The Bottom-Up Revolution

All week, we’ve been celebrating the thousands of amazing Strong Towns members who make up this movement. They are safe streets advocates in Hawaii and mayors in Pennsylvania and small business owners in Georgia. And if those references sound familiar, it’s because every one of those stories was featured on the podcast this year. If you’ve ever listened to the show and thought, “Wow I wish I could do what Mary or Chris or Haile is doing in my city,” you can! It just takes stepping up and committing to this movement by becoming a member of Strong Towns.

This movement is made up of all sorts of people and there’s a place for you here. Become a member today.

This week’s guest is Edmonton, Alberta-based city councilor, Ashley Salvador. Before her recent election, Ashley ran an organization called YEGarden Suites. (YEG is the abbreviation for Edmonton, and a garden suite is another term for an accessory dwelling unit.) Ashley has been a huge proponent of making this sort of housing more legally and practically easy to build. She and her cofounder teach classes, provide resources, and advocate to decisionmakers, all in pursuit of increased housing options and affordability through what she calls “gentle density.”

Her leadership on this and other local issues eventually led her to step up and run for local office. Ashley’s campaign brought together over 100 volunteers in a very grassroots effort, and now she’s a brand new city councilor.

In this interview, Ashley talks about the positive, Strong Towns changes happening in Edmonton, how she got where she is today, and her advice for others who hope to be local leaders, too. 

YEGarden Suites website

“Will Edmonton Be the First Major Canadian City to Eliminate Parking Minimums?” (Strong Towns article by Ashley Salvador)

“How to Get Rid of Parking Minimums” (Strong Towns webcast featuring Ashley Salvador)

Follow Ashley Salvador on Twitter.

Join the discussion about this episode in the Strong Towns Facebook Community group.

Send us your own voicemail about the small (or big) thing you’re doing to make your town stronger. Just record a voice memo on your phone and email it to [email protected].

Subscribe to The Bottom-Up Revolution on iTunes, Google Podcasts, Podbean, or via RSS.

Support this podcast by becoming a Strong Towns member today.

Mason Thompson is a Strong Towns member and city councilor in Bothell, WA. But he’s not someone who’s been dreaming of running for office since he was a kid or anything. For him, it all started because he wanted some bike trails in the local park. That led him to the park board, and eventually, to an elected official inviting him to think about running for office. Mason is someone who has said "yes" to his community; he’s been a lifelong resident of Bothell, and he’s dedicated to making it a better place for everyone.

That means really listening to residents and their concerns, and seeking out the voices that aren’t often present in public decision-making. It also means running a nonpartisan campaign, where Mason focused on land use and transportation issues as an entry point that he knew everyone could get behind. Everyone cares about the way their environment feels and looks and how they get around, he says, and that was a good way to start a conversation with his fellow Bothellites.

In this episode, Mason shares his journey to running for office, the family motto that he invites everyone to utilize, and also a fun tangent about the awesome power of electric bikes. 

Listen to a previous Bottom-Up Revolution episode featuring Cary Westerbeck, fellow Bothell resident, Strong Towns member and founder of Bo-POP.

Visit the Bo-POP (Bothellites for People-Oriented Places) website.

Join the discussion about this episode in the Strong Towns Facebook Community group.

Send us your own voicemail about the small (or big) thing you’re doing to make your town stronger. Just record a voice memo on your phone and email it to [email protected].

Support this podcast by becoming a Strong Towns member today.

Tim Wright is a long-time Strong Towns member and cofounder of a Strong Towns local group called ReForm Shreveport, based in Shreveport, Louisiana. Tim is an engineer who joined with some of his friends and neighbors to create this group out of a desire to make the best of the community’s assets, focus on the potential of Shreveport, and help young people like himself see that it’s a great place to live and stay.

ReForm Shreveport has been very focused on action. They’ve cleaned up parks, piloted bike lanes, and even created an interactive map after a major storm threatened Shreveport’s water supply for thousands of residents. Tim and his colleagues are responding to the needs of their city and partnering with government and other local groups to get things done. That’s been particularly important in a somewhat economically divided city—something all too common in towns across America.

In this episode of The Bottom-Up Revolution podcast, hosted by Rachel Quednau, we talk a lot about ReForm Shreveport, though toward the end we also chat about Tim’s new experience of home ownership with his wife, and why they chose to convert part of their house into an AirBnb.

ReForm Shreveport website

Get information about starting a Strong Towns Local Conversation group where you live!

Read Daniel Herriges’ new series on incremental development.

Join the discussion about this episode in the Strong Towns Facebook Community group.

Read an article by LeVette Fuller and watch her and Tim on a webcast about Shreveport.

