How much road does your city have—and how much does it actually have the money to maintain? We compare “calories in” to “calories out” before we binge on ice cream; what if we took the same approach to our infrastructure budgets? One city did, and here’s what they found out.
Read MoreWhy does modern architecture so often lack human-scale or comforting qualities—and what did World War I have to do with it? What would a real free market in urban development look like? Why are California cities’ latest efforts to produce more housing backfiring? This and more in our top stories of the past week.
Read MoreWhat if to build Strong Towns, we don’t just need to think outside of our partisan political boxes, but stop thinking of them as boxes at all?
Read MoreA video interview with Strong Towns founder Chuck Marohn describes the origins of the Strong Towns movement and how it helps cities—especially smaller ones—reclaim local control of their future stability and prosperity.
Read MoreJoin Strong Towns for immersive experiences designed to help you make the Strong Towns approach real in your place.
Read MoreMid-size regions like Kansas City don’t have the affordability struggles of, say, a fast-growing Denver or Seattle: they have their own unique challenges instead. Here’s how the “natural” affordability of homes in these places can be turned into an opportunity for an urban renaissance.
Read More“We’ve gotta be perfect. If a negligent driver kills someone, people see it as a necessary evil. But if a cyclist runs a red light, or a scooter hops onto a sidewalk alongside a busy street, we are just jerks driving crazy little vehicles with no regard for the law.”
Read MoreWe’re sharing the video and audio from our July 2019 live webcast Q&A with Jordan Deffenbaugh and Jim Hodapp, primary organizers of Strong Towns Local Conversations Strong Towns Sioux Falls and Strong Indy.
Read MoreSan Bruno, California laid out a detailed blueprint for more housing. One developer followed that blueprint. $3 million and 3 years later, the city killed his project anyway.
Read MoreThis place is a work horse. It grows small businesses from scratch without recourse to bank loans or government subsidies. It provides products and experiences that are genuinely needed in the community. And it costs almost nothing to create.
Read MoreTwo small Tennessee towns reveal the mighty power of a traditional downtown square—even one that isn’t designed to achieve its full potential. It’s simply the most foolproof and financially productive style of development there is.
Read MoreTraditional architecture has evolved through millennia of trial and error to harmonize with our unconscious impulses, make us feel comfortable and encourage positive social behavior. Modernism too often throws those lessons out the window—and one architect thinks the trauma of World War I had something to do with why.
Read MoreA real market urbanism looks like an organic system, where as many distortions as possible are removed and we’re left with irrational, fallible humans transacting with each other as freely as possible. There is good reason to correlate that with the traditional development pattern.
Read MoreWhen is it worth it to retrofit financially unproductive, auto-oriented places with walkable, mixed-use development? That dying shopping mall on the edge of your town? What about a brand new downtown for a sleepy bedroom community that never had one? This and more in our top stories of the week.
Read MoreUnpacking “smart cities” hype through a Strong Towns lens: when should we get excited about technological fixes to our cities’ problems? And when is sticking with a low-tech (but tried, tested, and resilient) approach more prudent?
Read MoreMissing Middle development—anything from a duplex to a cottage court to a small apartment building—is an indispensable piece of the Strong Towns vision for cities that are resilient, adaptable, and can pay their bills. We need to revive a culture of building this way: here are 5 ways cities can start.
Read MoreWhat’s the most suburban kind of place you can think of? If you said an outlet mall, you’re probably not alone. Is there a path to incrementally retrofit these malls to a more human-scaled environment… and even if there is, is it worth the trouble?
Read MoreAndy Diaz—founder at Urban Acres in Peoria, Illinois—shares how you can use local food to build community in your own neighborhood, including how to find the right investment for your neighborhood, how to grow your efforts incrementally, and why cities like Peoria and beyond need more $1,000 heroes (not $1 million heroes).
Those who are most comfortable with the status quo often demand that we exhaustively study any new policy for possible harmful side effects before taking action. But what if we applied the same scrutiny to the harmful side effects of not changing things?
Read MoreIf your city is struggling to balance its budget, it’s not enough to just cut costs and not seek to increase revenues. That’s like a cyclist who tries to improve their performance only by losing weight.
Read More
