How Do We Design for Drivers?
Drivers are usually treated as the obstacle when cities try to build better places for walking, biking and transit. Houssam Elokda of Happy...
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The Strong Towns Podcast
We advocate for a model of development that allows our cities, towns and neighborhoods to grow financially strong and resilient.
Episodes
20 of 620 episodesMassachusetts Is Putting Starter Homes on the Ballot
Massachusetts voters are being asked a surprisingly simple housing question: Should a single-family home be legal on a 5,000-square-foot lot...
What Comes After Cities Kill Parking Mandates?
Parking reform used to feel like a niche fight. Now North Carolina has eliminated most parking mandates statewide, cities are following one...
Is Homeownership Still Part of the American Dream?
If housing feels impossibly expensive, one answer is that a smaller home, a less in-demand place, or a slower climb may simply be part of st...
Chuck’s Engineering Lawsuit Finally Has a Ruling
After six years of legal fights, we finally have a federal court ruling in Chuck’s dispute with Minnesota’s engineering licensing board. Chu...
Chuck on Data Centers, YIMBYs and E-Bikes
Strong Towns members filled the Commons with questions, and Chuck sat down to answer as many as he could. Should cities require data centers...
The $1 Trillion Infrastructure Backlog Cities Aren’t Counting
A strong bond rating can tell investors that a city is likely to repay its debt. It says much less about whether that city can afford to rep...
This Atlanta Corridor Makes Walking Normal and Deadly
Atlanta’s Buford Highway supports apartment communities, small businesses, and an international food scene that draws people from across the...
America’s Half-Funded Highway System
The Highway Trust Fund brings in roughly $45 billion a year and spends closer to $80 billion. Congress keeps the system running by borrowing...
A Better Block Versus Years of Planning
Cities often spend years studying a street before making a change, only to discover that the public is reacting to plans no one has actually...
The Transit Tradeoff No City Can Escape
Putting a route near every community sounds fair until the buses only arrive once an hour. Jarrett Walker, author of Human Transit and princ...
Why Great Streets Are Not Enhancements
Street trees, benches, slower speeds, and beautiful proportions are often treated as extras, added only after the “real” engineering work is...
The Deadly Road Design We Keep Defending
Pedestrian deaths have climbed sharply since 2009, yet transportation agencies often point to small, recent dips as proof that things are ge...
Inside the Strong Towns Leadership Transition
Strong Towns has always warned cities about the danger of fragile growth. Now, Chuck is applying that same lesson to the movement he helped...
What's the Housing Crisis Beneath the Housing Crisis?
Lars Doucet digs into a problem that shows up in expensive cities, sprawling suburbs, and even countries Americans often point to as models:...
Rethinking the Federal Role in Transportation
Beth Osborne has watched the same story play out five times: a new federal transportation bill arrives with big language about goals and acc...
Illinois Housing Reform Gets Practical
Illinois is short roughly 130,000 homes today and needs about 240,000 more by 2030. The state can’t change mortgage rates or material costs,...
The Neighborhood Outside the Church Doors
A trip to Italy left Chuck surprised by how ordinary Catholic life felt in a country filled with churches. A later visit to Hasidic Brooklyn...
A Congressman Makes the Case for Local Power
Congressman Jake Auchincloss joins the the Strong Towns podcast with a case for localism that takes it seriously without treating it as a cu...
Why Manchester’s Boom Isn’t the Whole Story
Is a city “dynamic” just because its charts point up and to the right? Chuck uses a week in the UK to question that assumption. In Mancheste...