Send us your own voicemail about the small (or big) thing you’re doing to make your town stronger. Just record a voice memo on your phone and email it to [email protected].

Subscribe to The Bottom-Up Revolution on iTunes, Google Podcasts, Podbean, or via RSS.

Support this podcast by becoming a Strong Towns member today.

Rebecca Undem lives in the small community of Oakes, North Dakota, and does a lot of work helping her town grow stronger, and helping her fellow rural residents become community leaders. But we know her advice and insights will speak to you no matter if you live in a town of 2,000 or two million.

In this conversation hosted by Rachel Quednau, Undem talks about the choice to stay in or return to your hometown; the connections, family, and traditions you get to experience when you make that sort of life for yourself; and how that doesn’t mean losing out on career opportunities. In particular, Undem has been helping her region think through the ways that the rise of remote work can allow people to commit to their towns for the long haul. She believes remote employment and Main Street can actually grow together and benefit one another, and she’s led some creative initiatives to help people see those opportunities through her organization, Growing Small Towns. Undem also hosts a podcast under the same name.

Growing Small Towns website and podcast

Rebecca Undem’s website

Visit our employment page to learn about our current job openings.

Join the discussion about this episode in the Strong Towns Facebook Community group.

Send us your own voicemail about the small (or big) thing you’re doing to make your town stronger. Just record a voice memo on your phone and email it to [email protected].

Support this podcast by becoming a Strong Towns member today.

On this week’s episode of The Bottom-Up Revolution podcast, we’re featuring a Strong Towns member and mayor of Cedar Falls, Iowa. In this interview with Rachel Quednau, Rob Green shares his journey from Coast Guard officer to neighborhood association president to mayor. 

He’s passionate about government transparency and accessibility—so much so that he held office hours in the local grocery store to meet with constituents.

This discussion gets into the nitty gritty of updating some zoning codes and figuring out government staffing in a midsize college town. Mayor Green also shares how he first got plugged into Strong Towns, his advice for people feeling disconnected from local decision-making, and why you should always carry a notebook.

“Thank You from a Speculator” (land value tax video)

Strong Towns: A Bottom-Up Revolution to Rebuild American Prosperity (the first Strong Towns book)

Mayor Green’s Facebook page

Visit our employment page to learn about our current job openings.

Join the discussion about this episode in the Strong Towns Facebook Community group.

Send us your own voicemail about the small (or big) thing you’re doing to make your town stronger. Just record a voice memo on your phone and email it to [email protected].

Subscribe to The Bottom-Up Revolution on iTunes, Google Podcasts, Podbean, or via RSS.

Support this podcast by becoming a Strong Towns member today.

This week’s episode is a very special one because it features our summer intern, Sarah Davis, who just wrapped up her internship last week. She was a shared intern between Strong Towns and our friends at the data analytics firm, Urban3. (We heard from Cate Ryba, COO at Urban3, just a few weeks ago on this show.)

Sarah was with us throughout the summer writing important stories that use the Strong Towns approach to development and finance, and make excellent use of Urban3’s extensive research and data visualizations.

In this conversation hosted by Rachel Quednau, Sarah talks about her experience being a young planner fresh out of college, her experience as a lifelong Kansas Citian, and her hopes for the planning profession as she enters her career. Take a listen and make sure to check out her articles when you’re done.

Read Sarah’s articles

Strong Towns series on Kansas City

Follow Sarah on Twitter and LinkedIn

Join the discussion about this episode in the Strong Towns Facebook Community group.

Send us your own voicemail about the small (or big) thing you’re doing to make your town stronger. Just record a voice memo on your phone and email it to [email protected].

Support this podcast by becoming a Strong Towns member today.

This week’s guest on The Bottom-Up Revolution podcast hails from Utah and he’s here to talk about a cool tactical urbanism program that is helping make streets safer with an incremental, resident-driven approach in Park City.  

Tactical urbanism is an approach to public space that involves making what we at Strong Towns like to call “small bets”: small, temporary projects that require little to no money to execute, which allow people to test out a new design in a public space. It might be a crosswalk created with temporary paint or a bus stop enhanced with lightweight, moveable lawn furniture. The goal is to trial a concept and, if it works well, perhaps implement it more permanently down the line—striping that crosswalk in permanent paint, or installing a full-size bench at the bus stop.

Austin Taylor is helping lead tactical urbanism efforts in Park City, Utah, where he’s employed as a transportation planner. The program in Park City lets residents decide on and propose projects, then provides city funding and city help with the permitting process to execute them. The city even collects data on the impact of those projects.

