Strong Towns

@strongtowns.org

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We're changing *everything* about the North American pattern of development. Become a member today! strongtowns.org/membership

Concrete bridge structure against a blue sky with clouds, featuring text about successful transportation investment.
Suburban neighborhood with houses and a curved walkway under a partly cloudy sky, highlighting Zillow's housing market search data.
Map showing a proposed highway route in Shreveport, Louisiana, highlighting communities affected to save 3 minutes of travel time.
Comparison of land use value in Memphis showing buildings at $45.39 per sq. ft., parking at $1.35, and roads at -$0.81, urging efficient land use.
Old film stills with captions that read: “The heart of [this neighborhood] was where this road runs behind me, the Cross-Bronx Expressway. And all I could think of was that this didn’t have to be.” Stills and text from New York: A Documentary Film by Ric Burns, excerpted on Patell and Waterman's History of New York YouTube Channel
Graphic with a duotone photo of a state capitol building in the background. Text reads: “We outline what it takes to build the culture in our Housing-Ready City toolkits. Get them at strongtowns.org/housingready” The covers of the toolkits are also shown.
Graphic with a duotone photo of a state capitol building in the background. Text reads: “Legalization is a good first step, but that’s it. It’s a first step. The next is actually building an ecosystem around making these changes possible.”
Graphic with a duotone photo of a state capitol building in the background. Text reads: “As Edward Erfurt notes, there are things that state mandates can’t do.” Select text in a screenshot are highlighted.
Graphic with a duotone photo of a state capitol building in the background. Text reads: “Builders still couldn’t make the projects work. They could not make these work not because the idea was wrong, but because there's no broader system to support small-scale development in place. The smallest of projects must navigate systems designed for the largest of developments. A 600-square-foot backyard cottage must comply with the same development standards, permitting submission requirements, and timelines as a 2,500-square-foot house on a one-acre lot.”
Graphic with a duotone photo of a state capitol building in the background. Text reads: “While Strong Towns’ Chief Technical Advisor Edward Erfurt was in Flagstaff, Arizona, the city council had declared a housing emergency. Here’s what happened, in his words:” Select text in a screenshot are highlighted.
Graphic with a duotone photo of a state capitol building in the background. Text reads: “Allowed by right does not equal possible in practice.”
Screenshot of the article “How Fayetteville’s New Program Makes It Easy To Build Housing.” Read more on strongtowns.org
Graphic with text: “City staff worked with local developers and builders to find and proactively address obstacles to building. Like the city’s sidewalk requirement. Instead of requiring each builder to install a sidewalk themselves, they could instead pay a fee, and the city would later add sidewalks when more homes are built in the area. This makes the process more efficient and coordinated.”
Graphic with text: “Housing News: Fayetteville, AK launched a new housing program that gives residents a clearer, faster path to building homes”
Grainy photo of a photo with tracing paper. Text reads: “But if the Suburban Experiment trained us to experience isolation as prosperity and consumption as citizenship, the bottom-up movement is teaching us the opposite.”
Grainy photo of a photo with tracing paper. Text reads: “The Suburban Experiment didn’t just change our geography. It rewired our culture.”
Screenshot of the article “Complete Streets in Name Only: How Federal Transportation Policy Undermines Local Outcomes.” Read more on strongtowns.org
Text reads: “By aligning itself with federal funding mechanisms, Complete Streets proponents allowed its priorities to be diluted. Instead of producing streets that are safe, human-scaled and integrated into the fabric of neighborhoods, we’ve ended up with expensive projects that serve as compliance exercises for grant eligibility. We shouldn’t only rely on federally-funded complete streets to have safe streets.”
Text reads: In 2023, a citizen-led Crash Analysis Studio in Hyattsville found several issues that the city could address immediately to prevent future crashes. These were a few of them.” Yellow arrows on a photo of Ager Road point to redundant, confusing signage, slip lanes instead of actual turns, and 26 feet to the median as elements of the design that led to the crash.
Text reads: “Take Ager Road in Hyattsville, Maryland as an example. This project cost about $15 million and was heralded as a model fo the “Green-Complete Streets” approach. Despite these accolades, a pedestrian — Hellen Jorgensen — was killed at the only designated crossing along the corridor.” A photo of a memorial at Ager Road is also shown.
Text reads: “The Complete Streets movement began with a compelling people-first vision: streets designed to be safe, accessible, and welcoming to everyone. But as this vision was absorbed into the federal transportation bureaucracy, it became a hollowed-out shell of its former self.”
Screenshot collage of Monte Anderson and Asia Mieleszko. Text reads: “It’s personal. Whenever I build something, I try to build it for someone I love.”
Text reads: “With 15 crashes in 5 years, Leawood cannot afford to keep waiting. The city can follow the example of others who have asked: what can we do this week to make our streets safer?” A screenshot of strongtowns.org/crashstudio is also shown
Text reads: “While some of the deadly corridors in Leawood are getting a redesign, it’s worth asking what can be done sooner or in the interim. Places like Jersey City, Charlottesville, and Indianapolis are already putting insights from the Crash Analysis Studio into practice.” Screenshots of headlines are also shown.
Text reads: “Leawood is one of the safest, most desirable suburbs in the Kansas City Metro Area. And yet, people keep dying on its streets. At least 15 times in the past 5 years, someone has been struck by a moving vehicle in Leawood, many of them children.”
Simulated Apple Notes graphic with suggestions for anyone considering a similar project in their own community.
Google Streetview of the intersection of Central and Hillcrest Streets in Hallowell, Maine. Text says: “Using resources from the Crash Analysis Studio, Strong Towns Hallowell conducted a speed study, made recommendations, and put those recommendations to the test.”
Google Streetview of the intersection of Central and Hillcrest Streets in Hallowell, Maine. Text says: “Walking to school shouldn’t be a death defying stunt. This intersection in Hallowell, Maine is a well-known hazard in the community.”
Screenshot of the Apple Podcasts transcript of Stacked Against Us. These words are highlighted: Okay, okay, I have to catch you up to speed here.
Text reads: “On paper, the project promised sustainability, economic development, and multimodal infrastructure. But in practice, the federal funding structure incentivized a fundamentally flawed investment in a one-mile stretch of industrial road with limited use, questionable economic potential, and a poor financial return.” An aerial view with the proposed area marked in red.
A streetview image of McGilchrist St in Salem, OR. Text reads “This is not a critical corridor of commerce or a growth hotspot. So why is Salem is investing $15.2 million of local funds into an “improvement” project?”
Text reads: “Longer loan terms also have historically pushed home prices up. The result is less affordable homes.” A photo of page 70 of Escaping the Housing Trap by Charles L. Marohn and Daniel Herriges is also shown.
Text reads: “In 2024, Charles Marohn wrote about the possibility of a 40-year mortgage in this piece: The 30-Year Mortgage Was Bad. The 40-Year Mortgage Will Be Even Worse. And he said: ‘It is worth noting, again, that the 30-year mortgage is one of the worst financial products imaginable. That is why it didn't occur naturally, why the federal government had to create the market for them. It is also why the federal government has had to prop up this market over and over through a series of housing bubbles, each one larger than the last.’”
A graphic with a key highlighted in light blue. Text reads: “Last week, the Trump administration announced support for a 50-year mortgage. If you care about housing affordability, here's why this doesn't help.”
Photo of the 1-95 ramps in Chester, Pennsylvania. The $77 million “award winning” ramps are circled. An arrow points to another access point half a mile away. This is meant to show how little, if anything, was gained by this project.