“Choosing screens over people.” It’s a phrase we hear often these days in relation to smartphones and other digital devices. But, as Eric O. Jacobsen describes in his new book, Three Pieces of Glass: Why We Feel Lonely in a World Mediated by Screens , we started choosing screens—or, more precisely, windshields—decades before the smartphone. Prior to the rise of car culture, we could expect to regularly interact with friends, neighbors, and strangers as we made our way through cities developed wi...
Mar 29, 2021•57 min•Ep. 512
The numbers are staggering, saddening, maddening. From 2010-2019, 53,435 people were killed by drivers while walking. That’s up 45% from the previous decade. In 2019, the last year for which we have complete data, 6,237 people were struck and killed...the equivalent of more than 17 per day. The years from 2016-2019 were the four deadliest years in nearly three decades. And early numbers indicate that 2020—a year in which driving was down 13% due to the pandemic—actually saw an increased death ra...
Mar 22, 2021•52 min•Ep. 511
Grace Olmstead grew up in a tiny Idaho farming community her family has called home for generations. But, as so many young people do, Olmstead decided to leave her rural town. She attended college on the other side of the country and now lives outside Washington, D.C., where she’s a journalist who focuses on farming, localism, and family. Olmstead’s writing has been published in The American Conservative , The Washington Post , The Wall Street Journal , and Christianity Today , among many other ...
Mar 15, 2021•1 hr 4 min•Ep. 510
A growing body of research—including research by Raj Chetty’s Equality of Opportunity Project (now called Opportunity Insights )—is making it plain: where a person lives has a huge influence on their ability to build prosperity, climb the economic ladder, and pursue the American Dream. Yet why do some cities and neighborhoods do better at this than others? What lessons can be learned and then translated into local policies and practices elsewhere, so that more Americans have access to economic o...
Mar 08, 2021•59 min•Ep. 509
Strong Towns advocates believe the way to grow stronger and more financially resilient towns and cities—and, by extension, a stronger, more resilient country—is from the bottom up. A bottom-up approach is one that meets the actual needs of residents. It taps into the energy and creativity that already exists in our communities. It is sensitive and responsive to feedback. (“This is working. That isn’t. Let’s hit the gas here, and pump the brakes there.”) It relies on small, incremental investment...
Mar 01, 2021•53 min•Ep. 508
As leaders in Washington, DC look to stimulate the American economy, one course of action with bipartisan support— as per usual —is to pour money into infrastructure. Yet as Strong Towns readers know, infrastructure spending often leads cities down the road of insolvency rather than prosperity , and not all infrastructure spending is alike . In a recent two-part policy brief , Joseph W. Kane and Shalini Vajjhala of The Brookings Institution’s Metropolitan Policy Program wrote that “to truly impr...
Feb 22, 2021•59 min•Ep. 507
Since January 2017, at least once a month (and often more frequently than that), Strong Towns president Chuck Marohn has co-hosted a radio show on 91.7 KAXE, Northern Community Radio , along with his friend Aaron Brown —an author, reporter, and educator—and Heidi Holtan , the station’s News and Public Affairs Director. Since the debut of Dig Deep , topics have varied widely: the 2020 election, Minnesota politics, the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, climate change, rural life, health care...
Feb 15, 2021•22 min•Ep. 506
The ongoing pandemic has raised big questions about the future of North American cities. For example, we’ve heard for almost a year now that COVID-19 will be the end of cities and the triumph of the suburbs. After all, why would people who could work anywhere choose to live in dense, plague-riddled cities? We’ve published our share of responses to this line of thinking—including articles by Joe Cortight of City Observatory , Joe Minicozzi of Urban3 , and others —but the gloomy predictions keep c...
Feb 08, 2021•31 min•Ep. 505
In last week’s episode of the Strong Towns podcast, Chuck Marohn, the founder and president of Strong Towns, talked with the economist Alison Schrager about uncertainty and risk. In this week’s episode, Chuck provides some additional thoughts on risk—and, in particular, the risks towns and cities are taking with their financial futures. Not only are communities making bad bets by going all-in on the Suburban Experiment , they assume the government (state and federal) or the market will be there ...
Feb 01, 2021•1 hr•Ep. 504
Is there a meaningful difference between risk and uncertainty ? On the face of it, we might not think so; in casual usage, we could employ the words interchangeably. But some economists see an important distinction between the two. Early in the American experience of the pandemic, economist Allison Schrager wrote an op-ed for The Wall Street Journal called “Risk, Uncertainty and Coronavirus” (paywall). “The novel coronavirus appears at first to be a problem of risk management,” she wrote. “It is...
