Put Your Town on the Map

A Strong Towns advocate has their work cut out for them.

Making the streets in the community safer for people walking, biking, or using wheelchairs. Opposing a highway expansion. Urging City Hall to #DoTheMath on a proposed development. Softening the ground for small-scale developers. No matter what the issue may be, the Strong Towns advocate often must contend with the opaque ways new policies and developments are analyzed and discussed. They also must contend with the inertia of conventional thinking. While the way we’ve built cities since World War II is only about a minute old in historical terms, we’re now up against decades of a “this is just how things are done” mindset.

This can be lonely work too. There’s an image we often come back to in staff discussions: that of the lone advocate standing up in a city council meeting to oppose some shiny new infrastructure project that she knows—she has the data—she just knows will be a millstone around the city budget for decades to come. Yet all the momentum, and even accepted thinking, is arrayed against her. And so she stands up...but she stands alone.

That’s a moving image to us as staff. We know there are thousands of members of the Strong Towns movement, all across North America, standing with this lone advocate in spirit. But we want more than that for her. We want folks in the actual room with her, standing beside her, locking arms.

But there is good news. The good news is that you’re already surrounded by fellow Strong Towns advocates. Maybe you don’t know it yet. Maybe they don’t even know it yet. But they’re out there. Consider that for a moment:

• How many unknown allies might be around you right now?

• What would become possible for you with one or two or even a dozen kindred spirits by your side? By your side at city council meetings; numbered among your colleagues; around a table at a coffee shop or pub, planning your next bike advocacy event or tactical urbanism demonstration project.

In my experience, building stronger relationships is the best way to build stronger towns and cities. I’ve also seen that building stronger towns and cities is a great way to build deeper relationships.

With that in mind, I’d like to offer a simple, 3-step plan to connect with fellow Strong Towns advocates near you. For a summary of this process, I recommend downloading and printing the Action Guide at the right. (You can find additional Action Guides in the Strong Towns Action Lab.)

Step 1: Find a Local Conversation Near You

A Local Conversation is a group of Strong Towns advocates who meet to discuss how to apply Strong Towns principles to their own towns and cities. There are more than 100 Local Conversations around the United States and Canada, with more being added each month. There may be one where you live, too. To find out, go to strongtowns.org/map. This will take you to a crowd-sourced map that shows where people have started Local Conversations. If you click on the pin, it should give you information on where to connect with the group’s organizer.

Step 2: Start Your Own Local Conversation

If there’s not a Local Conversation where you live, you should start your own. It’s actually simple and we’re here to help. The first thing to do is to add your group to that Local Conversations map at strongtowns.org/map. There’s a form there that you can fill out. In addition to listing your group publicly on our site, the form allows you to indicate whether you’d like us to send a personal email on your behalf to folks from your region on our mailing list.

Step 3: Build Momentum

Once you’ve joined a Local Conversation—or started your own—it’s time to build momentum and grow the Strong Towns conversation where you live.

One reason we believe you’re already surrounded by allies is that the Strong Towns movement is at the convergence of multiple other movements. In other words, there are many side doors into the Strong Towns conversation. There are folks who found us because of their passion for making their city more walkable and bikeable; others because they’re passionate about affordable housing; still others because of their passion about their city’s finances, slowing the cars, tactical urbanism, homelessness, local food, and more. You have neighbors who care deeply about these and other related issues. How can you help them make the connection? Here, briefly, are a few ideas:

1. Share Strong Towns resources. We annually produce more than 500 articles and 150 podcasts. We now have an archive of thousands of articles. We also have many free e-books to read and free webcasts to watch. If you found one of our resources helpful, consider sharing it with a friend or colleague. (We’re compiling many of our key resources in the Strong Towns Action Lab. Make sure to check it out.)

2. Go through our free Strong Towns 101 course together. We created a free online course that is the perfect introduction to core Strong Towns concepts. It describes the insolvency crisis quietly bankrupting cities and towns everywhere. It also explains the simple yet radical approach to fix it. By the way, the course is also worth 4.25 CE credits through AICP.

3. Start a hyperlocal blog, podcast, or vlog. Quite a few Strong Towns members have started blogs, vlogs, and podcasts that explore Strong Towns themes and apply them to their towns, cities, and regions. Arian Horbovetz in Rochester, New York and Michel Durand-Wood in Winnipeg, Manitoba are just two examples. To find more inspiration, check out our Member Blog Roll.

4. Do a project together. The best way to engage the group and keep the momentum going is to start a project together. There’s more information in our Action Lab, but here are some projects you can consider:

• A tactical urbanism project

• A DIY value-per-acre analysis

• A group blog, like this one in Sioux Falls, South Dakota

• Take a pass through these four steps

5. Talk to your neighbors. Sometimes the best way to start a Strong Towns conversation is just to have a regular conversation. Ask a neighbor: “What does our neighborhood need right now?” Or, “What are your hopes for our neighborhood?” And don’t just talk to the usual suspects—you know, the neighbors most likely to show up, say, to a neighborhood association meeting. For example, it can be really illuminating to see the neighborhood through a child’s eyes.

Our challenge to you is to put your town on the map. Go to StrongTowns.org/map. See if there’s a Local Conversation near you. And if there isn’t, start one by putting your community on the map. We at Strong Towns want to come alongside you and help connect with you kindred spirits right where you are.

Remember this map?

This is the map of existing Local Conversations in North America.

But what if the map looked like this?

What this would tell us is that the status quo—let’s call it the Suburban Experiment—must now contend with a growing number of passionate, creative, informed, and effective advocates. We are turning the tide on conventional thinking. Put your town on the map today.

Cover image via Timo Wielink on Unsplash

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