The Strong Towns Podcast

By Strong Towns

What's The Strong Towns Podcast about?

We advocate for a model of development that allows our cities, towns and neighborhoods to grow financially strong and resilient.

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The Strong Towns Podcast episodes:

08.15.2022
Not Just Bikes and Strong Towns Discuss Public Transit in North America
Jason Slaughter, producer of the YouTube channel Not Just Bikes, is a pretty cool and talented guy. He’s created multiple excellent videos on Strong Towns ideas, taking our written words and translating them through his own voice into visual representations....
08.08.2022
“Bias Writ Large” in the Property Tax Assessment System
Fair property tax systems are crucial to developing a financially strong community, as property taxes represent a large source of public revenue for most local governments. In today’s episode of the Strong Towns Podcast, Chuck Marohn talks with Joe Minicozzi from...
08.01.2022
One of the Most Dangerous Assumptions We Have Made
Thanks to technology, cars and roads just keep getting safer, right? That’s the message we hear in the news and advertising on a regular basis. But if that were the case, traffic fatalities should be going down as technology progresses....
07.18.2022
The Drip, Drip, Drip of Traffic Deaths
Every hour, four people are killed in a car crash. Over a year, this totals up to about 40,000 people. “It’s an astounding number,” says Strong Towns President Chuck Marohn. In this episode of the Strong Towns Podcast, Chuck talks about his...
07.11.2022
An Update on Strong Towns’ Lawsuit Against the Minnesota Board of Engineering Licensure
In today's episode, Chuck Marohn gives an update on where Strong Towns is at in its ongoing lawsuit against the Minnesota Board of Architecture, Engineering, Land Surveying, Landscape Architecture, Geoscience and Interior Design (AELSLAGID).
06.20.2022
Majora Carter: Reclaiming Your Community
Success: however you define it, it’s what many of us strive for. Whether it’s success in one’s career, school, family life, or other dreams, no one wants to experience a perceived failure in life. In the minds of many throughout America,...
06.13.2022
Nolan Gray: Exposing the Arbitrariness of Zoning Codes
Professional city planner and longtime Strong Towns contributor Nolan Gray comes to The Strong Towns Podcast today to talk about his new book, Arbitrary Lines: How Zoning Broke the American City and How to Fix It. As you may have already...
06.10.2022
End the Parking Mandates and Subsidies That Are Hurting Our Cities
Building community wealth is difficult. There’s a lot of hard work involved, there are tough calls, there is risk. In even the best of circumstances, there’s always a chance your investment (in dollars, time, and energy) won’t work out. But...
06.09.2022
Legalizing Incremental Change—Everywhere—To Meet America’s Housing Needs
A house is many things. It is shelter, a place to live. It is an investment, a store of wealth. It can be a repository of memories and it can be a dream for the future. “The American Dream,” as...
06.08.2022
Your City’s Accounting Is Unnecessarily Obscure. It’s Time To Pull Back the Veil.
Who do we prepare local budgets for, the citizens of a community or distant Wall Street bond investors? Is it more important that an elected council member know what is going on with a city’s finances, or should our local...
06.07.2022
America *Must* End Highway Expansions, Before It’s Too Late
When we build a highway, we know we have to maintain it. The same applies to a bridge. Every highway or bridge that has ever been built comes with a predictable and easily calculable schedule for maintenance. This isn’t difficult...
06.06.2022
Safe and Productive Streets
A street is not merely a place for cars. In fact, the primary purpose of a street has nothing to do with motor vehicles at all. A street is, and always has been, a platform for growing community wealth and...
05.23.2022
Mike McGinn: Making America More Walkable
America Walks is a nationally recognized non-profit organization that aims to create a more walkable America by giving people resources to effectively advocate for change. Join Strong Towns President Chuck Marohn in a conversation with Mike McGinn—executive director at America...
05.09.2022
This Vancouver-Based Artist Is Writing Music…About Building Strong Towns!
People have taken the Strong Towns approach in a lot of fascinating directions, but this might be one of the most fascinating yet: William Chernoff is a young, Vancouver-based musician who has written songs inspired by Strong Towns. During the pandemic,...
05.02.2022
Chuck Marohn Answers Your Questions
It's time for another Q&A session! Today, Chuck Marohn will be responding to your questions on things like how to calculate the actual value of spaces like public parks, whether or not high visibility traffic cameras influence driver behavior, and...
04.25.2022
Ryan Crane: Malpractice and Accountability in Engineering—A Surgeon’s Take
