Jeff Eidson—founder of Explore Elkin—shares story behind the idea Explore Elkin and how listeners can successfully create similar groups in their own cities and towns, including how to find and pitch a shared vision to residents, how to motivate residents stuck in a psychology of decline towards their city or town, and how to use the funds generated towards small bets.
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Your Strong Towns Knowledge Base question of the week, answered here.
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Joanna Jurgens, Head of Business Affairs at Sofar Sounds, shares how you can foster a local music scene in your community, including how to awaken that DIY spirit that’s so essential to kickstarting a local music scene, how to identify low risk strategies for creating a venue, and how to get local elected officials involved in the process.
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Skyler Yost, Ecosystem Builder for the city of York, PA, shares how you can foster entrepreneurship in your community—and create an environment in which entrepreneurs support one another, too.
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Your Strong Towns Knowledge Base question of the week, answered here.
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Ryan Short—CEO of CivicBrand—shares how you can find your community’s true essence, including how to engage with your community to ensure the creation of your brand is a grassroots effort, how to ensure your brand actually aligns with what your community offers, and how finding your community’s true essence makes your city or town stronger.
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Strong Towns’s own Kea Wilson discusses what her time as a bookseller at Left Bank Books in St. Louis taught her about making local businesses a third place, including what building a third place actually looks like, how third places are more economically resilient, and how you can make your local business a third place.
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In this episode of our podcast It’s the Little Things, Jacob chats with Dustin Ratcliff—founding member of Walk2Connect—about how you can connect with your community on foot, including how to motivate your neighbors to form a walking group, how to use your walking group to influence how your city or town is develop, and how connecting with your community on foot makes our cities and towns stronger.
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In this episode of our podcast It’s the Little Things, Jacob chats with Jordan Katcher—Community Development Specialist for the State of Utah, focusing on rural communities—about how government employees can break down silos in rural communities, including how to choose who to get involved in the process, how to understand the needs of rural communities, and most important, how breaking down silos can make rural communities stronger.
In this episode of our podcast It’s the Little Things, Jacob chats with three local leaders in open data—Kyle Taylor, Jesse Hamner, and Habib—share how open data works, including how you can use open data to act on your ideas, how you can encourage your elected officials to adopt open data policies, and how open data can make your city or town stronger.
In this episode of our podcast It’s the Little Things, Jacob chats with Latoya Wilson—founder of the Rebuild Workforce Consultancy—shares how you can invest in the youth in your community, including how to understand the learning landscape for youth, how to create programs that are beneficial for students, and how to make your investments last throughout a student’s time in primary school and beyond.
In this episode of our podcast It’s the Little Things, Jacob chats with Jenna Jarvis—environmental engineer out of St. Louis, Strong Towns member, and winner of our Why I Joined Strong Towns fall member drive contest—about how you can start decide which of our ideas to implement first, including how to start small, how to get your peers involved, and how to keep the momentum going as you plan new actions.
In this episode of our podcast It’s the Little Things, Jacob chats with Caroline Dobbins-Hurteau—staff member at Albion Reinvestment Corporation—about how you can start a successful pop-up shop, including how to pitch the idea to downtown organizations, how to find prospective tenants, and, most important, how to make it an incremental yet lasting success in your city or town.
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Discover how our new platform, the Strong Towns knowledge base, can help you get the answers you need to take action in your city or town.
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In this episode of our podcast It’s the Little Things, Jacob chats with Jordan Deffenbaugh—primary organizer of the Local Conversation Strong Towns Sioux Falls—about how you can spread the Strong Towns message locally, including how to spread the vision among your neighbors, how to give your neighbors a sense of ownership in the process, and, most important, how to get into the nitty-gritty of making your city or town stronger.
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In this episode of our podcast It’s the Little Things, Jacob chats with Strong Towns President Chuck Marohn about how you can get ideas for making your neighborhood stronger, including how both the concerned citizen and the public official can act on ideas, how to share them with your tribe, and how to take the next incremental step in making your neighborhood stronger.
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In this episode of our podcast It’s the Little Things, Jacob chats with Caitlin Bigelow—Founder of Maxable Space—about how you can build an accessory dwelling unit (ADU), including how to check the required zoning, encourage your peer that ADUs are a strong way to build your neighborhood, and discover the benefits beyond passive rental income.
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In this episode of our podcast It’s the Little Things, Jacob chats with Darren Smith—Founder, President, and CEO of Traipse—about how you can boost your historic business district with gamification, including how to gamification can boost tourism, get more traffic for merchants, and make your historic business district the destination it deserves to be.
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In this episode of our podcast It’s the Little Things, Jacob chats with Strong Towns’s own Aubrey Byron about how to start your own bike advocacy group and have an impact on bike policy in your place.
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In this episode of our podcast It’s the Little Things, Jacob chats with Breanna Hawkins, Policy Director at the Los Angeles Food Policy Council, about pioneering healthy food initiatives in Los Angeles’s most food-impoverished neighborhoods.
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