You don’t have to look far to see that things feel unstable right now…
Author: Charles Marohn
Charles Marohn is a Professional Engineer (PE) and a member of the American Institute of Certified Planners (AICP). He’s the Founder and President of StrongTowns.org . He was named one of the 10 Most Influential Urbanists of all time by Planetizen in 2017.
STRONG TOWNS: Real Change Happens Locally
Systems that have failed us for decades are cracking. And while that’s unsettling, it also means we have an opportunity — an opening — to build something better…
STRONG TOWNS: Economies of Scale Won’t Solve the Housing Crisis
The innovation we need is a bottom-up revolution — one where local governments take the lead in deregulating and financing the construction of entry-level housing…
STRONG TOWNS: Evidence of Broken Municipal Governments
We’re rolling out the Fiscal Health Assessment this April, aligning with tax season, to ensure that cities have a way to make sense of their own budgets…
OPINION: America’s ‘Grand Housing Bargain’ is Broken; Time for a New One
The grand bargain we’ve been living under is broken. But with a new commitment to incremental growth and thoughtful change, we can create neighborhoods that are both dynamic and enduring…
OPINION: Why We Need More Housing Everywhere, Part Two
This brings us to the first critical insight of incremental development that I want to share in this column…
OPINION: Why We Need More Housing Everywhere, Part One
I want to draw two insights relating human development — or the growth of any organic system — to the way cities evolve…
STRONG TOWNS: Step One, Don’t Be a Jerk
For Strong Towns to win, we need the broad culture to change. We change the broad culture by being a positive force…
STRONG TOWNS: The Housing Market is a Bubble Full of Fraud
Prices are artificially high due primarily to the downstream effects of financialization. Localized supply and demand dynamics are a mess…
STRONG TOWNS: Here’s the Real Reason Houston Is Going Broke, Part Two
State and federal governments will pay cities to make bad financial decisions and transactions not in the broad financial interest of their own residents…
STRONG TOWNS: The Real Reason Houston Is Going Broke, Part One
In many ways, Houston is the cleanest shirt in the laundry basket, but it’s still a dirty shirt. Their budget is broken, their approach to finance an absolute disaster…
STRONG TOWNS: Where Do Infrastructure Projects Come From?
The question the council is being asked is overly simple: do we want ostensibly free money from the state and federal government to address one of our many problems?
OPINION: Is the U.S. Trapped in a Perpetual Housing Bubble?
A post-bubble recovery in the housing market, one that restores it to unsustainable levels, feels like madness…
The 2023 Christmas Cookie Inflation Guide
We might be told that inflation is up only 3.2% (3.3% for food), but in my reality I’m paying 12% more for baking ingredients than I paid last year….
OPINION: Where Will Housing Prices Be, a Year from Now?
Interest rates near zero is like removing gravity from the financial markets. Do it briefly and it feels kind of fun, but do it for a decade and a half and things start to grow and morph in strange ways…
OPINION: Death on the Highway
I’m treading in these sensitive waters because I want to make a point about the human condition and our response…
OPINION: Building More Roads While Rome Burns
Residents pay their taxes, pay tolls, and support initiatives to fund transportation, with the understanding that the state will properly maintain the roads and bridges they construct…
OPINION: Legalizing Incremental Change — Everywhere — To Meet America’s Housing Needs
In cities of all sizes and geographies, we witness housing markets that are broken…