I received the following invitation from StrongTowns.org just this morning. We’ve shared numerous articles by Strong Towns members, here in the Pagosa Daily Post, over the past several years, and I would recommend their writing and activism to anyone interested in effective urban planning and better local government policies. Here’s the email:
Hi there, Bill.
Today is the start of the Spring Member Drive and we’ll be asking over 100,000 people to join you as members of the Strong Towns movement.
In videos, social media posts, articles, podcasts, and emails, the message will go out: support this work and change the places you care about for good.
That’s the message your friends, colleagues, and neighbors will receive. But I want you to receive this message of profound gratitude.
Your support has turned a vision of what’s next into a reality:
- A supercharged content team that’s reaching a growing audience numbering in the millions with articles, videos, podcasts, and more.
- Powerful Crash Analysis Studio sessions that are resulting in concrete changes in places like Richmond, Virginia (literally, they’re finally fixing unsafe intersections that were singled out in the third Studio session).
- On-the-ground coaching and training being provided in four Community Action Lab sites across North America to demonstrate what happens when we implement the Strong Towns approach to public investment and engagement.
- Support systems that are spooling up to help over 50 more Local Conversation groups get started with another 700 interested participants in the pipeline receiving training to kick things off where they live.
- Cutting-edge social media messaging that’s sparking a wave of new interest in these topics.
- And so much more!
This entire project is built on a conviction that we become more and more un-ignorable as the reach of our membership extends into communities all across North America, and even to other parts of the world.
While I hope that you’ll consider making a contribution to Strong Towns, I’d like to ask you to do one challenging thing today:
Can you ask a friend or colleague or family member to become a member of Strong Towns? Send them this link to get signed up or make a contribution on their behalf at https://www. strongtowns.org/membership.
There’s probably someone who comes to mind! Perhaps they’ll be like the high school teacher I met last week who contributed on behalf of the 13-year-old student who introduced her to Strong Towns. (How cool is that?)
Your help makes all the difference.
Thank you,
— Norm Van Eeden Petersman, Member Advocate for Strong Towns