Strong Towns is dedicated to making meaningful progress in pursuing our mission, regardless of who wins elections. To that end, here are five things we want to see the next president do to support the prosperity of America’s cities, towns and neighborhoods.
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To make streets safer, we need to change the way people think about car crashes. And we need your help to do it. So, here’s the executive summary of the new “Beyond Blame” report, which shares the most important insights and recommendations from 18 months of Crash Analysis Studios.
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If there's a single document that reflects the spirit of our work and the essence of the Strong Towns movement, it's the "Don't Be a Jerk" Agreement that we ask all Local Conversation leaders to sign. As the movement continues to grow — and as Election Day draws near — we want to make this agreement public.
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Americans are suckers for the idea of a moonshot, of taking a big, challenging risk and earning a huge payoff. The problem is, these moonshots usually fail, especially when they're trying to fix complex, chronic problems like traffic safety. There's a better way.
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The Federal Reserve just cut interest rates. Some people are celebrating the move as making housing more attainable, but it's really just reinforcing the housing trap. Need proof? Look no further than the 40-year mortgage.
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Most city officials are operating in good faith, trying their best to make decisions that will help their community. Even when they've made bad decisions in the past, it's never too late to start making good ones.
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The traffic engineering profession has three responses to fatal crashes: blame the driver, call for more engineering or conclude it was an accident that couldn't be prevented. These are understandable human reactions. Here's why they're also inadequate and what should be done instead.
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The U.S. is in a massive housing bubble fueled by widespread fraud. With banks incentivized to look away and Wall Street and Washington incentivized to keep housing prices artificially high, a bottom-up approach is the only hope for bringing sanity back to the housing market.
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In many cities, officials primarily rely on traffic enforcement to prevent car crashes and fatalities. This is unsustainable and ineffective. If city officials want to make Vision Zero a reality, instead of a slogan, they must address the systemic issues that put everyone at risk.
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People aren’t only influenced by their own beliefs — they’re also influenced by what they think other people believe. For instance, a local leader might withhold public support from a policy because they think no one else supports it. Here’s what that means for the Strong Towns movement.
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Brainerd, Minnesota’s newest addition isn't exactly cause for celebration. Instead, this “high-tech” ice machine reveals deeper issues with public investment, community apathy and neighborhood decline that can plague cities.
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Are urban areas really more financially sustainable than suburbs? Do urban areas inherently have higher infrastructure costs? Here's what Strong Towns actually says about the Suburban Experiment and infrastructure spending.
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We can’t wait for big government housing programs to fix the housing affordability crisis — in fact, they can actually make things worse. But don't lose hope. Local governments have the power to tackle the housing crisis in ways that actually work.
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Local governments that follow a “mindlessly pro-business” approach sacrifice community well-being in the name of commerce, but end up devastating their cities’ downtowns by misunderstanding what helps an area succeed economically. It’s time to realize that helping local businesses means helping the community, too.
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Building affordable housing seems like a win for cities struggling in the Housing Trap. But between its top-down nature and the public subsidies it requires, affordable housing can actually make things worse.
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City engineers rely on faulty logic and misrepresentations to maintain the status quo. This was made blatantly clear in a recent letter from the City Engineers Association of Minnesota (CEAM) — and it’s why a growing number of engineers are breaking from the party line to support reform. Here are CEAM’s top four arguments against parking reform and why they’re wrong.
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Vison Zero is supposed to represent a commitment to achieving zero traffic deaths, but it often devolves into empty platitudes — even when public officials genuinely support it. That’s because they’re looking for solutions in the wrong place. Instead of blaming individual drivers, officials need to look at the root cause of most traffic deaths: the contradictory design of city streets.
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Special assessments are a way local governments can fund projects that will add value to homeowners’ property. When used to fund regular maintenance, though, they’re self-serving, irresponsible and unfairly target the poorest members of the community. It’s time to demand better.
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Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed legislation to accelerate road projects, claiming it will make driving less miserable. However, driving in Florida isn’t miserable because of a lack of roads —it’s miserable because the road network is designed in nonsensical, dangerous ways that increase congestion and make it impossible to drive anywhere in a straight line.
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With interest rates rising, the cost and availability of housing are becoming increasingly popular topics of debate. But most of these discussions fail to challenge the root of the issue: the absurdity of mortgages as an investment vehicle.
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