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.

Listen to the original episode on Bike Talk.

Bike Talk (Twitter/X; Instagram; Reddit).

Chuck Marohn (Twitter/X).

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.

Check out Disillusioned: Five Families and the Unraveling of America’s Suburbs.

Benjamin Herold (Twitter/X).

Chuck Marohn (Twitter/X).

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.

Kelly Jin (LinkedIn).

Stephen Goldsmith (Twitter/X).

Chuck Marohn (Twitter/X).

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.

“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).

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.

Parking Reform Network (website).

Chris Meyer (Twitter/X).

Tony Jordan (LinkedIn).

Chuck Marohn (Twitter/X).

On this week’s episode, host Chuck Marohn talks with Eric Goldwyn, a leading urban scholar and program director at the Marron Institute of Urban Management, as well as a Clinical Assistant Professor in the Transportation and Land-Use program at the NYU Marron Institute. He is known for his pioneering research on urban issues, fostering collaboration to improve city living, and he’s here to talk with us today about the importance of transit for the future of cities, as well as the importance of local government (and the fact that local government is more than just an appendage of state and federal government).

“Slow Boring x Transit Costs Project Event,” by Kate Crawford, Slow Boring (March 2023).

Transit Costs (website).

Eric Goldwyn (Twitter/X).

Chuck Marohn (Twitter/X).

One of the most egregious highway expansion projects we’ve encountered is the I-35 project in Austin, Texas. A lot of good people have been fighting it for a long time, and on this week’s episode of the Strong Towns Podcast, host Chuck Marohn will be talking with two of them: Adam Greenfield and Bobby Levinski. They’re both part of the grassroots movement Rethink35, which is working with other local organizations to file a lawsuit against the Texas Department of Transportation over their plans to expand I-35.

Learn more about Rethink35’s work on their website.

Chuck Marohn (Twitter/X).

On this week’s episode, Chuck talks with Dr. Shima Hamidi of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, who, in November 2023, wrote about the study when it first came out, and we’re excited to now have Dr. Hamidi on the podcast to tell us about her work, in her own words.

Read the study: “A National Investigation on the Impacts of Lane Width on Traffic Safety.”

Check out the study’s homepage.

Shima Hamidi (Twitter/X).

Chuck Marohn (Twitter/X).

On this week’s episode, Chuck Marohn talks about a trip he made to the Minnesota state capitol, where he was invited to take part in a press conference in which a bill was launched. Strong Towns is a bottom-up, member-based movement, and so getting involved in legislative action is not normally something that would be on Chuck’s docket. So, why make an exception this time? Simple: because this is a bill that states that no city in Minnesota shall mandate parking requirements.

Watch the full press conference here.

Chuck Marohn (Twitter/X).

Cover image source: Wikimedia Commons/SimonP.

At Strong Towns, we try to avoid using the word “sprawl” as a shorthand term in our content—and we’d even go so far as to say that sprawl isn’t the problem we’re trying to solve in our communities. All that said, are there any instances where sprawl is actually good? Hear Strong Towns President Chuck Marohn discuss this with Joe Minicozzi, principal of Urban3.

“Sprawl Is Not the Problem,” by Chuck Marohn, Strong Towns (April 2016).

Urban3 (website).

Joe Minicozzi (Twitter/X).

Chuck Marohn (Twitter/X).