Towns and cities across the country are wrestling with how to increase outside space for retail and dining, to give businesses a fighting chance during the pandemic. Here are four key takeaways from one city’s experience.
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The housing crisis is complex. It was made more so by the pandemic. What can Strong Towns advocates do to bring some sanity back to the housing market?
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It can be intimidating to try and wade through a 200-page government PDF filled with obscure acronyms and confusing charts. It doesn’t have to be. We’re lifting the veil on city budgets.
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We’ve never been able to afford the Suburban Experiment. But now that our 20th-century infrastructure needs to be repaired or replaced, the bills are coming due in an obvious way.
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An urban photographer reflects on the reactions he got when he started capturing what the American urban landscape is really like—parking lots, declining neighborhoods, tract homes, and all.
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For some, the pandemic is stripping away distractions and connecting them with the simple joys of our ancestors. For others, it’s stripping away their lives and livelihood. We need to convert the lessons of the pandemic into action.
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Local leaders must challenge the status quo around how we build our cities. Here’s how to bring colleagues and civic officials around to your position.
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Want to understand why some neighborhoods don’t sidewalks? #DoTheMath…and look at the history.
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This observation of human behavior has long been a source of frustration for safety advocates, but that doesn’t make it wrong.
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The fate of an iconic bookstore, the huge cost of some tiny apartments, the problem with relying on a distant government to solve our problems, and more. These are a few stories from around the web that Strong Towns staff were reading and talking about this week.
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The work of building a Strong Town can’t be done alone. Here’s how to find (and create) collaborators where you live.
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The pandemic can make it feel like the work of building strong, thriving communities has been put on hold. But that doesn’t have to be the case. Use these two solutions to get unstuck.
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Fire departments have a lot of influence over a city’s planning decisions. Too often, that influence is focused on one metric—emergency vehicle response times—rather than a more holistic approach to public safety.
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How have cities throughout history successfully grown and met their need for new homes? Two metaphors from nature provide the key.
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Towns and cities are converting parking spaces into “parklets” as a temporary social distancing resource. But the benefits of parklets will outlast the pandemic.
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A skyline full of skyscrapers makes for a nice postcard…but do skyscrapers actually make our cities stronger?
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We’ve been critical of single-family zoning — but does that mean that single-family homes have no place in a city’s financial ecosystem?
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It’s an article of faith among many that big and tall buildings don’t belong around small and short buildings. But does this idea actually stand up to scrutiny?
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A small-scale developer in Atlanta is showing that it’s possible to improve a neighborhood without displacing the people who already live there.
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The trajectories of two local shopping districts—a mall built in the mid-80s, and a historic downtown—provide an object lesson on the power of the “chaotic but smart” approach to growing a city.
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