Best of 2020: Our Top 3 Webcasts
2020 was the year of Zoom, but we’ve actually been using this tool at Strong Towns for a lot longer than that to deliver our monthly free webcasts. And we’re glad folks we’re too exhausted with Zoom fatigue to jump into these powerful presentations that saw thousands of you in attendance this year. The topics we covered were timely and essential for anyone working to make their community stronger during this challenging year.
Before we get to our top three webcasts in the year, I want to encourage you to visit our Events page so you can see when future webcasts are scheduled (hint: we’ve got a big announcement related to this coming very soon.) And if you want to stay in the loop with alerts as soon as new events are listed, join our email list.
With that, here are recordings from our top three webcasts of 2020:
1. The Local Leader’s Toolkit: A Strong Towns Response to the Pandemic
This webcast, presented by Strong Towns President Charles Marohn in the early months of the pandemic, shared essential advice and information for everyone battling the impacts of this pandemic in their cities and towns, particularly elected officials, business owners, nonprofit directors and other community leaders. Marohn breaks down the necessary steps for leaders in the immediate, mid-term and long-term.
As we approach one year of this pandemic in America, your community may be looking to long-term solutions, while still figuring out the immediate responses to a rapidly shifting crisis. We’re here with you and we’re going to keep providing resources like this in the new year. Stay tuned.
The ideas outlined in this webcast are also available in our free ebook The Local Leader’s Toolkit and you can book Charles Marohn to give a presentation to this effect, tailored to your community’s needs here.
2. Incremental Development: Your Community’s Tool for Local Prosperity
This webcast was definitely a highlight of the year. Gracen Johnson, Director of Content and Contribution for the Incremental Development Alliance, brought together a fascinating group of developers doing great work all over the continent, from Texas to Ontario. They included Brian Burnett, Sarah Cipkar, Kyle Gulau, Joel Dixon, Bernice Radle and Monte Anderson.
Together, these bright leaders shared their experiences doing development in a variety of settings (from backyard cottages to large commercial buildings) and Gracen gave attendees a crash course in incremental development basics. This one’s not to be missed.
3. How to Get Rid of Parking Minimums
This recent webcast, led by three advocates who played a big role in removing parking minimums in their town of Edmonton, Canada, blew me away. Together, Ashely Salvador, Anne Stevenson, and Travis Fong packed an hour full of step-by-step advice for moving your city leadership in the direction of removing parking minimums.
I especially appreciated the portion of the presentation where they talked about how to address and respond to opposition that may crop up when you try to adjust something as shockingly emotional as parking space. This is a must-watch for anyone who wants to help their city take the necessary step of getting rid of parking minimum regulations.
Is there a webcast topic or speaker you’d like us to consider featuring in 2021?
Let us know in the comments.
Why is it that when a place is [pick one: walkable, bikeable, beautiful, lovable, inviting, human-scale], it so often gets coded as being “gentrified” and therefore elitist? When only the rich can afford nice places, the solution isn't to stop creating such places but to create vastly more of them.