Our cities need buildings that are “boring.” Here’s why.
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You cannot build a place of enduring value that isn't homey, that isn't loved.
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A year ago, I wrote about an old school being converted into a community center. This photo collection shows what has happened since, the results of Strong Citizenship.
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What would a contemporary neighborhood in which people work and proudly display their names and livelihoods on the door be like? It's not what I'd call revolutionary, but in 2016, it's a completely novel and magnetic idea to me.
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Rather than allow for natural pedestrian movement and traffic calming, my city has recommended funnelling pedestrians into a signalized crosswalk so they can wait their turn to cross the street in an approved manner. I believe that is the wrong answer to the right question.
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If one were to follow Schumacher’s advice and put the inner house in order, testing out our biggest goals at the household level, what does that look like?
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As I engage more in this work of neighbourhood-level doing, the role of local knowledge is becoming clearer to me. It seems almost cruel that at a certain scale, local knowledge is worth everything.
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What do homebuddies do? Homebudding: growing homeyness. (Or in Strong Towns terminology, they create productive places.) Here's a video with examples of homebudding.
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Built and social environments are interdependent and right now, that relationship in the world around me is out of sync. Indigenous people who have lived on this land for thousands of years have a lot to teach us.
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Small scale developers envision a world with a lot more landlords. Here's why we think that’s such a good thing.
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What is the process involved in becoming locally influential on urban issues if you don't work for the government or a planning firm? Here are some tips I’ve pulled from my experience so far.
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I recall listening to a conversation about technical debt a few short weeks ago and nodding my head at the metaphor. So I asked my partner Ryan, and our friend Brendan, both of whom work in software, to explain technical debt a little further.
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Tips and tricks for understanding zoning codes and starting out as a small scale developer.
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Tradition can help make strong citizenship habitual, but first we need to come to terms with how we got here, who we want to be, and what traditions support the society we want.
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In order to solve the biggest problems of today's world (climate change, dysfunctional cities, global crises) we need to harness the strength of a movement.
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We've all heard reference to vehicles, business sectors, tourists, social groups, etc as though they are invasive species. There are also literal invasive species that thrive in urban environments. Are there any cases where "We're just very negative about them" when they are simply filling a void through "hardiness and lack of competition"? What are the "pristine ecosystems" that we try to conserve in the urban landscape?
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For a few weeks, I’m visiting my family back in London, Ontario. This means, for a few weeks I am living on a cul-de-sac in a subdivision surrounded by other subdivisions, close to an arterial lined with shopping plazas, gas stations, drive-thrus, strip malls, an upscale enclosed shopping mall, and a big box centre.
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On the surface, it might seem more difficult to deal with co-existence in a big city where you are constantly in close quarters with people you do not know and may not want to know. But not knowing is so easy. On the contrary, it’s community that’s hard.
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This Saturday, a short film I made is being screened at the New Urbanism Film Festival in LA. Sadly, I will not be in LA to see it live and talk to the audience and other film-makers. I'd like there to be a place to field any questions or discussion about the film though, so here is the Strong Towns premiere of Do Season.
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A photographic follow up on some of my neighbourhood projects that are coming to a close.
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