The Strong Towns Podcast

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 remain dedicated to our mission, no matter what. ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES Strong Towns is a bottom-up movement for change across North America. Join today! Chuck Marohn (Twitter/X).

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 toward drivers is a good strategy. ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES Listen to the original episode on Bike Talk. Bike Talk (Twitter/X; Instagram; Reddit). Chuck Marohn (Twitter/X).

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 suburbs, rather than the benefits that were initially sold to them. ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES Check out Disillusioned: Five Families and the Unraveling of America’s Suburbs. Benjamin Herold (Twitter/X). Chuck Marohn (Twitter/X).

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 Community and National Initiatives at the Knight Foundation (where she leads a $150 million active grant portfolio, and $30 million in annual grant-making), and Stephen Goldsmith, the Derek Bok Professor of the Practice of Urban Policy and the Director of the Data-Smart City Solutions program at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. Goldsmith also directs the Project on Municipal Innovation, the Civic Analytics Network, and the Mayoral Leadership in Education Network. ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES Kelly Jin (LinkedIn). Stephen Goldsmith (Twitter/X). Chuck Marohn (Twitter/X).

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 town go down without a fight. ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES “Opioids Decimated a Kentucky Town. Recovering Addicts Are Saving It,” by Sam Quinones, The Free Press (February 2024). Sam Quinones (Twitter/X). Sam Quinones (website). Chuck Marohn (Twitter/X).

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 Senator Omar Fateh, who was crucial in introducing a bill—the first of its kind in the nation—to eliminate parking mandates statewide in Minnesota. ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES Parking Reform Network (website). Chris Meyer (Twitter/X). Tony Jordan (LinkedIn). Chuck Marohn (Twitter/X).

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 with us today about the importance of transit for the future of cities, as well as the importance of local government (and the fact that local government is more than just an appendage of state and federal government). ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES “Slow Boring x Transit Costs Project Event,” by Kate Crawford, Slow Boring (March 2023). Transit Costs (website). Eric Goldwyn (Twitter/X). Chuck Marohn (Twitter/X).

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 local organizations to file a lawsuit against the Texas Department of Transportation over their plans to expand I-35. ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES Learn more about Rethink35’s work on their website. Chuck Marohn (Twitter/X).

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.” Check out the study’s homepage. Shima Hamidi (Twitter/X). Chuck Marohn (Twitter/X).

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 a bill that states that no city in Minnesota shall mandate parking requirements. ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES Watch the full press conference here. Chuck Marohn (Twitter/X). Cover image source: Wikimedia Commons/SimonP.

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 Not the Problem,” by Chuck Marohn, Strong Towns (April 2016). Urban3 (website). Joe Minicozzi (Twitter/X). Chuck Marohn (Twitter/X).

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. These are the people who have taken the first step toward fighting a hundred years of bad city development. Will you join them by becoming a member today?

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 continue making these programs happen. So, will you help us in making all of this possible by becoming a Strong Towns member today?

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 time to do something about it. Start by joining this movement of bottom-up action to change the trajectory of our cities and towns: become a Strong Towns member today.

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 are doing just that—along with practical lessons for those who want to do similar work. ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES Get your copy of Fragile Neighborhoods: Repairing American Society, One Zip Code at a Time. Chuck Marohn (Twitter). Seth Kaplan (website). Learn more about the 2023 Local-Motive Tour.

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 together a decision-making framework that changes the way engineers, planners, and other transportation professionals approach street design. Tune in to hear him talk about this innovative approach to transportation planning, and more! ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES “Parking or Pedaling? New Tool Helps Communities Weigh Tradeoffs on Their Streets,” by Kittelson & Associates. Chuck Marohn (Twitter). Learn more about the 2023 Local-Motive Tour.

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 explore this conversation. We have provided a full transcript to go along with the audio version, which we share here with the permission of the Lit with Charles podcast.

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 cameras, and discusses why they don't hold up—and why speed cameras should not be seen as part of the solution for improving our streets. ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES Chuck Marohn (Twitter). Learn more about the 2023 Local-Motive Tour. Cover image source: Wikimedia Commons/Dmitry G.

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 on what it takes for a community to recover from large-scale destruction. He talks with podcast host Chuck Marohn about his experiences and the lessons we can take away about what types of responses do and don’t work—lessons that could be helpful in rebuilding Maui. ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES Steve Mouzon (Twitter). Original Green (website). Chuck Marohn (Twitter). Learn more about the 2023 Local-Motive Tour.

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 to change? In “Urban Intercurrence: The Struggle to Build Walkable Downtowns in Car-Dependent Suburbia,” author Tristan Cleveland goes in depth about why cities struggle to retrofit their car dependence, and what could actually be done to create change. In this Strong Towns Podcast, host Chuck Marohn chats with Tristan Cleveland, PhD, who is a Strong Towns member and an urban planner at Happy Cities.  ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES Tristan Cleveland (Twitter). Read Tristan’s PhD thesis on how to redesign suburban communities to become healthy, walkable places. Chuck Marohn (Twitter). Learn more about the 2023 Local-Mot