In most medical centers, physicians hold routine “morbidity and mortality” conferences, where they analyze cases where patients died or were seriously injured while under medical care. In today’s episode of The Strong Towns Podcast, otolaryngologist and surgeon Ryan Crane discusses...
03.17.2022
An Update and the Strong Towns Strategic Plan
Chuck is taking a little break from podcasting for a few weeks, but in the meantime, here's an update on what's going on behind the scenes at Strong Towns!
03.07.2022
“How Can My Town *Not* Be Wealthy When There’s Been So Much Growth?”
“How can a city not have pots overflowing with money if there has been so much growth? How are apartments subsidizing people who live in single-family neighborhoods?” That’s what the city of Oviedo, Florida, asked when it invited Strong Towns President...
02.28.2022
Annamarie Pluhar: Shared Housing Doesn’t Have to Be Scary
Today on the Strong Towns Podcast, host Chuck Marohn is speaking with special guest Annamarie Pluhar. Pluhar is an expert on co-housing and shared housing, and is the author of the book Sharing Housing: A Guidebook for Finding and Keeping...
02.21.2022
The Latest Update on the Strong Towns Lawsuit
Today on the Strong Towns Podcast, we wanted to give our listeners an update on the lawsuits that Strong Towns is involved in. For those new to Strong Towns, here is a brief overview: Charles Marohn, president of Strong Towns, is...
02.14.2022
Truth in Accounting: Making Cities’ Finances Transparent for All
Last year, our friends over at Urban3 introduced us to a nonpartisan nonprofit called Truth in Accounting, which recently published Financial State of the Cities 2022, an annual report that they do on local governments and the state of their...
02.07.2022
Jeff Speck on Confessions of a Recovering Engineer
Today we wanted to share a conversation between Strong Towns President Chuck Marohn and renowned urban planner and walkability expert Jeff Speck. Speck is a returning guest on the Strong Towns Podcast, and author of the books Walkable City (which...
01.31.2022
Chuck Marohn Answers Your Questions
It's time for another Q&A session! Today, Chuck Marohn will be responding to your questions on things like what to do about shoddy development, how communities can employ Strong Towns principles when big-money investments are already underway in their places,...
01.24.2022
Jarrett Walker: ”Prediction and Freedom Are Opposites”
This week on the Strong Towns Podcast, host Chuck Marohn welcomes back a special return guest: Jarrett Walker, head of Jarrett Walker + Associates, a transit-planning firm based in Portland, Oregon. Walker has been a consultant in public transit network,...
01.18.2022
Peter Norton: The Illusory Promise of High-Tech Driving
Can driverless cars really be the “safe, sustainable, and inclusive ‘mobility solutions’ that tech companies and automakers are promising us”? In his newest book, Autonorama: The Illusory Promise of High-Tech Driving, technology historian Peter Norton argues that we should treat...
01.10.2022
Driving Went Down. Fatalities Went Up. Here’s Why.
Americans drove less during the early months of pandemic, yet traffic fatalities increased. There was a sense among many safety experts that this was an anomaly, that fatality rates would revert to trend once people started driving again. That didn’t...
01.03.2022
Tim Soerens: Reconnecting Churches with Their Neighborhoods
This week on the Strong Towns Podcast, we’re kicking off the new year by featuring a special guest: Tim Soerens, author and co-founder of the Parish Collective. Last year, Chuck read Tim’s books The New Parish: How Neighborhood Churches Are...
12.06.2021
Two Different Languages
There have been dozens of people hit on State Street in Springfield, Massachusetts, in recent years, including Gayle Ball who was recently killed crossing State Street in front of the Central Library. Council members are demanding action and they called a...
11.29.2021
Which Wins Out: An Engineer‘s Discretion or a Book of Standards?
All of a sudden, the new book from Strong Towns president Chuck Marohn, Confessions of a Recovering Engineer, has been out for nearly two months. It’s already received dozens of five-star reviews, and Chuck is out talking about the book...
11.18.2021
Another Tragedy at Springfield
Hey Strong Towns Podcast listeners, it's been a while. Chuck's been out on the road, but the subject of this episode was too important not to talk about now. We're revisiting a library in Springfield that many of you are...
09.06.2021
The Hidden Values Behind Our Unsafe Streets
On December 3, 2014, a 7-year-old girl named Destiny Gonzalez was killed while crossing State Street in Springfield, Massachusetts. What gets lost in the shocking statistics about the number of pedestrians who die each year in traffic crashes—4,884 in the U.S....
08.30.2021
Chuck Marohn Answers Your Questions
Have you visited the Strong Towns Action Lab? That's where we keep our best, most actionable content. We've written a lot over the years, and we wanted to have a place we could direct people to when they want to...
08.23.2021
