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The Strong Towns Podcast is a weekly conversation on the Strong Towns movement, hosted by Strong Towns Founder and President Charles Marohn and frequently featuring special guests. The podcast explores how we can financially strengthen our cities, towns, and neighborhoods and, in the process, make them better places to live. Join Chuck in examining how everything from urban design to economics to systems theory to psychology helps inform this core question.
Episodes
18 minutes ago
18 minutes ago
Rep. Jake Auchincloss returns to the Strong Towns podcast with a case for localism that takes it seriously without treating it as a cure-all. He explains why localism deserves a bigger role in national politics, not as a slogan, but as a way to rebuild trust and solve problems closer to the ground. That idea gets tested against some of the hardest problems facing cities today: transportation systems that reward expansion over maintenance, a housing market that has lost its entry-level rung, and federal policies that often struggle to match local realities. The conversation closes with a warning about digital life and a defense of face-to-face community.
Additional Show Notes
- Jake Auchincloss (LinkedIn, Substack, Site)
- "Digital Dopamine is Consuming America. It's Time to Fight for IRL.", (Article)
- Chuck Marohn (Substack)
This podcast is made possible by Strong Towns members. Thank you! Join fellow members discussing this episode in The Commons.
7 days ago
7 days ago
Is a city “dynamic” just because its charts point up and to the right? Chuck uses a week in the UK to question that assumption. In Manchester, a swelling population of 20‑somethings looks like success, until you notice how many smaller places have been drained to supply that energy. In one of those towns, residents speak of decline, crime, and the loss of their pub, even as few can name a moment they truly felt unsafe. Across focus groups, government programs, and carefully planned districts, he traces the same pattern and asks: when growth is easy to measure, what deeper dynamism are we missing?
Additional Show Notes
- Chuck Marohn (Substack)
This podcast is made possible by Strong Towns members. Thank you! Join fellow members discussing this episode in The Commons.
Monday Apr 27, 2026
Monday Apr 27, 2026
When planner Patrick Kennedy started asking why prime land near downtown Dallas was filled with parking lots and boarded‑up buildings, the trail led straight to an elevated freeway: I‑345. He explains how making a hard economic case for removal—showing that taking the highway out could deliver the highest return on investment with minimal traffic impacts—grew into the Atlas of Inner City Highway Impacts, a data‑driven look at 142 U.S. cities. Kennedy details how inner‑city highways consume acres of valuable land, depress nearby property values, and either clog up all day in thriving metros or cut through struggling ones at full speed, while federal funding formulas and induced demand keep pushing us toward more lanes.
Additional Show Notes
- Patrick Kennedy (LinkedIn)
- The Human Ecosystem (Site)
- Atlas of Inner-City Highway Impacts (PDF)
- "Adding Up What Urban Highways Really Cost", by Benjamin Schneider (Article)
- Chuck Marohn (Substack)
This podcast is made possible by Strong Towns members. Thank you! Join fellow members discussing this episode in The Commons.
Friday Apr 24, 2026
Friday Apr 24, 2026
Speaking to planners in New Zealand, Chuck Marohn connects the country’s adopted infrastructure plan with a global pattern of cities that have grown themselves into insolvency. He traces the shift from incremental, pre‑Depression neighborhoods to postwar sprawl and explores what it looks like for planners to stop chasing the next expansion and start making better use of what’s already built.
Additional Show Notes
- Te Waihanga (Site)
- Te Waihanga National Infrastructure Plan (Site)
- Chuck Marohn (Substack)
This podcast is made possible by Strong Towns members. Thank you!
Monday Apr 20, 2026
Monday Apr 20, 2026
Good arguments fail when they ignore how people feel. Chuck Marohn and Joshua Bandoch talk through using empathy, ethical persuasion, and values-based stories with everyone from public works directors to concerned residents. Their examples reveal why understanding fears and incentives often matters more than another chart or study.
Additional Show Notes
- Joshua Bandoch (LinkedIn)
- How to Get What You Want (Book)
- How to be more persuasive (Tedx Talk)
- Joshua Bandoch (Site)
- Chuck Marohn (Substack)
This podcast is made possible by Strong Towns members. Thank you!
Monday Apr 13, 2026
Monday Apr 13, 2026
Chuck and Kevin Klinkenberg explore why progress comes from people who stop waiting for permission and start doing things locally. They look at incremental developers, neighborhood groups, and the limits of top-down systems in cities like Kansas City. Along the way, they wrestle with incentives, housing, and how much order a city actually needs.
Additional Show Notes
- Kevin Klinkenberg (LinkedIn)
- The Messy City Podcast (Spotify)
- The Messy City (Substack)
- The Messy City (Site)
- Chuck Marohn (Substack)
This podcast is made possible by Strong Towns members. Thank you!
Monday Apr 06, 2026
Monday Apr 06, 2026
Chuck Marohn and Tony Dutzik unpack the messy history of the gas tax, cross‑subsidies between states, and the moral story drivers were told about “user fees.” They revisit highway revolts, the rise of federal transit funding, and the long slide into Highway Trust Fund bailouts. Their conversation lays out stark choices for the next chapter of national transportation policy.
Additional Show Notes
- Tony Dutzik (LinkedIn)
- Call "Time Out" on Highway Boondoggles (Article)
- Frontier Group (Site)
- What Comes After the Interstate Era? | New Report (Youtube)
- Read the Mission Accomplished White Paper.
- Chuck Marohn (Substack)
This podcast is made possible by Strong Towns members. Thank you!
Friday Apr 03, 2026
Friday Apr 03, 2026
In this moderated panel at the REACH Ideas + Action Summit, Chuck Marohn and California Forever’s Jim Wunderman tackle California’s housing crisis from two very different angles: maturing existing neighborhoods and building a brand‑new city. Together they wrestle with whether local reforms, new towns, or both can deliver real affordability in places like Santa Barbara and beyond.
Additional Show Notes
- California Forever (Site)
- REACH (LinkedIn)
- Jim Wunderman (LinkedIn)
- Jocelyn Brennan (LinkedIn)
- Chuck Marohn (Substack)
This podcast is made possible by Strong Towns members. Thank you!
Monday Mar 30, 2026
Monday Mar 30, 2026
New Zealand’s infrastructure commission added up every sector’s project wish‑list—and found a bill voters could never realistically pay. In this conversation, Geoff Cooper and Chuck Marohn unpack the national plan that starts by centering maintenance and renewals, then shows how that shifts the debate over big new projects, growth on the fringe, and the pressure on public budgets.
Additional Show Notes
- Geoff Cooper (LinkedIn)
- Te Waihanga (Site)
- Te Waihanga National Infrastructure Plan (Site)
- Chuck Marohn (Substack)
This podcast is made possible by Strong Towns members. Thank you!
Monday Mar 23, 2026
Monday Mar 23, 2026
The conversation follows Michel Durand-Wood's path from noticing small local cuts—closed pools, rising taxes—to understanding his city as structurally insolvent. Along the way, he and Chuck talk about grants, debt, Canadian and U.S. examples, and why efficiency alone hasn’t fixed anything.
Additional Show Notes
- Dear Winnipeg (Site)
- You'll Pay For This! (Book)
- Chuck Marohn (Substack)
This podcast is made possible by Strong Towns members. Thank you!