Strong Towns

This Giving Tuesday, give to support the movement that is empowering do-ers across America. Give to support local leaders like AJ in Middletown, OH, who says: “I just became a member of my city's planning and zoning commission. I wouldn't have taken this chance without the inspiring work done by Strong Towns. Hopefully I can help my town become strong, too.”

Sometimes, restrictions on expansion and land use can help drive reform in other areas. Broomfield, Colorado, has fixed boundaries and a commitment to devote 36% of its land to undeveloped open space. This means that, when faced with a rapidly increasing population, the City Council had to get creative to make room for everybody. Part of that creativity was allowing for parking reform, so they could be sure that the 64% of land they were allowed to develop was being used in ways that would most benefit the city and their constituents. For officials who don’t have those kinds of restrictions, Broomfield Council Member Paloma Delgadillo suggests creating financial restrictions of your own. Do the math to determine how much your city’s infrastructure costs per capita and then set reasonable limits on your city’s outward expansion based on your ability to pay for expanding infrastructure. For instance, if you’d have to pay for 3 additional miles of infrastructure to only serve a few houses, that’s probably not a good investment and should be considered outside of the city’s bounds.

Have you ever wondered what incremental development and gradual intensification looks like in real life? Here’s an example from Harrisonburg, Virginia. In 2018, a restaurant moved into this building, and the new owners added a few picnic tables around the parking lot. That same year, they got permission from the city council to replace the parking spots with outdoor dining. Six years later, their setup has become slightly more permanent, upgrading into a covered outdoor dining room with picnic tables.

The good thing about the excessive number of parking lots in North American cities is that they have incredible repurposing potential. Parking lots are usually located in prime city-center locations. They could be converted into productive public and private spaces where people can spend time, engage in activities and meet each other. This kind of redevelopment can massively improve the productivity of an area, increasing the city’s tax base and revenue. In turn, the city can invest some of that new revenue into improving public transportation, thus alleviating any inconvenience removing the lots caused.

Take an after-dinner walk with your family—you can see your community with new eyes.

Before the Suburban Experiment, cities built wealth in downtown cores that were comfortably connected and walkable, making it easy for people to reach and do business with each other. This configuration concentrated the energy of the community, allowing it to be magnified by powerful feedback loops. For example, the more successful the downtown became, the more people wanted to live in close proximity to it. The more people who lived in and near the downtown, the more patrons there were for local businesses. The more patrons there were, the greater the investment in the downtown to serve them and the more successful it became. This was a positive feedback loop where improvements over time made things better for everyone. When homes and businesses are spread out — for instance, because they’re all separated by parking lots — they become disconnected from each other and lose that feedback loop. Think of it as a roaring fire where more and more fuel is being added all the time. If you take the logs in that roaring fire and spread them out over the ground, the fire will shrink. Some logs may burn and some may go out, but they don’t reinforce each other. The spread-out logs will never be able to match the power of the connected, roaring fire. If cities want to build traditional, productive downtowns, they need to ditch the parking mandates and bring those logs back together.

At Strong Towns, we talk a lot about thinking incrementally. But, why think in increments? Why not just do it right the first time? Well, because rarely is our first attempt our best attempt. This image is how Strong Towns member Andrew Price illustrates the advantages of thinking incrementally. On the left, the city is working iteratively, using cones and chalk to experiment with bike lane and tree placement. They tested it out for a few weeks, observed how people used it, then they washed it off and tried a different configuration. They finally settled on a layout that worked before they spent six figures repaving the street and installing trees. On the right, we see a sudden implementation: the city drew up plans, and spent six figures to install trees and bike lanes. Even though it appears to have less steps, the sudden approach isn’t actually faster. In fact, in places like Jersey City and Hoboken, which are more willing to iterate, they’re able to implement much-desired changes faster than the cities that try to get it right once and for all. And there’s an opportunity to save money in the process, or at least, get a higher return on their investment. Incrementalism does not mean doing things slowly: incremental development can be rapid and up to the task of reacting to pressing needs. Incrementalism looks like experimenting, rapid prototyping, iteratively improving, and reducing the risks of bad decisions. It starts with taking stock of what your problems are, and then taking one step to fix them, sooner rather than later.

In the city of Sandpoint, Idaho, “A decade after eliminating parking minimums in its downtown area, the city…is reaping the benefits of this bold policy change. According to Aaron Qualls, Planning and Community Development Director for Sandpoint, the decision has led to millions of dollars in investments and a revitalized urban core.” Read more: https://buff.ly/3V6qxxR

Debate time! New episode out with Charles Marohn from Strong Towns and Nolan Gray with California YIMBY. I found them disagreeing on X—which surprised me as I assumed they’d be on the same side—so I asked them on the podcast to hash out their ideas. It’s a great (and friendly) episode. Though for better or worse, I started out by reading their disagreement on X out loud, which is probably a painful experience to hear your own words in a heated moment repeated back. Nolan said it felt like he just went through a deposition. Having just been through a real life deposition myself the week before, I felt kind of bad. Sorry guys :) but to be fair, it does set the stage for a good convo! And a friendly one at that. Each of these guys has made significant contributions to the built environment via real policy changes and shifting culture and conversation. Thanks for coming on Chuck and Nolan. Check out their latest books Arbitrary Lines and Escaping the Housing Trap. Trailer below:

“Listening to the ideas and the concerns of residents helped me and helped my my team identify where Hoboken’s vulnerabilities were,” Hoboken Mayor Ravinder Bhalla explained at the “Beyond Blame” press conference on October 15. “It's important for leaders to listen to the people that they represent because that on-the-ground street knowledge is critical to making stronger and safer communities.” He would know: Hoboken is coming up on its eighth year without traffic fatalities and has successfully reduced severe traffic injuries by 68% in a couple of years.