How do you get more people to ride bicycles? This is a question that plagues every cycling enthusiast, advocate and industry member. Bob Giordano of Missoula, Montana, has a simple answer: Give them a bike.
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Habitat for Humanity offers a wide range of programs to help people become homeowners, giving the organization a unique perspective on the housing crisis. Strong Towns sat down with two representatives to learn about this perspective, including how Habitat is handling high building costs and why Habitat owners participate in the construction of their homes.
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When COVID-19 put her career on pause, opera singer Ally Smither found a new passion: fighting highway expansion.
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Trying to decide on your next smallest step? Chances are, your city already has systems in place to address infrastructure concerns. Strong Towns member Danny Williams demonstrates how you can use those systems to produce positive change.
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Economic productivity, cost-effectiveness and safety: stroads fail at all three. Advocates in Port Huron, Michigan, are working to make their city recognize that, so they can turn the dangerous Huron Avenue into a thriving community center.
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At 75, she didn’t think she’d spend her time fighting freeways, but that’s exactly where Susan Graham finds herself. Founder of Stop TxDOT I-45, Graham has been fighting highway expansion in Houston for almost five years — and she’s nowhere near done. (Get to know Graham before she brings her knowledge to the national stage at the Strong Towns National Gathering, May 14-15!)
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Like many U.S. towns, Maumee, OH, has a state highway that cuts through their Uptown. For decades, it’s been known as a dangerous road…but no longer: the city is taking back its streets and making them places for people, not cars.
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In 2015, Edmonton, a city of 1 million situated in the Canadian Prairies of Alberta, was the first city in the country to adopt Vision Zero—and they’ve taken that adoption seriously.
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Local activists in Selma, NC, started small, but they’ve grown into a coalition of citizens, civic groups, and city leaders striving to improve housing, transportation, and the local economy.
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In Capitola, California, residents erupted in protest after Debra Towne, a beloved local senior, was hit and killed walking across a dangerous stroad. And unlike in so many other places, the city actually responded.
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When Chattanooga’s Local Conversation learned of a crash that took the lives of a mother and child and severely injured the father, the group channeled their mourning into mobilization.
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Who would go cycling in snowy conditions, in a city with a 764-foot-high hill right in the middle of it? Montrealers, and the city’s bikeshare program has the stats to prove it.
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Monte Anderson is a local developer who sees it as his mission to revive his community—not only through neighboring relationships, but also by saving the abandoned and broken spaces.
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Hoboken, NJ, has gained fame online for its safe streets. But does this urbanist’s paradise live up to the hype, in person? We sent Strong Towns Staff Writer Asia Mieleszko to do some on-the-ground investigating to find out.
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This Local Conversation group wanted to make their local government more aware of their city’s cycling infrastructure...and what better way to do so than by inviting the city council on a bike ride?
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Downtowns are the symbolic heart and soul of a city, and the economic center, writes Emma Durand-Wood. To build a resilient one, you need diversity in housing, jobs, shops, services, and more.
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A collection of historic photos helped this advocate show how urban renewal marred his hometown, and left an inhospitable mess in its wake.
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Immokalee, FL, sits 30 miles from glitzy Naples, yet it’s one of the most rent-burdened places in the state. Local nonprofits are teaming up to change that by planning a new community for Immokalee’s agricultural workers.
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The rhetoric around housing can get pretty heated, so here’s how one advocacy group in Winnipeg, MB, decided to show a little love and positivity to the residents of some new infill housing.
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Like so many other places, the city of Kalamazoo, MI, has been facing a cascade of housing challenges. Here’s how they’re tackling them using pre-approved housing plans.
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