The Strong Towns Podcast

The Messy City is a podcast that discusses urban planning and design issues. Its host, Kevin Klinkenberg, recently invited Strong Towns President Chuck Marohn to appear on an episode. It was a great conversation, so we’re sharing that audio with you here on the Strong Towns Podcast, too. Up for discussion today: takeaways from “ Escaping the Housing Trap: The Strong Towns Response to the Housing C...

The Strong Towns approach to housing has some obvious tensions with NIMBYism, but what about YIMBYism? That’s the topic for discussion on the table for today’s episode of the Strong Towns Podcast, because while our approach has more in common with the YIMBY (“Yes in My Backyard”) crowd than differences, there are some nuances that are worth addressing. And if you want to take a serious deep dive i...

This week on the Strong Towns Podcast, host Chuck Marohn is joined by Alex Alsup of Regrid , an organization that, among other things, has put together the only 100% complete national parcel map for the United States . Alsup chats with us about this 10-year project and some of the data and analyses Regrid has gotten out of it—including what percentage of property in any given jurisdiction is local...

As the U.S. enters another election year—one that is certain to be contentious—we know that many Americans are going to be engrossed in the conversation about national politics. And many of our readers want to know where Strong Towns stands on the issue. In this week’s episode of the Strong Towns Podcast, host Chuck Marohn responds to this question, and promises one thing above all else: we will r...

Bike Talk is a radio show dedicated to the idea that we need to prioritize bikes as a form of public transportation, and they recently invited Chuck to appear on an episode. It was a great conversation, and so we’re sharing that audio with you today here, as well. They discuss why it’s important to have empathy in discussions about transportation and street safety, and why leading with empathy tow...

Benjamin Herold, author of Disillusioned: Five Families and the Unraveling of America’s Suburbs , joins host Chuck Marohn on this week’s episode of the Strong Towns Podcast. Disillusioned tells the story of five families from Chicago, Atlanta, Dallas, Los Angeles, and Pittsburg, all of whom moved to the suburbs in search of the American dream…but instead, they’re experiencing the decline of the su...

What’s the role of philanthropy when it comes to building strong towns? How do we get philanthropy involved, and how do we make good investments? How do we access federal programs and bigger resources effectively? This is a tension within our conversation, and to help us unpack it, we invited two experts who are well-aligned with these issues onto the podcast: Kelly Jin, the Vice President for Com...

Journalist and author Sam Quinones returns to the Strong Towns Podcast for the third time to discuss a recent, moving article he’s written for The Free Press: “ Opioids Decimated a Kentucky Town. Recovering Addicts Are Saving It .” It’s the story of Hazard, a small town that was hit hard by the decline of coal mining and the rise of the opioid epidemic—and yet its residents aren’t letting their to...

This week’s episode of the Strong Towns Podcast is all about parking reform, and here to talk with host Chuck Marohn on the matter are Tony Jordan and Chris Meyer. Jordan is the president of the Parking Reform Network , a bottom-up nonprofit that’s working to educate the public about the impact of parking policy on climate change, equity, housing, and traffic. Meyer is the legislative assistant to...

On this week’s episode, host Chuck Marohn talks with Eric Goldwyn, a leading urban scholar and program director at the Marron Institute of Urban Management, as well as a Clinical Assistant Professor in the Transportation and Land-Use program at the NYU Marron Institute. He is known for his pioneering research on urban issues, fostering collaboration to improve city living, and he’s here to talk wi...

One of the most egregious highway expansion projects we’ve encountered is the I-35 project in Austin, Texas. A lot of good people have been fighting it for a long time, and on this week’s episode of the Strong Towns Podcast, host Chuck Marohn will be talking with two of them: Adam Greenfield and Bobby Levinski. They’re both part of the grassroots movement Rethink35 , which is working with other lo...

On this week’s episode, Chuck talks with Dr. Shima Hamidi of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, who, in November 2023, wrote about the study when it first came out, and we’re excited to now have Dr. Hamidi on the podcast to tell us about her work, in her own words. ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES Read the study: “ A National Investigation on the Impacts of Lane Width on Traffic Safety .” C...

