsletter

The urgent work of thousands of advocates — straight to your inbox.

Get important updates, top stories and notifications about when Strong Towns will be in your area.

Latest Stories

To Change the Behavior, Change the Environment: Lessons From the Blue Zones

This Netflix documentary about regions of the world with higher-than-average life expectancies holds some key insights for anyone who wants to see North American cities become thriving, healthy places for people.

Read article
Dallas Used To Be Walkable

Dallas wasn't built for the car: it was paved over for it. This new bill can help it rebuild.

Read article
The Mayor Who Tried to Stop a Highway

When Mike McGinn didn’t see any other mayoral candidates challenging a proposed highway expansion project in Seattle, he stepped up to the plate and won the election. This is the story of his ensuing fight to stop his city from making a costly mistake.

Read article
Snow Days Tell Us a Lot About the Fragility of Our Cities

"Something as innocent as freshly fallen snow becomes the guilty culprit in halting the functions of our public schools."

Read article
Going After Corporate Homebuyers is Good Politics but Ineffective Policy

When it comes to the housing crisis, the simple villain narrative is appealing, but will it help us actually see a way out?

Read article
6 Rules for Actually Changing People’s Minds

If you’re in the business of trying to change the world around you, sooner or later you’ll need to be a persuasive communicator—but being persuasive isn’t just about getting your facts right.

Read article
Your Participation Is Encouraged, but Not Wanted

Read article
It’s Always Too Late: How Freeway Fighters Are Kept out of the Conversation

“At the end of the day, there’s no formal process for integrating our feedback... So it’s a bit of a dog-and-pony show."

Read article
It Didn’t Matter That She Was Riding an E-Bike

Another death on Carlsbad's streets sparked urgency to do something, anything. But are officials focusing on the right causes?

Read article
How Many People Have To Die To Make a Street Safer?

Three lives lost leaving a Massachusetts library; each one preventable, each one a reflection of systemic neglect.

Read article
Christmas Cookie Inflation Index, 2023 Update

"I have long believed that Americans are being gaslit when it comes to inflation, that official statistics understate the inflation we all experience."

Read article
How to Daylight Your City’s Intersections (and Why It Matters)

Daylighting means removing visual obstructions in approaching intersections, so that users can better see and more safely cross each other’s paths. Here are 5 ways to do it cheaply and creatively in your city or town.

Read article
The Calculus of Crossing the Street

In the event of a crash, when a person has been found jaywalking, the blame is pit on them. We don't ask why they were jaywalking. What if we did?

Read article
Rent Control Is an Anti-Displacement Policy, Not an Affordability Policy

Rent control is best viewed as a short-term protection against being priced out of one’s own home, not a scalable affordability policy.

Read article
Lessons From Estonia: Free Fares Alone Won’t Boost Ridership

Free fares aren’t getting Estonians out of their cars. In fact, more of them drive today than in 2013.

Read article
Ottawa to Walkers: Drop Dead

Ottawa doesn't have a reckless pedestrian problem. It has a design problem.

Read article
The Technical Brush-Off (and How To Fight It)

Have you ever been dismissed at city hall when bringing up a persistent issue in your community?

Read article
If We Want a Shift to Walking, We Need To Prioritize Dignity

Why does walking feel so intuitive when we’re in a city built before cars, yet as soon as we return home, walking feels like an unpleasant chore that immediately drives us into a car?

Read article
Stop Subsidizing Suburban Development, Charge It What It Costs

I was asked how much the typical suburban development is costing this Tennessee city. Here’s what I found.

Read article
To Make a Place People Can Walk, First You Have to Make a Place

“Is this place somewhere? Or is it nowhere? And what things might we start doing to make it feel like somewhere?”

Read article
In Philadelphia, the I-95 Collapse Is Igniting a Conversation About Transit

A tanker truck caught fire, killing its driver and devastating over 100 feet of Interstate 95 above it. With the highway decommissioned, how did people get around?

Read article
Jersey City Achieved Zero Traffic Deaths on Its Streets. Here’s How They Did It.

When the status quo is producing traffic fatality after traffic fatality, it's time to experiment.

Read article
The Earliest Roots of the Suburban Experiment

To understand why the suburban experiment struggles today, we have to look at how it first took hold.

Read article
To the 40,000 Drivers Who “Cause” Car Crashes Every Year

“My heart feels like it died that day. My whole life has been affected and I can’t seem to grasp it back. I feel as if I can’t breathe at times.”

Read article
New site, same mission! 🎉
Find our latest content here, plus some all-time favorites. More coming soon as we move over the rest. Visit the archive for everything else.