600 episodes
The Strong Towns Podcast Strong Towns
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4.7 • 376 Ratings
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A weekly conversation on the Strong Towns movement hosted by Charles Marohn. The podcast blends fiscal prudence with good urban design to highlight how America can financially strengthen its cities, towns and neighborhoods and, in the process, make them better places to live.
You can support the podcast and become a member of Strong Towns at www.StrongTowns.org.
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Alex Alsup: How Much of the U.S.'s Housing Stock Is Locally Owned?
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
Check out the national parcel map here.
Click here to read Regrid’s “Owned Away From Home” report.
Find Alex Alsup via LinkedIn or his Substack, The Chargeback.
Chuck Marohn (Twitter/X).
Pre-order your copy of Escaping the Housing Trap: The Strong Towns Response to the Housing Crisis today! -
Where Strong Towns Stands As We Enter Another Election Year
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
Strong Towns is a bottom-up movement for change across North America. Join today!
Chuck Marohn (Twitter/X). -
A Chat With Barkha Patel, Who Helped Achieve Zero Traffic Deaths in Jersey City
On this week’s episode, Chuck chats with Barkha Patel, the Director of Infrastructure for Jersey City. Patel has pioneered changes in her city that have dramatically reduced traffic fatalities—in fact, this month marked seven years that Jersey City has gone without traffic deaths. If you’ve been around Strong Towns for a while, you’ve heard us talk about her before, and we’re excited to announce that she’ll be delivering the keynote speech at the 2024 National Gathering. Don’t worry, we’re not going to steal any of that thunder for today’s conversation (Get your tickets, though, if you want to hear that speech at the Gathering!): instead, we wanted to hear a bit more about Patel herself and how she came to do the amazing, transformational work that she’s become known for.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES
Get your tickets for the 2024 National Gathering today!
Check out the 2023 Local-Motive Tour stop “Turn That Stroad Into a Street (or Road),” featuring Patel.
“Jersey City Achieved Zero Traffic Deaths on Its Streets. Here’s How They Did It,” by Asia Mieleszko, Strong Towns (June 2023).
“How To Get Your Fire Department on Board With Narrowing Streets,” by Asia Mieleszko, Strong Towns (November 2023).
Barkha Patel (website).
Chuck Marohn (Twitter/X). -
Why We Need To Show Empathy Toward Drivers in Conversations About Street Safety
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
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
Check out Disillusioned: Five Families and the Unraveling of America’s Suburbs.
Benjamin Herold (Twitter/X).
Chuck Marohn (Twitter/X). -
What Is the Role of Philanthropy in Building Stronger Towns?
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
Kelly Jin (LinkedIn).
Stephen Goldsmith (Twitter/X).
Chuck Marohn (Twitter/X).
Customer Reviews
Great info, awful audio.
Please tell the guest to get off the speaker phone. Pretty sure she’s in a tile tunnel with the phone several yards away.
Excellent information
Love the podcast, particularly the recent episode with not just bikes. All the talk of the floor/ceiling for transit got me (an American raised in a car dependent suburb) thinking about when I was an exchange student in high school. I lived in a german village with 700 people that had hourly bus service. I currently live in Denver (population of over 700k) and most busses that run through my neighborhood have hourly service.
Ex-professional engineer discusses a new way to build towns and cities
This is a pretty important podcast, from a professional engineer who discovered, based on his fiscally conservative upbringing, that the way we’ve been doing towns and cities in America is fundamentally unsustainable and must change.
Sadly, since he quit to do advocacy full-time, his views seem to be drifting into crank territory. Engineers are best when they are directly connected to their work. Now Chuck is going into social systems, where he does not have expertise, but he can be wrong a long time without being caught.