Rafa Wright—Detroit native, community leader, and soon-to-be owner of a new, Detroit-based neighborhood grocery—shares how you can make neighborhood-led investments in your community, including how to observe where people struggle, how to find the right investments for your neighborhood, and how to get your neighbors involved in the process.
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Micro-neighborliness (n.): the small, patient, and practical ways that we pivot toward our localities and the people that we share them with. While we do not always hear these stories, the tangible effect that these small acts can have on our places is reason enough to celebrate them.
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Ed Morrison—author of Strategic Doing: Ten Skills for Agile Leadership—shares how city leaders can grow their economies by fostering collaboration on a local level, including how to find existing assets in your community, how to encourage existing organizations to focus on a shared goal, and how to incrementally pursue that goal.
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Paul Fast—Principal Architect at HCMA, a Canadian architecture and design firm—discusses its More Awesome Now project and how you can revive neglected alleyways in your own neighborhood, including how to assess the needs of the neighborhood, how to measure the success of the project, and how to consider all members of the community in its design.
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Morgan Leichter-Saxby—co-founder at Pop-Up Adventure Play—shares how you can create low cost, low risk places to play in your neighborhood, including how to pitch the idea to your neighbors, how to commit to an incremental approach, and how Pop-Up Adventure Play can help throughout the process.
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Alix Taylor—Manager of Water Programs at Green Communities Canada—shares how to depave neglected concrete in your own neighborhood, including how to get your neighbors involved in the process, how to pitch the idea to city leaders, and how to find sites in your neighborhood optimal for depaving.
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John Reuter—board member at Strong Towns and former councilperson at the City of Sandpoint, Idaho—shares his insights in how you can propose eliminating parking minimums in your town—including how to tell a compelling story, how to find data that enhances that story, and how to build community support around removing parking minimums.
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Jacqueline Hannah—assistant director at the Food Co-op Initiative—shares how you can start a neighborhood grocery co-op in your town, including how to pitch the vision to community members and elected officials, how to translate your enthusiasm into action, and how the Food Co-op initiative can help through every step of the process.
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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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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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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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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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