The Strong Towns Podcast

Welcome to our third round of the Strongest Town Competition. We invite you to listen to this interview that Rachel Quednau, Communications Director for Strong Towns, conducted with representatives from a town in our contest, then make sure to listen to their competitors' podcast (Traverse City, MI). Once you've finished listening to the episodes, please visit www.strongtowns.org/strongtesttown to vote for the strongest.  

In this episode, Mayor Jon Costas of Valparaiso, IN discusses his town's collaborative nature, its thriving downtown and the impact of its local university.

See photos of Valparaiso here and read the town's initial entry here.

Welcome to our third round of the Strongest Town Competition. We invite you to listen to this interview that Rachel Quednau, Communications Director for Strong Towns, conducted with representatives from a town in our contest, then make sure to listen to their competitors' podcast (Valparaiso, IN). Once you've finished listening to the episodes, please visit www.strongtowns.org/strongtesttown to vote for the strongest.

In this episode, Rick Brown and Russ Soyring of Traverse City, MI explain why their town's natural beauty, walkable neighborhoods and creative housing solutions make it a strong community. See photos of Traverse City here and read the town's initial entry here.

In a solo podcast, Chuck Marohn continues an ongoing conversation about infrastructure spending. (Listen to the first episode in this conversation, "Is there a crisis?".) Chuck discusses his letter to President Trump and the need to create a new infrastructure funding system, not keep dumping more money into the existing system. The key is giving local leaders the power to choose how that money is spent.

In their weekly update podcast, Chuck and Rachel discuss the final article in Chuck's series about the economic impacts of the Shreveport highway project. They also dish about the current standings in the Strongest Town Contest and reveal how their brackets have fared.

Mentioned in this podcast:

• "The Economics of the I-49 Connector, Part 3" by Chuck Marohn
• Dreamland: The True Tale of America’s Opiate Epidemic by Sam Quinones
• Strongest Town Contest

Rachel and Chuck discuss last week's campaign against an inner-city highway in Shreveport, plus the beginning of the 2017 #StrongestTown Contest.

Mentioned in this podcast:

• Shreveport content from last week
• The Economics of the I-49 Connector: Part I and Part II
• Strong Talk - a video conversation with two Shreveport residents
• Strongest Town Contest (see the entries and vote here)
• Download a Strongest Town bracket 
• The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins
• The Lego Batman Movie

Steve Shultis is a long-time member of Strong Towns, a blogger at RationalUrbanism.com, a resident of inner-city Springfield, MA, and a frequent guest on the Strong Towns podcast. He and Chuck talk about traffic deaths and his interactive graphic Death Race 2016 which compares criminal homicides with traffic deaths. He also discusses media coverage about homicides vs. traffic deaths.

Read Steve's past articles on Strong Towns.

Listen to Steve's previous podcast interviews on urban schooling from 2015 and 2016.

Rachel and Chuck discuss the 2016 Strong Towns Annual Report. They also invite submissions for the Strongest Town Contest (deadline is Friday, Feb. 17).

Mentioned in this podcast:

• 2016 Strong Towns Annual Report
• Strongest Town Contest
• Pre-Suasion: A Revolutionary Way to Influence and Persuade by Robert Cialdini
• The Content Trap by Bharat Anand
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Josef Bray-Ali is a Los Angeles resident, bike shop owner, long-time Strong Towns member and current candidate for city council. In this interview with Chuck Marohn, he discusses his experience as a small business owner and a community organizer for safe streets. He also talks about what motivated him to run for city council and the ways he's implemented Strong Towns ideas in his city.

Joe Bray-Ali's writing and videos on our site:

• "A Strong Citizen in Los Angeles"
• "Making my City More Bike-Friendly for $0"
• "Why One Strong Towns Member Chose to Run for City Council"

Chuck and Rachel discuss the recent Strong Towns Staff & Board Meeting in Chicago, which included lots of planning and assessment, plus some authentic Chicago-style deep-dish pizza. They also discuss Jonathan Haidt's work on moral foundations and a technique to clean up a toxic Facebook feed.

MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE

• "Our Contentious Culture"
• Drop Dead Gorgeous (1999 movie)
• We Eat Our Own by Kea Wilson
• This week's slackchat is hosted by Kea Wilson and it'll be at 1pm CT on Thursday.

Our nation has an infrastructure funding crisis.....or do we?

Related Posts:

• What clearly makes us richer
• The real reason your city has no money
• Poor neighborhoods make the best investments
• Gladwell's question to Thaler (YouTube)