This op-ed is the fifth in a five-part series by Strong Towns founder and president, Charles Marohn, first posted on StrongTowns.org beginning on April 12, 2021.
The American Jobs Plan will invest in America in a way we have not invested since we built the interstate highways and won the Space Race.
— The American Jobs Plan
One of my best friends, Joe Minicozzi of Urban3, lives in Asheville, North Carolina, a city that went into massive debt just prior to the Great Depression and then spent generations digging itself out of that financial hole. In many of Joe’s presentations, he shares photos of Asheville during this decline phase. They are really painful to see.
And striking. In contrast, today Asheville is one of the nicest cities in North America. It has a pleasant scale, great ambiance, and just the right mix of funky and historic. It is a tremendous draw, not only for tourists but for people seeking to relocate to a better quality of life.
The story of Asheville’s renaissance is multifaceted, but two components stick out. First is the heroic efforts of Julian Price to invest in the core downtown when nobody else would. Second is the absence of the standard federal government interventions that were supposed to bring prosperity but ended up destroying the heart of many U.S. cities: tearing down buildings with Urban Renewal dollars, running highways through the middle of the city, encouraging the removal of historic neighborhoods through mortgage financing regulations, etc…
As Joe says, “We were too poor to tear anything down.” So the city just sat there, in its historic form, missing out on the wave of public dollars spent “revitalizing” cities in the ’50s, ’60s, and ’70s. What was a curse then, is a blessing today, as these neighborhoods are the foundation of Asheville’s wealth and prosperity. So many places — including mine — would give up anything to go back to the city they had before all this federal assistance.
Sometimes it is better to be lucky than good.
For local leaders today facing a new wave of public spending meant to help their communities, the lesson from Asheville should be this: first, do no harm. Don’t let the American Jobs Plan take your focus off of the work you are doing to make your city stronger and more prosperous. Don’t let the potential for a big project or instant transformation seduce you away from the block-level, human-focused work your community urgently needs.
If you are a local leader (inside or outside of the local government, as both are important) and you have been with us for a while, you’ve likely read our “Local Leaders Toolkit: A Strong Towns Response to the Pandemic.” In that, we previewed — way before the 2020 election — what to expect from an infrastructure bill and how to get your community ready:
It is likely that local governments will be offered some form of recovery assistance from the state and/or federal governments. In advance of these funds being offered, be proactive in having a discussion about how to respond.
In 2009, most local government recovery aid came in the form of infrastructure money targeting “shovel ready” projects. While some of these projects were beneficial, many of them were projects that had been put on the shelf for good reasons. They were not high-priority investments. Few of these projects responded to the immediate urgency experienced within the community.
Infrastructure spending is popular for state and federal officials because it creates immediate jobs and the potential for long-term growth. For local governments, new infrastructure has some of those same benefits, but also the additional long-term liability of now having to service and maintain that infrastructure. Over time, these hasty transactions rarely work out well for local communities, most of which are already burdened by years of deferred maintenance.
Have the discussion ahead of time. Focus that conversation on your people and their needs, not on the programs or systems and what they can provide. That is one of the leadership traits of a Strong Town, another recommendation found in the Toolkit:
Orient Horizontal, Not Vertical. Firmly ground yourself in representing the people in your community. Orient yourselves to zealously serve their needs, particularly in the face of established top-down systems that are not.
Be ready to accept what you can but also to reject, or at least not chase after, the things that you shouldn’t. Be focused. The Strong Towns approach to capital investments will help.
In early 2017, I was asked by officials with the incoming Trump administration to provide input on how the new administration should approach infrastructure. We shared my response as an open letter, which included recommendations for reform. A year later when a plan was leaked, I responded to the few scant details available by reiterating the same talking points. Those recommendations also made it into the Local Leaders Toolkit as the following advice:
If the only form of assistance provided to local government ends up being an infrastructure appropriation, take steps to focus those funds. You want to select projects with the most upside benefit and the least additional long-term commitment. When considering projects:
Prioritize maintenance over new capacity. With such a massive backlog of basic maintenance needs, it’s irresponsible to build additional capacity. If you can use assistance dollars to fix critical infrastructure, make that the priority.
Prioritize below-ground infrastructure over above-ground. Many of our sewer and water systems are approaching 100 years old. When these core pipes fail, the problems cascade throughout the system. It’s possible market shifts or even technology may dramatically change how we use roads and streets, but water and sewer will still flow through pipes as it has for thousands of years. If given the chance, target your assistance spending underground.
Prioritize neighborhoods that are more than 75 years old. The firm Urban3 has modeled hundreds of cities across the country. In every one, the neighborhoods with the highest financial productivity are the ones that existed before World War II, even when they are occupied by the poorest people within the community. These are traditional neighborhoods but today they still have the greatest capacity to adapt to new realities. Investments in stabilizing these neighborhoods have the greatest potential to pay off.
Do no harm. You are least likely to do harm, and most likely to do good, if you can position your community to direct its share of federal infrastructure funds for projects that focus on: 1) maintenance, 2) underground pipes, 3) old neighborhoods.
Fix pipes in old neighborhoods. So not glamorous. So not sexy. You are so not getting a statue of you placed in the town square. Get over it, because that’s what leadership looks like today. That’s what you are called to do. If you care about your community, use this money to fix pipes in old neighborhoods. It is really hard for that to mess things up, no matter what comes next.
For those communities further down the path of becoming Strong Towns — places already disciplined to work incrementally with what they have, places like Lockport, Illinois, the 2021 Strongest Town winner — there might be a chance to support an existing bottom-up initiative. Those opportunities will not be the default, but maybe you can change one of your stroads to be more of a street, repair some sidewalks, add protected bike lanes, replace some buses, or fix a critical piece of infrastructure.
Resist the temptation to pull that old project off the shelf: the one you put together with good intentions but then gave up on because you didn’t have the funding.
Resist the siren call to build that new road, add that new interchange, put in another bridge. Don’t be suckered into annexing new land, running new pipes, and expanding your reach.
Don’t be tempted into doing the big, transformative project just because the money is now flowing freely.
The federal government owns no infrastructure. Whatever they pay to build, they are paying it for someone else to own and maintain. Whatever you build, your community will own it. Your community will have to maintain it. This isn’t a gift and it isn’t assistance—it’s them creating an obligation for you.
It’s not a transaction, it’s a commitment. It’s not a date, it’s a marriage. Make sure it works for you, not just today, but decades from now. Make sure it pays off.
I’ll close this series with some advice we gave to local leaders during the early days of the pandemic:
When making infrastructure investments, the more you can let a neighborhood assessment of urgent needs guide your priorities, the more effective your efforts will be. Ground yourself in your people and places. The less time you spend chasing the shiny object or projecting theoretical new growth opportunities, the more likely your investments will help the community prosper.
Building a Strong Town starts with people and place, not systems and programs. Put your people and their needs at the heart of your approach, center your actions on using the resources you have to respond to their urgent struggles, and you will be well on your way to building a stronger town, no matter what happens in Washington, D.C.