$20 Million Broke This Street. $2 Million Can Begin To Fix It.

To build a Strong Town is to develop governing habits and shared cultural understandings that result in a long run of small wins that may be individually imperceptible but cumulatively result in broad and meaningful change. Today, I want to share one of those small wins with you.

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The Bottom-Up Revolution Is…Improving Downtown Success by Building Experiences

Jaime Izurieta is an architect, designer and author who focuses on the interaction between users and the built environment. He joins host Tiffany Owens Reed to discuss the importance of designing experiences and how local leaders can make their downtowns more successful.

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What Does Your Next #BlackFridayParking Look Like?

Each Black Friday, we invite people to participate in the Strong Towns movement by sharing pictures of parking in their communities that is excessive or underused — even on the busiest shopping day of the year. But with parking reform gaining momentum across North America, what comes after #BlackFridayParking?

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Transparent Local Language: Why City Officials Need To Ditch the Jargon

Local governments often use terms that downplay, minimize or obscure the severity of a situation. While this isn’t a malicious or even conscious decision, using language that is inaccurate or that the general population doesn’t understand makes it very difficult to build a strong town.

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Why Do Cities Have Liability Protection? (Hint: It’s Not To Protect Them.)

Liability caps mean that a city can’t be forced to pay victims of traffic crashes above a certain amount, even in cases of gross negligence. This may seem unjust, but this kind of protection can encourage city officials and employees to be proactive in addressing past mistakes and making streets safer. Here’s how.

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Right Place, Right Time: How Advocates in Omaha are Making Streets Safer

Here’s how advocates in Omaha, Nebraska, got their Department of Public Works to complete a quick-build street safety project so fast that “it felt like waving a magic wand.” (Hint: Find out if your community has a business improvement district, stat.)

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How One Professor is Inspiring the Next Generation of Transportation Engineers

"Be the change you want to see in the world." It’s a slogan many aspire to live by, including Professor Gingrich of Dordt University in Iowa. He’s doing just that this year, bringing his students to the forefront of the evolving traffic engineering field by training them in crash analysis and safe street design.

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