Rick Harnish: Stronger Transit for Stronger Cities
Which comes first: a great transit system or a great city that can support it? What role does high-speed rail play in an overall, effective transportation system? And is an incremental approach really possible with high-speed transit? These are important questions...
08.02.2021
Bad Benches (and Other Park Problems)
This week on the Strong Towns podcast, Chuck makes a confession about something he did that he now regrets...and you might be surprised at how much of it revolves around poor placement of park benches in his town of Brainerd,...
07.26.2021
Fighting an Urban Highway Expansion in Shreveport
For more than four years, Strong Towns has been telling the story of the so-called I-49 Connector project in Shreveport, Louisiana. We say “so-called” because while this project may seek to connect two sections of I-49, it will do so...
07.19.2021
Johnny Sanphillippo: The Trajectory of Suburbia
You've read Granola Shotgun. You've seen Johnny Sanphillippo on our website (including in an article just released today). You've heard him on the Strong Towns Podcast multiple times, and those interviews have each been hits with our listeners. So, we've...
07.12.2021
Pete Davis: The Case for Commitment in an Age of “Infinite Browsing”
We hear it all the time: “Keep your options open.” It’s the philosophy that shapes much of our approach to education, career, and relationships. It also shapes where we choose to live and, critically, how we live there. Pete Davis calls...
07.06.2021
Here's How Cities Undermine Their Own Competitiveness
The traditional development pattern of towns and cities evolved with humans, the same way ant hills evolved with the ant and bee hives evolved with the bee. Yet around the time of the Great Depression, North Americans began jettisoning millennia...
06.21.2021
Expertise Is Not Absolute
How far should we go in trusting experts? That's the question that Strong Towns President Chuck Marohn tackles this week on the Strong Towns Podcast. By taking a trip through the past to the present, Chuck looks at various events...
06.07.2021
Jason Slaughter: The Goal Isn't to Build a Cycling City
Jason Slaughter is the creator of Not Just Bikes, a fast-growing YouTube channel about urban planning and urban life. Based in Amsterdam, he often makes videos about why city living in The Netherlands is so good...including the bikes, but not...
06.01.2021
Listen to the Briefing About the Strong Towns Lawsuit
Last week, we announced that Strong Towns has filed a lawsuit against the Minnesota Board of Engineering Licensure in federal district court. For more information about the case, its background, and anything that we're doing in relation to it, check...
05.24.2021
Strong Towns Has Filed a Lawsuit Against the Minnesota Board of Engineering Licensure in Federal District Court
A small group of professional engineers are using the licensing process to stifle calls for reform and retaliate against Strong Towns for its advocacy. The Strong Towns organization advocates for reforming the way we build our cities, especially the approach that...
05.03.2021
Ann Sussman and Justin Hollander: Architecture and the Unconscious Mind
How much conscious thought goes into our reactions to a place? It might be less than you think. The more we come to understand the human brain, the more we see how much the unconscious mind, and our need to...
04.26.2021
Alex Alsup: Keeping People in Their Homes in Detroit
When it comes to housing, Detroit's struggles could be seen as a portent of things to come for other parts of America. Over the past fifteen years, one in three properties in the city have entered into tax foreclosure auctions,...
04.19.2021
Dr. Samuel Hughes: A Proposal for Strong Suburbs
Here at Strong Towns we often talk about cities and towns in North America, but what about our friends across the pond? While cities in the UK may not be facing exactly the same kind of infrastructure crisis as ours,...
04.12.2021
Michael Odiari: Putting a Check on Deadly Traffic Stops
Please note: This episode of The Strong Towns Podcast was recorded and scheduled for publication last week, prior to the recent shooting of Duante Wright. “Have you ever had a stare at death?” Michael Odiari has. So have many others who...
04.05.2021
Strongest Town Webcast: Lockport, IL vs. Oxford, MS (Audio Version)
Strong Towns president Chuck Marohn has a conversation with representatives from our two Strongest Town finalists: Mayor Steve Streit of Lockport, and Mayor Robyn Tannehill of Oxford. To vote in the matchup, go here: https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2021/4/5/strongest-town-championship-round To catch up on the contest, and...
03.29.2021
Eric Jacobsen: How Car Culture is Making Us Lonelier
“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...
03.22.2021
Beth Osborne: America's Roads are "Dangerous by Design"
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...
03.15.2021
Grace Olmstead: The Legacy—and the Future—of the Places We Leave Behind
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...

