About the Strongest Town Contest
It’s time again for our annual Strongest Town Contest. For the sixth consecutive year, our members, readers, and listeners are invited to nominate their town or city for embodying the Strong Towns approach to building stronger and more financially resilient communities. We’re not necessarily looking for those communities that somehow already have it made; we’re more interested in highlighting towns and cities who are doing the hard work of becoming stronger, putting in place the processes, systems, and commitments that build enduring resilience and longterm prosperity.
Does that sound like your community? Here’s how the contest process works:
Nominations will be accepted from Monday, February 8 through Sunday, March 7. Initial submissions are judged by a panel of Strong Towns staff and board members. The top 16 contenders will be selected, and through four rounds of competition kicking off on Monday, March 15th, you—our readers and listeners—get to vote on match-ups between these towns based on written submissions, photos, podcast interviews, and a webcast. The winner will be announced on April 9.
Four of the eight first-round matchups are being published on Monday, March 15. The other four will appear on Tuesday, March 16, so be sure to check back and vote on those!
You can learn about all five previous winners below, where you will also find official rules and detailed timeline.
Last year’s winner was Watertown, South Dakota. Who will be this year’s Strongest Town?
Contest Rules
Initial nominations must be submitted by March 7, 2021 at 11:00 p.m. Central.
It’s up to our readers to vote for their favorites each week. Voting is weighted so that Strong Towns member votes comprise 50% of the tally and non-member votes make up the other 50%.
If you are invited on to the next round, you will be asked to participate in another step of the application process. The contest progresses quickly, so please review the schedule in advance.
The winning town will receive a visit—once it is safe to gather in-person again—from Strong Towns President, Chuck Marohn, to celebrate the victory and share the Strong Towns message. (Note: While the contest is open to anyone in the world, we can only offer a visit in the continental United States due to the small budget of our organization.)
Strong Towns staff, board members, and previous winners (Watertown, SD; Pensacola, FL; Muskegon, MI; Traverse City, MI; and Carlisle, PA) are excluded from participating in this competition.
Questions?
Please contact our Content Manager, John Pattison, at john@strongtowns.org.
Contest Phases
SWEET SIXTEEN (March 15-18)
Once our staff and board members select the strongest 16 entries, we'll publish their answers to our initial questionnaire on our website and invite everyone to vote between each of eight town match-ups.
ELITE EIGHT (March 22-25)
Based on your votes, we'll invite eight towns to move on to the next round and send us 5 photos with captions which illustrate the strength of your town. We will publish them along with commentary from Strong Towns member experts. Again, members and readers will have a chance to vote between town match-ups.
FINAL FOUR (March 30-April 2)
In the Final Four round, we'll invite the winners of each match-up to come onto a special edition of the Strong Towns podcast to make their case for why theirs is the strongest town. We'll publish these podcasts and invite our audience to listen and vote in two final match-ups.
CHAMPIONSHIP (April 5-April 8)
As the culmination of our Strongest Town contest, we'll invite the top two towns onto a live webcast with Chuck Marohn to discuss the strength of their towns. Our audience will vote between these two and we'll declare the winner on April 9.
Schedule
2020’s Championship Round matchup between Beloit, Wisconsin and Watertown, South Dakota.
Monday, February 8: Applications released.
Sunday, March 7: Town nominations due by 11 pm CDT.
Monday, March 15 and Tuesday, March 16: The 16 contenders’ submissions are published, and Strong Towns readers vote for the strongest.
Thursday, March 18: Voting closes at 12 pm CDT. Top 8 contenders will be notified and asked to each submit a series of photos illustrating their town’s strength.
Monday, March 22: Top 8 photo submissions are published, and Strong Towns readers vote for the strongest.
Thursday, March 25: Voting closes at 12 pm CDT. Final four contenders will be notified and interviewed for podcast episodes.
Tuesday, March 30: Final four podcasts published, and Strong Towns readers vote for the strongest.
Friday, April 2: Final four voting closes at 12pm CDT. The top 2 championship competitors will be notified.
Monday, April 5: The Championship Round is announced and a live webinar takes place with representatives of the final two. Strong Towns readers vote for the champion.
Thursday, April 8: Championship voting closes at 12pm CDT.
Friday, April 9: The winner is announced!
There’s still plenty of time to introduce the Strong Towns audience to your town or city…but time is running out.