The Common Knowledge Game: Public Perception and the Strong Towns Movement
What do you believe everyone else believes? There are many different versions of this thought experiment, the most commonly known being the story of "The Emperor’s New Clothes." In that story, a vain emperor is presented with two weavers who make him the most splendid outfit ever created, one that is visible in all its splendor to everyone except for those who are incompetent. Of course, there is no outfit — the emperor is naked — but nobody will admit it for fear of looking like a fool. It's only when a child speaks up and announces what is obvious to everyone that the common knowledge shifts.
Let me give you an example of how this looks in the real world: Ben Hunt at Epsilon Theory had a fantastic article about the common knowledge game in relation to President Biden. For quite some time now, everyone suspected that age had caught up with him to some degree. Depending on one’s affiliation with a political team, however, it felt plausible to go along with one or another exaggerated narrative. Either the president was in peak form and had never been sharper, or it was full weekend-at-Bernies at the White House. There wasn’t common knowledge that everyone shared.
Until the June 27 debate, at least. That was when everyone saw with their own eyes what was happening. Everyone began to believe that everyone else now believed he was at least somewhat impaired by age. Common knowledge shifted, not by people changing their minds (partisans everywhere largely continued to cling to their prior arguments) but by people changing their minds about what other people believed.
Strong Towns is primarily involved in the common knowledge game. The goal is not necessarily to shift what an individual person believes; it's more to shift their beliefs about what everyone else believes. In my career, I can’t count the number of times local leaders would say privately that they support a policy change (they believed in it) but would show up at the meeting and vote otherwise because they thought they were the only one (they believed that everyone else held a different belief).
The earliest days of Strong Towns were about convincing mayors, city council members, technical professionals and other local leaders within city hall that they should do things differently. That strategy went nowhere because of the common knowledge game. (For the record, I don’t think this makes these local leaders bad; I think it makes them human.) The Strong Towns Board of Directors helped me figure this out and pushed me to shift strategy. Strong Towns was literally built into a content and communications machine to grow a movement that will shift common knowledge. That is what this organization is designed to do.
As a side note, when you share or like a Strong Towns article, podcast or video, when you forward an email from us or follow us on social media, or when you sign up to become a member or join a Local Conversation, you are building that movement. You are doing your part to shift common knowledge. Thank you to everyone who supports Strong Towns in that way.
I was recently able to spend time cataloging the many Strong Towns insights that are a challenge to the common knowledge problem. These are things that, in my estimation, most people believe to be true but may not say because they're not sure whether everyone else holds the same belief. I’ve cut the list down from around 80 to the following 21. As a Strong Towns reader, let me know which of these you struggle to concur with. Which of these would you hesitate to say in a public meeting?
If your city cannot financially sustain its essential infrastructure without outside support, your city is fragile and its future is tenuously dependent on others.
For a city, public infrastructure isn’t an asset. It is a continuously recurring liability.
A well-run local government will never be surprised by the cost of maintaining their city’s essential infrastructure.
It is relatively easy for a city to grow quickly and generate a lot of revenue today if they are willing to take on unpayable future obligations.
Municipal debt is a claim on future municipal revenue, plain and simple. Cities can’t print their own money, so their finances function exactly like those of a family or a business.
Bond ratings are for investors, not residents. A good bond rating doesn’t mean the city is run well. It only means there is sufficient money to be squeezed out of taxpayers to cover current debt payments.
Build-it-and-they-will-come is gambling. It is reckless for local governments to gamble with resources they can’t afford to lose.
Cities will raise taxes and cut essential services to beyond-painful levels before they default on their debt.
A gap in a streetscape represents a public expense without a corresponding revenue stream. That expense will need to be covered with greater financial productivity elsewhere.
No fatal car crash is ever 100% driver error. There are always other contributing factors.
Design a street like a highway and people will drive like it's a highway.
Cities can protect construction workers on the sides of roads. They can also protect people walking and biking on the sides of roads.
Highway expansions are paid largely by federal debt matched by state debt. In other words, highway expansions are paid primarily by future taxpayers.
Union workers make the same wages fixing broken roads and bridges as they make building new ones.
A shovel-ready project is merely a project not worth doing unless someone else pays for it.
In the United States, where driving is ubiquitous, using time saved as a financial metric to justify spending on highway expansions is fraud.
Housing cannot be both broadly affordable and a high-returning financial investment.
Making it easier for more people to borrow more money to pay more for housing only makes housing more expensive.
Regardless of what they profess, homeowners, banks and governments will tend to resist policies designed to dramatically reduce home prices and support policies that will increase the value of homes.
In established neighborhoods, zoning does not protect property values. At best, it provides a period of stasis before decline.
Parking lots provide only a minimal tax base and create no jobs. When they are served with public infrastructure, that infrastructure must be subsidized by more productive properties elsewhere.
Now, go back through the list and identify which of these you believe is common knowledge — something that everyone else believes. Where has the Strong Towns movement been the most successful and where does it have the most work yet to do in making these statements common knowledge?
I’m genuinely interested in hearing from you in the comments.
Charles Marohn (known as “Chuck” to friends and colleagues) is the founder and president of Strong Towns and the bestselling author of “Escaping the Housing Trap: The Strong Towns Response to the Housing Crisis.” With decades of experience as a land use planner and civil engineer, Marohn is on a mission to help cities and towns become stronger and more prosperous. He spreads the Strong Towns message through in-person presentations, the Strong Towns Podcast, and his books and articles. In recognition of his efforts and impact, Planetizen named him one of the 15 Most Influential Urbanists of all time in 2017 and 2023.