Jan 25, 2021•45 min•Ep. 503
Most American transit systems were fragile before the pandemic—struggling for revenue, dependent for survival on federal money, inadequate fares, debt, and, in some cases, donations from local businesses. The pandemic has exacerbated these problems and turned existing transit models on their heads. In late December, Gabrielle Gurley, a deputy editor at The American Prospect , wrote an article about how transit systems have responded to the pandemic. “Most operators have mastered the virus precau...
Jan 18, 2021•55 min•Ep. 502
Last week’s episode of the Strong Towns podcast featured the first half of the conversation between Chuck Marohn, founder and president of Strong Towns, and Matt Yglesias, the bestselling author of One Billion Americans: The Case for Thinking Bigger . Yglesias is the host of The Weeds podcast and cofounder of Vox Media . He recently launched the blog and newsletter Slow Boring . In Part 1, Yglesias made the case for tripling the U.S. population, discussing how it would make America stronger at t...
Jan 11, 2021•37 min•Ep. 501
Does the United States have too few people? It’s a provocative question—but one perhaps not asked often enough. And journalist Matthew Yglesias has an even more provocative answer. In his new bestselling book, One Billion Americans: The Case for Thinking Bigger , Yglesias makes the case for tripling the American population. The U.S. is not “full,” he writes in the book’s introduction. “Many of its iconic cities—including not just famous cases of collapse like Detroit but also Philadelphia and Ch...
Jan 04, 2021•48 min•Ep. 500
In 1986, the Italian journalist Carlo Petrini organized a protest of the opening of a McDonald’s restaurant near the Spanish Steps in Rome. Holding bowls of penne pasta, the protestors chanted, “We don’t want fast food, we want slow food.” By one standard, the protest was unsuccessful: the McDonald’s opened as planned. (It was apparently such a big deal that teenagers “nearly stormed the restaurant, stopping traffic and causing havoc in the streets.”) Yet not all was lost, because out of that de...
Dec 14, 2020•55 min•Ep. 499
It happens all the time: there are certain things entrepreneurs and commercial property owners know they need in their business district to really thrive—a relentless approach to maintenance, a high level of cleanliness, increased public safety, splashes of beauty, physical improvements, etc.—yet their town or city can’t afford to provide them. How to fill those gaps? For an increasing number of places, the answer is to form a business improvement district. Business improvement districts are des...
Dec 07, 2020•48 min•Ep. 498
Back in August, New York City’s Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) warned of a “doomsday” scenario —including fare hikes and service cuts—if the federal government didn’t come through with $12 billion in aid. Writing about the MTA crisis , Strong Towns founder and president Chuck Marohn said that, if he ran the money printing press, the transit agency would get the money. But he also talked about how preposterous it is that it should ever have gotten to this point. New York City has the most v...
Nov 30, 2020•1 hr 2 min•Ep. 497
COVID-19 has been brutal for small businesses. Back in September, data from Yelp showed that nearly 100,000 businesses had closed for good. That was two-and-a-half months ago...and many experts believe the next few months will be even worse for small businesses. A global pandemic was going to be destructive no matter what, but it’s clear now that small businesses were on a weak footing to start with. Why? That’s the topic on this episode of the Strong Towns podcast...and there’s no guest better ...
Nov 23, 2020•45 min•Ep. 496
Our members volunteer more. They vote more. They get involved more. In a world of political polarization and paralyzed governance, they are the credible advocates out there getting things done. I love these people. All of them. This is our Member Week. I know that 2020 has been brutal and that many of you are not in a position to support us. That’s okay -- you get yourself strong, do what you can, and support the people in this movement in the ways you are able. If you are in a position to take ...
Nov 16, 2020•13 min•Ep. 495
In many PCs, the first software to run after hitting the power button is called BIOS (Basic Input-Output System). BIOS loads the computer’s operating system and the individual settings that make your personal computer so... personal . A malfunction at this most basic level leads to a cascade of other problems , including error messages, poor performance, or refusing to boot at all. It’s important to get the foundational things right, and not just in our computers. For too long, says Blake Pagenk...
