The Strong Towns Podcast

What Comes After Cities Kill Parking Mandates?

Parking reform used to feel like a niche fight. Now North Carolina has eliminated most parking mandates statewide, cities are following one another’s lead, and Tony Jorda

Is Homeownership Still Part of the American Dream?

If housing feels impossibly expensive, one answer is that a smaller home, a less in-demand place, or a slower climb may simply be part of starting out and working your wa

Chuck’s Engineering Lawsuit Finally Has a Ruling

After six years of legal fights, we finally have a federal court ruling in Chuck’s dispute with Minnesota’s engineering licensing board. Chuck and Strong Towns executive

Chuck on Data Centers, YIMBYs and E-Bikes

Strong Towns members filled the Commons with questions, and Chuck sat down to answer as many as he could. Should cities require data centers to pay for their own eventual

The $1 Trillion Infrastructure Backlog Cities Aren’t Counting

A strong bond rating can tell investors that a city is likely to repay its debt. It says much less about whether that city can afford to replace the roads, pipes, and oth

This Atlanta Corridor Makes Walking Normal and Deadly

Atlanta’s Buford Highway supports apartment communities, small businesses, and an international food scene that draws people from across the region. It also carries six t

America’s Half-Funded Highway System

The Highway Trust Fund brings in roughly $45 billion a year and spends closer to $80 billion. Congress keeps the system running by borrowing the difference and moving tha

A Better Block Versus Years of Planning

Cities often spend years studying a street before making a change, only to discover that the public is reacting to plans no one has actually experienced. Krista Nightenga

The Transit Tradeoff No City Can Escape

Putting a route near every community sounds fair until the buses only arrive once an hour. Jarrett Walker, author of Human Transit and principal of the firm helping Des M

Why Great Streets Are Not Enhancements

Street trees, benches, slower speeds, and beautiful proportions are often treated as extras, added only after the “real” engineering work is done. Victor Dover argues tha

The Deadly Road Design We Keep Defending

Pedestrian deaths have climbed sharply since 2009, yet transportation agencies often point to small, recent dips as proof that things are getting better. Beth Osborne, pr

Inside the Strong Towns Leadership Transition

Strong Towns has always warned cities about the danger of fragile growth. Now, Chuck is applying that same lesson to the movement he helped build. In this episode, Chuck

What's the Housing Crisis Beneath the Housing Crisis?

Lars Doucet digs into a problem that shows up in expensive cities, sprawling suburbs, and even countries Americans often point to as models: land. Monopoly, he argues, be

Rethinking the Federal Role in Transportation

Beth Osborne has watched the same story play out five times: a new federal transportation bill arrives with big language about goals and accountability, states adopt the

Illinois Housing Reform Gets Practical

Illinois is short roughly 130,000 homes today and needs about 240,000 more by 2030. The state can’t change mortgage rates or material costs, so Governor JB Pritzker of Il

The Neighborhood Outside the Church Doors

A trip to Italy left Chuck surprised by how ordinary Catholic life felt in a country filled with churches. A later visit to Hasidic Brooklyn stayed with him for a differe

A Congressman Makes the Case for Local Power

Congressman Jake Auchincloss joins the the Strong Towns podcast with a case for localism that takes it seriously without treating it as a cure-all. He explains why locali

Why Manchester’s Boom Isn’t the Whole Story

Is a city “dynamic” just because its charts point up and to the right? Chuck uses a week in the UK to question that assumption. In Manchester, a swelling population of 20

How Inner City Highways Bankrupt Downtowns And How We Rebuild

When planner Patrick Kennedy started asking why prime land near downtown Dallas was filled with parking lots and boarded‑up buildings, the trail led straight to an elevat

New Zealand Keynote Planning In A World Of Limits

Speaking to planners in New Zealand, Chuck Marohn connects the country’s adopted infrastructure plan with a global pattern of cities that have grown themselves into insol