The Strong Towns Podcast

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,...

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...

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 wor...

As a part of our special Member Week series, Chuck Marohn and Strong Towns Community Builder John Pattison talk about the Local Conversations program. They discuss how the first Local Conversations came to be, what’s changed, and how the Strong Towns organization is coming alongside these groups in new ways. With so many Local Conversations spread out around North America, the Strong Towns movemen...

On today's special Member Week episode, Chuck talks with Strong Towns Communications Associate Lauren Fisher about Strong Towns’ approach to communication. They chat about the big ideas we’re working toward and how to squish them down into little emails and tweets. And how difficult it is to do that amidst a big, loud, national political power struggle. After listening, consider  becoming a member...

Welcome to Member Week , where we’re celebrating our members and all that they do to support this movement. This week, the Strong Towns podcast will be a little different. Tune in every day to listen as Chuck Marohn talks with Strong Towns staff about this movement and what our members are doing to make their places stronger. In today’s episode, Chuck talks about the new Strong Towns strategic pla...

In a September episode of the Strong Towns Podcast, Chuck talked about the water crisis in Jackson, Mississippi . He spoke on the technicalities of American water systems, what failed in Jackson, and how Jackson ended up in a crisis .  Now, in this week’s episode, Chuck dives a little deeper into water systems and why we even have them (hint: it’s not just about safe drinking water). He takes list...

We began building the Interstate Highway System in the 1950s, and we completed the majority of it by the end of the 1960s. The goal of creating this massive transportation system was to connect far away places— and it’s met that purpose. Yet, even though the job is done, we continue to build and invest in the interstate highway system, despite that highway investments are a waste of resources and...

Sometimes, our local governments can get caught up in an ineffective mindset while managing cities, where they take on the role of a customer service representative. While it comes from a place of wanting to be helpful, it’s not always the best approach our cities should be taking. In this episode of the Strong Towns Podcast , host Chuck Marohn discusses subsidiarity versus the customer service mi...

This September, Strong Towns President Chuck Marohn was invited to speak at the Hawaii Congress of Planning Officials Conference on the Island of Kauai.  While he was there, Chuck went on a walking tour and witnessed the results of the post-WWII rise of suburban development . While he loved his visit to the island and feels incredibly grateful to the wonderful hospitality of the people there, he c...

What’s happened with Jackson’s water crisis is an absolute tragedy. In late August, a state of emergency was issued after there was no clean running water in the city. Residents who could get water reported that they’d turn on the tap and be met with a brown consistency, and the city instructed people to boil it before any sort of usage.  For seven weeks Jackson’s residents had to bear the brunt o...

Jason Slaughter, producer of the YouTube channel Not Just Bikes , is a pretty cool and talented guy. He’s created multiple excellent videos on Strong Towns ideas, taking our written words and translating them through his own voice into visual representations. A lot of our dedicated members have discovered us through Not Just Bikes’ compelling videos.  In this episode, Chuck welcomes Jason back ont...

Fair property tax systems are crucial to developing a financially strong community, as property taxes represent a large source of public revenue for most local governments. In today’s episode of the Strong Towns Podcast, Chuck Marohn talks with Joe Minicozzi from Urban3 about Buncombe County and the property tax inequities within Western North Carolina that are currently being investigated by the...

Thanks to technology, cars and roads just keep getting safer, right? That’s the message we hear in the news and advertising on a regular basis. But if that were the case, traffic fatalities should be going down as technology progresses. And they’re not . What’s more, according to these standard beliefs subscribed to by much of the public, when driving dramatically decreased during the early months...

Every hour, four people are killed in a car crash. Over a year, this totals up to about 40,000 people .  “It’s an astounding number,” says Strong Towns President Chuck Marohn.  In this episode of the Strong Towns Podcast, Chuck talks about his experience serving for nine years in the National Guard. He covers some sensitive topics, relaying what he’s learned from how people respond to military dea...

In today's episode, Chuck Marohn gives an update on where Strong Towns is at in its ongoing lawsuit against the Minnesota Board of Architecture, Engineering, Land Surveying, Landscape Architecture, Geoscience and Interior Design (AELSLAGID).

Success: however you define it, it’s what many of us strive for. Whether it’s success in one’s career, school, family life, or other dreams, no one wants to experience a perceived failure in life.  In the minds of many throughout America, the indicator of success is the action of leaving your neighborhood —for good. A stigma exists in many places that, if you truly have talent and are to accomplis...

Professional city planner and longtime Strong Towns contributor Nolan Gray comes to The Strong Towns Podcast today to talk about his new book, Arbitrary Lines: How Zoning Broke the American City and How to Fix It . As you may have already gathered from the title, this is a book all about the flawed nature of zoning , and why reforming our zoning codes is such a key part of building stronger, more...

Building community wealth is difficult. There’s a lot of hard work involved, there are tough calls, there is risk. In even the best of circumstances, there’s always a chance your investment (in dollars, time, and energy) won’t work out. But often it does. Ultimately, this is how cities grow, how wealth is accumulated, how communities prosper, and how the chance to pursue a good life is made availa...

A house is many things. It is shelter, a place to live. It is an investment, a store of wealth. It can be a repository of memories and it can be a dream for the future. “The American Dream,” as a home is sometimes called, is part of our national identity, a narrative many Americans like to tell themselves about what it means to lead a good life. Yet can a house really be all of these things? Moreo...

Who do we prepare local budgets for, the citizens of a community or distant Wall Street bond investors? Is it more important that an elected council member know what is going on with a city’s finances, or should our local accounting practices be more responsive to the needs of analysts at ratings agencies? We all expect cities to put together budgets and maintain financial reports so citizens can...

When we build a highway, we know we have to maintain it . The same applies to a bridge. Every highway or bridge that has ever been built comes with a predictable and easily calculable schedule for maintenance. This isn’t difficult math . So, why do we struggle to maintain our roads and bridges? Why do we continue to suffer with enormous backlogs of basic infrastructure maintenance? Why do we have...

A street is not merely a place for cars. In fact, the primary purpose of a street has nothing to do with motor vehicles at all. A street is, and always has been, a platform for growing community wealth and capacity, the framework for building prosperous human habitat. This member week, we are sharing insights into our new strategic plan , including our five priority campaigns. The goal of the Safe...

America Walks is a nationally recognized non-profit organization that aims to create a more walkable America by giving people resources to effectively advocate for change. Join Strong Towns President Chuck Marohn in a conversation with Mike McGinn—executive director at America Walks and once mayor of Seattle—where they talk about the things that make America less walkable and what we can do about...

People have taken the Strong Towns approach in a lot of fascinating directions, but this might be one of the most fascinating yet: William Chernoff is a young, Vancouver-based musician who has written songs inspired by Strong Towns. During the pandemic, Chernoff also started writing about music , building strong towns , and more. In this conversation, Marohn (a musician himself) and Chernoff discu...