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.
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This week on the Strong Towns Podcast, Chuck talks with behavior change and sustainability expert Ruben Anderson about the good life, and how we fool ourselves into thinking we can use systematic rationality to create it for ourselves.
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One of the reasons Ocean Grove, New Jersey has endured intact is the presence of a religious community that had a higher calling and a longer event horizon than the dominant secular culture. There are lessons to be learned here even by people who may not identify with the church.
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Americans need to become more tolerant of government failure. That will happen, if and when, government starts to deliver improvements iteratively, and demonstrates the capacity to learn and improve with each iteration.
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The lines between work and home zones are blurring: more employers want to be in walkable, amenitized areas, and conversely, people are choosing to live closer to where they work. This Cincinnati placemaking experiment exemplifies the kind of small bets this trend is making possible.
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Check out the second episode of our new podcast Upzoned! Kea Wilson and Chuck Marohn dig into an article on a troubling trend: big box retailers in Minnesota think they’re paying too much in property taxes, and they’re asking for a cut. But that’s a hard pill to swallow for small towns.
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Austin needs a new Grand Bargain, one that includes everyone and exempts no one.
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Let’s walk through what it actually takes to build a small rental apartment on your property in Austin, Texas. It’s a lesson in how the city’s existing code stymies gentle, incremental, small-scale development.
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The American Conservative just shared a well-produced video of the Crony Capitalism event Strong Towns participated in last month in Anaheim.
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Does the average resident want dramatic change or do they want the urban development status quo?
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Want to better your community but don’t know where to start? Enter It’s the Little Things: a Strong Towns podcast that gives you the wisdom and encouragement you need to take the small yet powerful actions that can make your city or town stronger.
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Chuck and Kea answer member questions in this edition of Ask Strong Towns.
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Austin’s CodeNEXT process, a dramatic overhaul of the city’s zoning code, tried to placate multiple constituencies with a “grand bargain.” The result was a draft code that satisified almost no one and failed to solve the city’s housing and growth challenges.
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Residents are bring lawsuits against Brad Pitt’s Make it Right foundation, but were these investments ever going to work, no matter the good intentions?
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What does economic development look like in a small town where most of the proposals on the table involve significant infrastructure investment for an uncertain payoff? What’s the alternative?
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Where is Austin supposed to put 135,000 new homes in ten years? The city posed the question. Diametrically opposed groups of residents could not come close to agreeing on the answer.
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This week on the Strong Towns Podcast, Chuck answers a question on sprawl repair posed by one of our readers.
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This week we are examining what went wrong with Austin’s CodeNEXT process and what should be done now.
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These campaigns are the kind of thing that large, out-of-touch bureaucracies do when they want to appear like they are doing something without actually changing anything about what they are doing.
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Using tax incentives to subsidize retail is a lose-lose game that St. Louis's suburbs, desperate for short-term revenue, have been playing for too long. University City is mortgaging its future and selling out its small businesses with a $70 million subsidy for big-box development.
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