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. | Continue reading
This story is not unique: a mid-sized Minnesota town is preparing to adopt a 50-year-old neighborhood. As the neighborhood struggles to pay for long-term maintenance on its roads and pipes, it seems like neither annexation nor autonomy will really solve the problem. | Continue reading
Cities are complex…which means that our regulations shouldn’t be. | Continue reading
Comparing the process of furnishing two apartments—one in Ecuador, the other in the U.S.—was a reminder: order and efficiency aren't always what they're cracked up to be. | Continue reading
In a “car place,” pedestrians are grudgingly tolerated. In a “pedestrian place,” cars are allowed to visit. We need a lot more of the latter. Here’s where to start. | Continue reading
It’s easy for “maintaining” our public investments to become “upgrading” our public investments. Especially when there is money available. And especially when that money is borrowed. | Continue reading
The American pattern of development creates the illusion. Today we are in the process of seeing that illusion destroyed…and with it the prosperity we have come to take for granted. | Continue reading
A home that’s been flexible in meeting the family’s needs for generations finds new use during the COVID-19 crisis. | Continue reading
If we’re willing to learn, this experiment shows us how to fight congestion and get a more efficient transportation system. | Continue reading
Contrary to what has been asserted elsewhere, the suburbs are not about to have a renaissance. In fact, there are many reasons to believe we are nearing the end. | Continue reading
A strong town is one that can adapt incrementally over time. Here’s how a group of climbing enthusiasts helped a Michigan college town do just that. | Continue reading
We use the term “development pattern” all over the place at Strong Towns. Here’s your one-stop guide to what we actually mean by that. | Continue reading
The State of Texas is prepared to fully fund a massive freeway widening project through the heart of Austin. Have we learned nothing? (Answer: apparently not.) | Continue reading
Kansas City, Missouri has a serious infrastructure problem. But an emerging conversation there is charting a path toward greater strength and financial resilience. | Continue reading
The ultimate irony of our economic system is that the only mechanism we have to satisfy our needs is to increase our neediness. | Continue reading
The longer the economy stays shut down, the more likely we are to recognize how little of it we actually need. The greatest threat to our economic model isn’t recession or even depression. It’s that we become content with our lives. | Continue reading
The way we design our cities guarantees a flood of congestion. And then we pour billions of dollars into highway expansion, only to worsen the problem we created in the first place. | Continue reading
Can we break free of our car addiction? It may be possible, but it won’t be easy…or fast. | Continue reading
I’m bullish on strip malls, for all their faults, as places that can adapt and endure even as the cities around them decline and falter. Here’s why. | Continue reading
A wealthy Bay Area suburb is resisting new development. This is raising questions not just about California’s housing crisis, but about who gets to decide a city’s housing future. | Continue reading
Half a century ago, Rochester, New York — like so many other cities — built an urban highway that tore at the social fabric, decimated neighborhoods, and made the city increasingly fragile. Today, Rochester is showing cities that there is a better way. | Continue reading
The process by which aging buildings provide a naturally affordable housing stock is broken in many of America’s cities. | Continue reading
How will we ensure there’s enough parking if we don’t require property owners to provide any? There’s a simple answer to this question. | Continue reading
The drive-to version of a walkable main street, surrounded by parking lots, is like a Western movie set made of fake building facades: all hat and no cattle. | Continue reading
The Federal Highway Administration has a chart full of answers to that question you might find useful. | Continue reading
More research from the Upjohn Institute, following an attention-grabbing study last year, helps us understand the cause-and-effect chains that result when a new apartment building opens in a low-income area. | Continue reading
Where did we spend our money building transit in the U.S. in the last 10 years? And what did we get for it? | Continue reading
For many, Los Angeles embodies car-culture—and the suburban-style development, freeways, traffic jams, and pollution that go with it. But it didn’t have to be that way. Turns out, LA was never designed to be a car city. | Continue reading
Vision Zero is a simple engineering problem, but a wickedly complex social and institutional problem—at least in America’s car-dependent cities. Success in Norway shows us what the way forward looks like. | Continue reading
Jobs and growth are the results of a productive system, not a proxy for one. | Continue reading
Many cities think they need to grow to get strong. But adding thousands of additional acres to the city and millions of dollars in infrastructure is usually the last thing a city needs. It’s like trying to lose weight by consuming more pizza and beer. | Continue reading
The movement to end harmful, wasteful minimum parking requirements is picking up steam in cities large and small across America. We’re doing our best to play a part in it. | Continue reading
The way we design our cities, the metrics we track, and even our language — they all betray how we’ve come to prioritize cars over human bodies. What’s lost when our transportation paradigm doesn’t account for the diverse ways people still use our streets? | Continue reading
Help us spread the word about #BlackFridayParking . Get a holiday gift you'll actually want. | Continue reading
Slip lanes are the quintessential embodiment of what happens when speed is the #1 priority and safety becomes secondary. They are incredibly dangerous for pedestrians. Yet states and communities keep building them. Why? | Continue reading
Those two things are all you should need to be able to make sense of your city's zoning code. At least that's the philosophy guiding South Bend, IN planners as they overhaul the city's regulations to be more legible and useful. | Continue reading
Many thoughtful urbanists want to #endparkingminimums. We do too. But there’s something else we can address. It’s a relatively small change that can have a big impact…and it could be a good first step to getting rid of parking minimums altogether. | Continue reading
The advocacy group Transportation for America makes a bold move on transportation funding. We applaud them for it. | Continue reading
An urbanist abroad discovers that Tokyo faces many of the same challenges as U.S. cities — off-street parking, pedestrian safety, utilizing space, etc. — but is addressing them in very different ways. | Continue reading
The wait is finally over. The Strong Towns book is out today! Here is information on where to buy, as well as one simple, 30-second thing you can do that could make all the difference. | Continue reading
What if Airbnb—maligned by urbanists everywhere—didn’t have to be part of the problem, but could rather be part of the solution for making our neighborhoods stronger, more adaptable, and more resilient? Drawing both from personal experience and historical precedent, a Strong To … | Continue reading
Public officials trying to make their city’s street more humane are often thwarted by the professional engineers giving them advice. If that’s your city, it’s time to make a change. | Continue reading
In Seattle, policy victories tend to be long-fought and hard-won. What will it take to achieve a city that can flex, evolve, and meet its residents’ needs in a more organic way, without every change becoming an arduous political battle? | Continue reading
A remarkably diverse coalition of activists is moving the needle in Seattle on the question of who—and what—belongs in the city’s neighborhoods. And they’ve scored two big policy victories in 2019. Is it enough? | Continue reading
Tampa has an epidemic of leaking and bursting pipes. But don’t worry, the city’s taking action! …by proposing an eightfold increase in the amount it spends on maintenance for the next 20 years, half funded by new debt. How did we get to this point? | Continue reading
America is addicted to cars. But what if we weren’t? How could cities utilize the many acres of suddenly empty parking lots? City planner Alexander Dukes looks ahead to life after parking. | Continue reading
Love to hate congestion? We’ll never fix it by obsessing over speed or traffic delays. We need to rethink our whole transportation debate, starting with this premise: it’s not about how fast you can go. It’s about what you can get to. | Continue reading