And, as you’ll hear from Austin, that data shows success in slowing down cars and making people feel safer through street design changes—something we’ve been advocating for at Strong Towns for years.  Austin’s also a dedicated advocate for safer streets, leading the Bike Walk Provo organization, and he’s been featured at Strong Towns in the past. He’s a long time Strong Towns advocate!

Bike Walk Provo website

People-First Streets program

Check out the many resources and key articles we’ve got about tactical urbanism over at the Action Lab.

Hear Austin on our old podcast, It’s the Little Things, and read an article by Austin about tactical urbanism on Strong Towns.

Join the discussion about this episode in the Strong Towns Facebook Community group.

Send us your own voicemail about the small (or big) thing you’re doing to make your town stronger. Just record a voice memo on your phone and email it to [email protected].

Support this podcast by becoming a Strong Towns member today.

Making his debut on The Bottom-Up Revolution podcast, hosted by Rachel Quednau, this week’s guest is Chuck Marohn. He’s on the show talking about his new book, Confessions of a Recovering Engineer: Transportation for a Strong Town, which just came out yesterday. 

In this conversation, Chuck talks about what got him motivated to write this book and why productive, resilient transportation is such an essential piece of a strong town. He shares some personal stories about transportation challenges in his hometown of Brainerd, Minnesota, which will probably resonate with almost everyone listening because they’re sadly common.

Chuck also shares his hopes for how this book could educate and inspire people to make the transportation in their communities better. And finally, he offers his advice for getting started learning about the transportation challenges in your city. Step one: Get out and walk. Step two: Observe how your neighbors are walking and traveling through your city, and where they might face dangers or obstacles.

 You can find Confessions of a Recovering Engineer at your local bookstore or anywhere else books are sold. 

Learn more about our newest book and order it here.

Join the discussion about this episode in the Strong Towns Facebook Community group.

Send us your own voicemail about the small (or big) thing you’re doing to make your town stronger. Just record a voice memo on your phone and email it to [email protected].

Support this podcast by becoming a Strong Towns member today.

Cate Ryba is Chief Operating Officer and Planner at Urban3, a data analytics firm that Strong Towns has been partnering with for years. In this conversation, Cate talks about the important work of Urban3, which helps cities understand their municipal finances and take charge of their financial future through powerful visualizations.

But the episode also features a conversation on Cate’s previous role as the youngest city councilor in her hometown of Spartanburg, South Carolina, her experience organizing community events and downtown revitalization efforts, and even how she helped create a new dog park in her city.

Cate is dedicated to connecting people within communities who might not otherwise meet each other. She also believes in what she calls “the power of fun” — a belief which led her to start an annual beer and donuts run for charity, which grew to several hundred participants over the course of a few years. That’s just one example of the many cool projects Cate has led throughout her life. She encourages people to find the things they care about, connect with others who share their passions and join in those efforts to build stronger towns.

Urban3 website

Get your ticket to the Confessions Book Launch Party.

Join a discussion about this episode in the Strong Towns Facebook Group.

Preorder Confessions of a Recovering Engineer by Charles Marohn before September 8 to get access to our special “30 Days of Confessions” video series.

Send us your own voicemail about the small (or big) thing you’re doing to make your town stronger. Just record a voice memo on your phone and email it to [email protected].

Support this podcast by becoming a Strong Towns member today.

Tiffany Owens is a Strong Towns member, guest contributor and member of the Strong Towns advisory board. She currently lives in Waco, Texas, but before that, she was going to school in New York City where she recently graduated from The Kings College. 

In this conversation on The Bottom-Up Revolution podcast hosted by Rachel Quednau, Tiffany talks about the trade-off between big-city excitement, and possibilities for connection and community that can sometimes come more easily in a smaller place.

Tiffany is deeply committed to understanding urban places and helping others to help shape their communities into stronger towns. She does this through her blog and Instagram account, Cities Decoded. And she’s also recently joined up with her local neighborhood association, so she shares the joys and challenges of neighborhood organizing. At the end of the day, Tiffany really wants to help people open their eyes, put down their phones and truly see their cities, to give real attention to the places and people around them

The interview concludes with a discussion about the power of religious communities and other sources of what Tiffany calls “associative culture”—something that’s becoming increasingly rare in this day and age. What is lost when we give up these places of connection?

Cities Decoded website and Instagram.

Read Strong Towns articles by Tiffany.

Preorder Confessions of a Recovering Engineer by Charles Marohn before September 8 to get access to our special “30 Days of Confessions” video series. (And catch a sneak peak of the series here.)

Send us your own voicemail about the small (or big) thing you’re doing to make your town stronger. Just record a voice memo on your phone and email it to [email protected].

Subscribe to The Bottom-Up Revolution on iTunes, Google Podcasts, Podbean, or via RSS.

Support this podcast by becoming a Strong Towns member today.