As a cycling advocate, I avoid talking about the times when riding a bike in the city is scary, because I don’t want to deter would-be new riders from giving it a try. There’s only one problem with pretending I’m never afraid: it isn’t true.
Read More
The shopping mall, an icon of America’s suburban experiment, has fallen on hard times. But don’t start cheering; that doesn’t mean we should assume that one comes next will be a better deal for communities.
Read More
Being carless in rural communities, whether because of finance or circumstance, can be a debilitating and isolating situation. How can we meet rural America’s transportation needs in meaningful yet affordable ways?
Read More
Building the Cycling City: The Dutch Blueprint For Urban Vitality is a new book by Chris Bruntlett and Melissa Bruntlett aimed at sharing the successful strategies The Netherlands has used to build cities at a human scale.
Read More
Derek Avery spoke at the recent North Texas Gathering about doing revitalization without gentrification. As a follow-up, we interviewed Avery about his thoughtful approach to community development.
Read More
Strong Towns’s Aubrey Byron interviews John Simmerman and Amanda Popken, who presented on placemaking and tactical urbanism at our recent North Texas Regional Gathering.
Read More
Across the Rust Belt and Midwest, immigrant entrepreneurs and residents are helping to mitigate the financial challenges faced by declining and shrinking cities.
Read More
Our staff writer Aubrey Byron begins a new series: at least once a month, she will be exploring how Strong Towns concepts apply to rural locations. Whether it’s transit, the value of sewers versus septics in small towns, or the walkability of small towns, check out our new coverage of the #smallstrongtown.
Read More
Let’s walk through what it actually takes to build a small rental apartment on your property in Austin, Texas. It’s a lesson in how the city’s existing code stymies gentle, incremental, small-scale development.
Read More
Where is Austin supposed to put 135,000 new homes in ten years? The city posed the question. Diametrically opposed groups of residents could not come close to agreeing on the answer.
Read More
Myth busting time: that infuriating thing you saw a bicyclist do the other day? They were probably doing it for a reason, that reason probably had to do with safety, and it might not have been against the law after all.
Read MoreAs a cycling advocate, I avoid talking about the times when riding a bike in the city is scary, because I don’t want to deter would-be new riders from giving it a try. There’s only one problem with pretending I’m never afraid: it isn’t true.
Read More
University City, Missouri, is on the verge of a terrible decision: a redevelopment deal that would displace dozens of homes and minority-owned businesses in its unofficial “Chinatown” for big-box retail subsidized through tax-increment financing.
Read More
Cobb County, GA is a classic case of misplaced priorities. What could $400 million for a baseball stadium have achieved had it gone toward investing in citizens’ needs and achieving real wealth?
Read More
Ferguson, Missouri is still relying on so-called “fines and forfeitures” for a significant amount of its revenue.
Read More
An unlikely town has become a hub for cycling and mountain biking — and it’s paying serious dividends for the community.
Read More
In 2015, Utah made major headlines for “solving homelessness.” What does that look like today and can this model be applied elsewhere?
Read More
The continual rise of pedestrian deaths in poor neighborhoods has been a point of indifference in a city plagued by auto-oriented design.
Read More
Michael Brown was stopped by police for walking in the street. A lack of sidewalks makes this the daily reality for many Ferguson residents.
Read More