The Strong Towns Podcast

Latest Episodes:

Megan Kimble: The Toll Urban Highways Take and the People Fighting Back May 20, 2024

Show notes

Megan Kimble is an Austin-based journalist and author who’s spent the last four years writing about urban highways and highway expansion in Texas. Today, she’s joining us to discuss her new book “City Limits: Infrastructure, Inequality, and the Future of America's Highways,” where she explores three highway projects in Austin, Dallas and Houston, and the different groups fighting to stop them.

ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES

How to Escape Housing (and Baseball Stadium) Traps, Plus a Little Disney Urbanism. May 13, 2024

Show notes

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 Crisis,” the logistics of building new sports stadiums, and how Disney World simultaneously embodies and contradicts Strong Towns’ principles.

ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES

The Strong Towns Tension With YIMBYism Apr 22, 2024

Show notes

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 into the Strong Towns approach to housing, then you’ll be glad to know that Escaping the Housing Trap: The Strong Towns Response to the Housing Crisis is going to be released tomorrow—so order your copy now!

ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES

Alex Alsup: How Much of the U.S.'s Housing Stock Is Locally Owned? Apr 15, 2024

Show notes

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 locally owned, and the implications of these numbers.

ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES

Where Strong Towns Stands As We Enter Another Election Year Apr 08, 2024

Show notes

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

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Chuck Marohn (Twitter/X).

Why We Need To Show Empathy Toward Drivers in Conversations About Street Safety Mar 25, 2024

Show notes

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: The Unraveling of America’s Suburbs Mar 18, 2024

Show notes

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

What Is the Role of Philanthropy in Building Stronger Towns? Mar 11, 2024

Show notes

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

Sam Quinones: Recovering Addicts Are Having a Bottom-Up Revolution in This Small Kentucky Town Mar 04, 2024

Show notes

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).

Tony Jordan and Chris Meyer: Pushing for People Over Parking Feb 26, 2024

Show notes

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

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