What's The Strong Towns Podcast about?

Download our free app to listen on your phone

The Strong Towns Podcast episodes:

Not Just Bikes and Strong Towns Discuss Public Transit in North America

“Bias Writ Large” in the Property Tax Assessment System

One of the Most Dangerous Assumptions We Have Made

The Drip, Drip, Drip of Traffic Deaths

An Update on Strong Towns’ Lawsuit Against the Minnesota Board of Engineering Licensure

Majora Carter: Reclaiming Your Community

Nolan Gray: Exposing the Arbitrariness of Zoning Codes

End the Parking Mandates and Subsidies That Are Hurting Our Cities

Legalizing Incremental Change—Everywhere—To Meet America’s Housing Needs

Your City’s Accounting Is Unnecessarily Obscure. It’s Time To Pull Back the Veil.

America *Must* End Highway Expansions, Before It’s Too Late

Safe and Productive Streets

Mike McGinn: Making America More Walkable

This Vancouver-Based Artist Is Writing Music…About Building Strong Towns!

Chuck Marohn Answers Your Questions

Ryan Crane: Malpractice and Accountability in Engineering—A Surgeon’s Take

An Update and the Strong Towns Strategic Plan

“How Can My Town *Not* Be Wealthy When There’s Been So Much Growth?”

Annamarie Pluhar: Shared Housing Doesn’t Have to Be Scary

The Latest Update on the Strong Towns Lawsuit

Truth in Accounting: Making Cities’ Finances Transparent for All

Jeff Speck on Confessions of a Recovering Engineer

Chuck Marohn Answers Your Questions

Jarrett Walker: ”Prediction and Freedom Are Opposites”

Peter Norton: The Illusory Promise of High-Tech Driving

Driving Went Down. Fatalities Went Up. Here’s Why.

Tim Soerens: Reconnecting Churches with Their Neighborhoods

Two Different Languages

Which Wins Out: An Engineer‘s Discretion or a Book of Standards?

Another Tragedy at Springfield

The Hidden Values Behind Our Unsafe Streets

Chuck Marohn Answers Your Questions

Rick Harnish: Stronger Transit for Stronger Cities

Bad Benches (and Other Park Problems)

Fighting an Urban Highway Expansion in Shreveport

Johnny Sanphillippo: The Trajectory of Suburbia

Pete Davis: The Case for Commitment in an Age of “Infinite Browsing”

Here's How Cities Undermine Their Own Competitiveness

Expertise Is Not Absolute

Jason Slaughter: The Goal Isn't to Build a Cycling City

Listen to the Briefing About the Strong Towns Lawsuit

Strong Towns Has Filed a Lawsuit Against the Minnesota Board of Engineering Licensure in Federal District Court

Ann Sussman and Justin Hollander: Architecture and the Unconscious Mind

Alex Alsup: Keeping People in Their Homes in Detroit

Dr. Samuel Hughes: A Proposal for Strong Suburbs

Michael Odiari: Putting a Check on Deadly Traffic Stops

Strongest Town Webcast: Lockport, IL vs. Oxford, MS (Audio Version)

Eric Jacobsen: How Car Culture is Making Us Lonelier

Beth Osborne: America's Roads are "Dangerous by Design"

Grace Olmstead: The Legacy—and the Future—of the Places We Leave Behind

America Must End Highway Expansions, Before It’s Too Late

“How Can My Town Not Be Wealthy When There’s Been So Much Growth?”