The Strong Towns Podcast

Chris Brown is the city engineer for Fayetteville, AR and has been involved in spearheading a tactical urbanism program for the city. In this podcast interview, he talks about the life of a city engineer, his community's desire for safer streets, and how that led the city to start this new program. He also talks about the challenges of such an initiative and how to overcome them.

Read more about tactical urbanism in Fayetteville and download a free guide to implementing a tactical urbanism project here.

Chuck Marohn interviews Chris Arnade, who writes for the Guardian, has a PhD in particle physics from Johns Hopkins and previously worked as a bond trader in New York City. Arnade has spent the last several years documenting addiction and poverty in towns across America. 

In this interview, he discusses why walking in neighborhoods that he was told not to visit in New York led him away from trading and toward his current role as a writer. He talks about a life getting to know people on the margins of society—people living in poverty and dealing with addiction—and the struggles of small towns in America.

You can find Chris Arnade writing and sharing photos often on Medium.

In this short bonus podcast, Chuck interviews Kevin Shepherd, a Strong Towns sponsor and principal at VERDUNITY about the new group he has formed with others in the planning and development sphere called Cultivate Collaborative which will help to apply Strong Towns concepts on a practical level. Kevin also discusses the group's first event in Frisco, TX on November 4 featuring Chuck Marohn and Monte Anderson.

Learn more about the event and sign up.

Caress Givens is the Community Engagement Coordinator for Milwaukee, Wisconsin's bike share program, Bublr. In this interview hosted by Rachel Quednau, Givens discusses equity issues related to bike share: How can bike share programs best meet the needs of low-income people and reach low-income neighborhoods? Is bike share an indicator of gentrification? Givens also talks about how to fund bike share programs, as well as how to get kids involved with bike share. Plus, Givens shares her list of favorite bike share programs across the nation.

Chuck Marohn interviews Scott Beyer, urban affairs journalist and owner of Market Urbanism Report, who is currently traveling the country on a three-year trip visiting 30 different American cities. Chuck and Scott discuss their overlapping and diverging viewpoints on government regulations, zoning and housing affordability issues. They also compare issues in large cities with smaller towns and consider whether the same policies can apply in both sorts of places.

Chuck Marohn shares the highlights from his recent family vacation to Washington DC including visits to the Library of Congress, the US Capitol, and several national monuments. He also discusses an upcoming Strong Towns event in Tulsa, OK and his recent article, "A Spirit of Generosity." Rachel talks about a new favorite podcast, Left, Right & Center.

Mentioned in this podcast:

• Event in Tulsa, OK
• "A Spirit of Generosity" by Charles Marohn
• Left, Right & Center

In this podcast, Rachel Quednau interviews Alfonso Morales, a Professor of Urban and Regional Planning at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, about public markets as part of Strong Towns' ongoing focus on local food.

They compare markets in the United States with markets around the world, discuss current factors impacting the growth of markets and talk about ways to use data to analyze the success of farmers markets, including a new tool Morales helped to create.

Mentioned in this podcast:

• MIFI Markets
• Dane County Farmers Market
• Milwaukee Public Market
• Cities of Farmers by Alfonso Morales and Julie C. Dawson

Chuck Marohn is on vacation this week, but before he left, he sat down to record a solo podcast about his new life in downtown Brainerd in response to the frequent question he gets, "How's the new neighborhood?"

We'll be back with our usual Week Ahead podcast next Monday.