Nov 09, 2020•50 min•Ep. 494
Every year, Strong Towns founder Chuck Marohn releases a list of the best books he read that year . Past lists have included books that shaped the Strong Towns conversation in profound ways: Chris Arnade’s Dignity (2019), Jonathan Haidt’s The Righteous Mind (2017), Cognitive Architecture , by Ann Sussmann and Justin Hollander (2017), and Tomas Sedlacek’s Economics of Good and Evil (2016), to name just a few. Spoiler alert: 2020’s list will include The Myth of Capitalism , coauthored by Denise He...
Nov 02, 2020•57 min•Ep. 493
What do we call a society that—from Wall Street to Main Street, from Washington, D.C. to your local city council chambers—seems to have been uprooted from facts and time-tested fundamentals, and is being driven instead by whatever stories can be sold as truth? Ben Hunt calls it “Fiat World,” a world declared into existence. A former hedge fund manager, in 2013 Ben Hunt created Epsilon Theory , a newsletter and website that has become essential reading for more than 100,000 professional investors...
Oct 26, 2020•59 min•Ep. 492
Here’s a taste of our newest podcast, The Bottom-Up Revolution , hosted by Rachel Quednau. In this episode, you’ll hear from Alexander Hagler, an entrepreneur and urban gardener based in Milwaukee, WI who founded a store called Center Street Wellness, a space for local makers to sell their handcrafted products focused on mental and physical wellbeing. And you’ll learn about how to support entrepreneurs in your own community—or become one yourself. Find out more about this new podcast and keep up...
Oct 22, 2020•26 min•Ep. 491
What is keeping us from doing the things we need to do right now? Why do we outsource the response to urgent problems to the federal government and other distant entities—responses that may never come, or may come with solutions that don’t actually fit our communities? Consider California governor Gavin Newsom, standing amidst the wreckage of a wildfire in September, saying the United States needs “get our act together on climate change.” The climate crisis, he said, “needs to enliven all of us ...
Oct 19, 2020•50 min•Ep. 490
We'd be deeply grateful for your feedback on this podcast—what sort of episodes you like best, how you access the show, etc. Fill out our survey at strongtowns.org/survey and you can be entered in a drawing to win a free signed copy of Strong Towns: A Bottom-Up Revolution to Rebuild American Prosperity . Thanks!
Jul 30, 2020•2 min•Ep. 489
Two Minnesotans -- Aaron Brown and Chuck Marohn -- are regular commentators on KAXE community radio out of Grand Rapids, Minnesota, and have regular conversations where they dig deep into the issues of the day. The Dig Deep program is hosted by KAXE's Heidi Holton and can be heard on-air as well as by download at KAXE.org .
Jun 16, 2020•1 hr 2 min•Ep. 488
What a new strip mall reveals about the massive disconnect between what's "good" for the macro-economy and what's actually good for a local community. Reminder: The subscription bundle for the Strong Towns Academy is only available through Friday, June 5, 2020. This is your chance to get all nine courses at 83% off the a la carte price. These courses unpack the Strong Towns approach to everything from transportation and housing, to economic development and public engagement, and more. Get more i...
Jun 01, 2020•1 hr 1 min•Ep. 487
On the final day of the member drive, Chuck discusses what success means for the Strong Towns movement. Sign up to become a member at strongtowns.org/membership .
May 22, 2020•26 min•Ep. 486
In this special crossover edition of the Upzoned podcast, we're looking at the "smart cities" movement in general...and the ill-fated Toronto waterfront project in particular. ... A controversial project in Toronto that would have transformed “a slice of Toronto’s waterfront into a high-tech utopia” has been shut down by Sidewalk Labs (a subsidiary of Alphabet) due to "unprecedented economic uncertainty." “At one point,” writes Andrew J. Hawkins in The Verge , “Sidewalk Labs’ plan was to spend $...
May 21, 2020•29 min•Ep. 485
How do you actually implement a Strong Towns approach? The latest ebook from Strong Towns is The Local Leader's Toolkit: A Strong Towns Response to the Pandemic , a free guide for local leaders looking for a recovery plan for their community. This week is the Strong Towns Member Drive. Support the Strong Towns movement by going to www.strongtowns.org/membership ....
May 20, 2020•40 min•Ep. 484
In this special crossover edition of our It's the Little Things podcast, Strong Towns community builder Jacob Moses talks with Karl Fundenberger about his ten years of bike advocacy in Topeka. As a bike advocate in his hometown of Topeka, Kansas, Strong Towns member Karl Fundenberger has long advocated for little bets to boost the bikeability of Topeka. Yet, as bike advocates across North America commonly experience, city officials often considered these investments notable yet unrelated to the ...
May 20, 2020•34 min•Ep. 483