On this week’s episode, Chuck Marohn talks about a trip he made to the Minnesota state capitol, where he was invited to take part in a press conference in which a bill was launched. Strong Towns is a bottom-up, member-based movement , and so getting involved in legislative action is not normally something that would be on Chuck’s docket. So, why make an exception this time? Simple: because this is...

At Strong Towns, we try to avoid using the word “sprawl” as a shorthand term in our content—and we’d even go so far as to say that sprawl isn’t the problem we’re trying to solve in our communities. All that said, are there any instances where sprawl is actually good? Hear Strong Towns President Chuck Marohn discuss this with Joe Minicozzi, principal of Urban3 . ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES “ Sprawl Is No...

Alright, it’s not exactly “live,” but while visiting Austin, Chuck Marohn couldn’t resist stopping by a Buc-ee’s to marvel at this Texas-sized gas station. It’s emblematic of the overbuilt, spread-out, auto-oriented infrastructure plaguing states like Texas and so many others—but even in Buc-ee’s massive parking lot, there is hope to be found, in the form of comments from Strong Towns members. The...

On this special Member Week episode of the Strong Towns Podcast, Chuck Marohn reflects how, despite being sick, his spirits were bolstered this week by the efforts of advocates he’s observed doing amazing work in their cities and towns. We get to support these local heroes through programs like Local Conversations and the Community Action Lab—and your donations are what support us so that we can c...

Different people are sensitive to different things around them, and this Member Week , we’re asking you to challenge yourself to become a little more sensitive to the things that are happening in your community. What do you see when you look around you? Crumbling infrastructure? Poor urban design? Dangerously designed streets? Insurmountable municipal debt? You can see what’s happening. Now it’s t...

On this episode of the Strong Towns Podcast, host Chuck Marohn talks with friend, author, and expert on fragile states, Seth Kaplan. His new book, Fragile Neighborhoods , offers a bold new vision for addressing social decline in America, one zip code at a time. It discusses the importance of revitalizing our local institutions and introduces the reader to some of the people and organizations who a...

On this episode of the Strong Towns Podcast, host Chuck Marohn chats with Conor Semler, an associate planner with Kittelson and Associates. Semler was involved in the development of both the National Association of City Transportation Officials’s Urban Bikeway Design Guide and the Federal Highway Administration’s Separated Bike Lane Planning and Design Guide . He's also played a role in putting to...

Strong Towns founder and president, Charles Marohn, was invited to the Lit with Charles podcast to discuss Jane Jacobs’ seminal work, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, and the impact it has had on urban planning and the building of cities. If you love Jane Jacobs or want to learn more about her views and how Strong Towns advocates are working to make them a reality, you will want to exp...

On this episode of the Strong Towns Podcast, host Chuck Marohn talks about his concerns with speed cameras. Plenty of people dislike speed cameras as surveillance devices and, conversely, many urbanists support the use of speed cameras as a tool to make streets safer . Chuck’s line of thinking falls into neither of these camps, and so today, he shares some of the top arguments in favor of speed ca...

In light of the recent wildfires in Maui (and other parts of Hawaii), this week’s Strong Towns Podcast episode features a conversation with Steve Mouzon, author of The Original Green and member of the Strong Towns Advisory Board. Mouzon’s work with recovery efforts after disasters in Haiti and Jamaica—as well as his observations of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans—has offered him valuable insight...

After World War II, the U.S. embarked on an experiment in how we build cities . Instead of creating places scaled to people who walked, we built suburbs that focused on moving cars quickly and efficiently. Many cities in North America are looking to become walkable again, but it’s not easy. Time and time again, change makers are hit by bureaucracy and complicated logistics.  Why is it so difficult...

Recently, an article came out of Medicine Hat , Alberta, reflecting on some development conversations happening within the city, inspired by Strong Towns presentations. When Chuck Marohn read the article, he felt core insights were missing or misunderstood within the piece. On this episode of the Strong Towns Podcast, Chuck discusses the challenges faced by local journalists and the impact it has...

Change is not always easy, and without examples, it can be difficult to reimagine how we do things. That’s just one of the reasons Strong Towns decided to launch the Community Action Lab : a carefully customized, two-year relationship between Strong Towns and selected cities seeking to make a change. Four cities are currently leading the way through this program in applying Strong Towns concepts a...