The Strong Towns Podcast

Today on the Strong Towns Podcast, Chuck Marohn welcomes back Jeff Speck, city planner and author, to talk about a brand-new version of his book, Walkable City: How Downtown Can Save America, One Step at a Time.

It’s the 10th anniversary for the book, and a lot has changed in the U.S. since the original was published. While the content from the first edition is still relevant today, this updated version holds over 100 pages of new information useful to those actively working to make their cities stronger. Listen to Chuck and Speck talk in depth about some of those book additions, including (but not limited to) COVID’s impact on cities, the reckless driver narrative, and a simple truth about street trees.

ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES

• Get the new edition of Walkable City: How Downtown Can Save America, One Step at a Time.

• Jeff Speck (Twitter).

• Charles Marohn (Twitter).

Anyone should be able to speak up and question whether current engineering practices truly benefit our communities. That’s especially true for licensed professionals who have a special duty to the public to be heard. And when they do speak up, their statements should not make them a target for licensing boards. 

Members of the Minnesota board of engineering licensure are supposed to uphold the integrity of their institution, but instead they have abused their power, overstepping their authority in order to slander a leading reformer—someone who was not even practicing engineering—by issuing a state order against Strong Towns founder and president, Charles Marohn. 

We’re fighting to have the board’s decision overturned. In this Strong Towns Podcast, listen to the latest update on the appeal for this case and the oral arguments made in front of the Minnesota Court of Appeals. 

For more information on this case, visit www.strongtowns.org/supportreform.

ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES

• Learn more about our fight for engineering reform.
• Charles Marohn (Twitter).

How far up the chain of command does a problem need to go before someone can make a decision on it? According to the concept of subsidiarity, it matters less what decision is made and more who makes the decision—in other words, a decision should be made at the lowest level that it can competently be made.

Mike Hathorne, principal of community planning and design at Commun1ty.one and Strong Towns member, works with cities to create decision-making processes that can impact how our places function. Today, he joins Chuck Marohn on the Strong Towns Podcast to discuss subsidiarity in a practical sense.

For further listening on this topic, check out the episode “What Customer Service Should Mean for a City,” where Chuck talks about his personal experience with subsidiarity and how it forms in our places.

ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES

• “Subsidiarity,” by Mike Hathorne, Commun1ity.one (August 2018).

• Commun1ty.one’s website.

• Mike Hathorne (Twitter).

• Charles Marohn (Twitter).

Today’s Strong Towns Podcast guest, Ben Hunt, wrote on Epsilon Theory that “Bitcoin has been an authentic expression of identity, a positive identity of autonomy, entrepreneurialism, and resistance to the Nudging State and the Nudging Oligarchy.” 

Today, join Chuck Marohn as he invites Hunt onto the podcast to discuss his insights on Bitcoin, the story of investing, and how it connects to all of us.

ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES

• “In Praise of Bitcoin,” by Ben Hunt, Epsilon Theory (April 2021).

• Read more Epsilon Theory here.

• Ben Hunt (Twitter).

• Charles Marohn (Twitter).

It's been a great year for the Strong Towns Podcast; thanks for listening. We wanted to close out 2022 with one last message, and to wish you Happy Holidays and a Happy New Year!

This week on the Strong Towns Podcast, Chuck Marohn chats with Sam Quinones, author and journalist, about his most recent book: The Least of Us: True Tales of America and Hope in the Time of Fentanyl and Meth. Along with doing a deep dive on particular sections of the book, Quinones tells how we went from city hall reporter to writing books about addiction.

ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES

• Sam Quinones’s website.

• Order your copy of The Least of Us: True Tales of America and Hope in the Time of Fentanyl and Meth.

• Sam Quinones (Twitter).

• Charles Marohn (Twitter).

Our annual Black Friday Parking event is coming up, so get your cameras ready!

Black Friday Parking is a nationwide event drawing attention to the harmful nature of minimum parking requirements. Parking minimums create a barrier for new local businesses and fill up our cities with empty parking spaces that don’t add value to our places. 

Every year on Black Friday, one of the biggest shopping days of the year, people all across North America snap photos of the (hardly full) parking lots in their communities to demonstrate how unnecessary these massive lots are. Participants upload those photos to social media with the hashtag #blackfridayparking. For more information, visit strongtowns.org/blackfridayparking.

A prominent question that keeps coming up since the beginning of the Jackson, Mississippi, water crisis is, “How did we get to this point?” 

If you’ve been tuning in to the Strong Towns Podcast, you’ll know that Chuck has talked about the water crisis in Jackson a couple of times working to answer this question. He’s gone in depth about the financial fragility of our water systems, how they work, and why we even have them. 

After hearing Chuck’s analysis, some Strong Towns members felt there was not enough emphasis on the impact systemic racism has had on the situation. In this podcast, Chuck talks with Amanda Lanata, Strong Towns member and former Jackson resident, on the racial complexities in Jackson and how race is linked to the water crisis. 

ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES

• “The Jackson Water Crisis Is Not a Fluke. Your City Could Be Next,” hosted by Charles Marohn, Strong Towns Podcast (September 2022).

• “Water System Crises and Solutions,” hosted by Charles Marohn, Strong Towns Podcast (November 2022).

• Don’t forget to participate this Friday in Strong Towns’ annual #BlackFridayParking event!

• Charles Marohn (Twitter).

• Cover image source: Unsplash.

The final installment of this week’s special Member Week Strong Towns Podcast features a discussion between Chuck Marohn and Strong Towns’ new director of community action, Edward Erfurt. Longtime listeners may remember Edward as a guest from past episodes, but today he’s here as a full-fledged member of the Strong Towns staff.

We’re excited to share a behind-the-scenes look at the program Edward is overseeing: the Strong Towns Community Action Lab. This 24-month program is the most comprehensive resource Strong Towns offers, putting participating communities on a trajectory toward enduring prosperity.

We’re able to take on new initiatives like the Community Action Lab thanks to the support of our members. If you haven’t joined yet, please consider doing so today. Become a Strong Towns member and know that your contribution is going toward the strengthening of communities all across North America.

Membership is 40% of Strong Towns’ revenue—we couldn’t do this work without you. As the Strong Towns movement has grown, we’ve started to take on larger projects and have looked at ways that we can support those initiatives. Instrumental in orchestrating this has been Grace Whately, the Strong Towns development associate.

One of the larger projects that Grace and the rest of the team have been working on is the launch of the Crash Analysis Studio, which will create an alternative framework for analyzing car crashes. Today, Chuck and Grace go behind the scenes and chat about how this project came about, and the steps that went into making this idea a reality. 

The Crash Analysis Studio and the other projects we’re working on to help advocates push for safer streets and more financially resilient communities are only possible thanks to the support of our members. If you want to be a part of this movement that’s changing the development pattern of North America, then join in and become a Strong Towns member today.