Every time it seems like our housing crisis is going to bring everything crashing down, banks inject a dose of antigravity. How long can it go on?
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A truly local currency—broadly adopted—might just provide proper, rather than distorted, price information to local producers and entrepreneurs.
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Hays, KS carries on the Strong Towns message with this concise, impressive document that communicates the trouble with the current growth pattern and its impact in Hays. We think you'll find it useful.
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Mr. Money Mustache is the individual digital to our community analog. His insights will help you live a better life and, should you choose to be a true Mustachian, put you in position to help your community become a Strong Town.
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The 7 skills a small-scale developer needs. Hint: If you don't have them, you can find someone who does.
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The Governmental Accounting Standards Board now requires cities to disclose, as part of their financial reporting, the amount of money lost to tax subsidies. This is a significant development.
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I don't yearn for another bubble. I know the pain that will eventually come from that. What I want is a world that is real, one with a solid financial foundation that we can use to build strong cities, towns and neighborhoods.
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Resist the impulse to try and smooth over these massive distortions our development pattern has created. Start seeking a way to find equilibrium on your own terms and in the least destructive way possible.
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As our cities go further and further into insolvency, getting cash from fines is going to become more -- not less -- prevalent.
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What would our neighborhoods look like if we voluntarily reduced the amount of infrastructure? This isn’t a purely academic question. As municipal, state, and federal budgets get squeezed there’s going to be a point at which we have no choice but to stop building new roads and even reduce the amount of maintenance on the roads we already have. We could approach this situation with dread and a sense of loss, or we could embrace it as an opportunity to get a better quality of life for a whole lot less money.
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A continued look at a Nassim Nicholas Taleb speech titled Small is Beautiful, but also Less Fragile.
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America’s cities don’t need more growth. What they desperately need is a different development pattern, one that restores the resiliency and financial productivity of the pre-automobile approach to a modern America.
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The concept of investing (other people's) money in order to make money is not one that local governments should be pursuing.
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Our reaction to the pain of economic change explains a large part of how we got to where we are today and, for better or for worse, how we can start to work our way out of this mess.
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