As Chris suggests, walking “is being forced to watch the whole movie.” In contrast, being driven or even riding a bike is more like teleporting in…
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.
OPINION: Why We Need to Embrace Traffic Congestion
We have spent trillions making it easy to drive everywhere, so much so that we made it difficult to walk anywhere…
OPINION: A Year of Living with Intention
Those lavish efforts were essentially a joint project between the titans of industry (let’s just call them “corporations”) and those who had the ability to change public policy (let’s simplify and call them “government”)…
Denver Housing Program So Successful, Federal Government Offers Millions to Expand It
“It has really confirmed everything that we as an organization have known about housing with supportive services…”
OPINION: Five Community Values for Building a Strong Town
When we study pre-Depression cities, we find that most of what was built was adaptable. That’s the legacy of building in a time when you couldn’t afford to make mistakes…
OPINION: Will We Have an Infrastructure Bill? Who Cares?
Absent any serious conversation about substantive reform, does it really matter if the legislation funds repair of 12% of highway miles or only manages to fund 8%?
ESSAY: Learning from the Ruins of Pompeii
The building was located near the edge of town. The land was likely acquired for free or at a very low price. Prime real estate near the center of town would have been much more expensive…
OPINION: Federal Infrastructure Proposal is a Fraud
What we’re watching is an unraveling, the last gasps of a social and economic order that came of age in the post-war boom…
OPINION: One Billion Bollards
Construction workers doing maintenance on a roadway rightly demand concrete barriers between them and the traffic flowing next to them…
OPINION: A Plan for Parking, That You Can Use
We have a bizarre amount of parking: the data we’ve now gotten a look at affirms that we rarely use even 70% of the public parking…
OPINION: A National Infrastructure Bank is a Stupid Idea
What we desperately need is a Strong Towns approach to strengthen the balance sheets of local communities and help them build real wealth, stability, and prosperity…
OPINION: How Local Leaders Should Adapt to the American Jobs Plan
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…
OPINION: The American Jobs Plan Delays Necessary Infrastructure Reform
The things we most urgently need to do, don’t require more money, and a wave of federal funding run through these legacy programs makes local reform more difficult to accomplish…
OPINION: When it Comes to Infrastructure, the American Jobs Plan is Business as Usual
Even stranger is the notion that, with 45,000 bridges in poor condition, we should focus on 10,000 “smaller” bridges…
OPINION: The Half-Truth About Infrastructure at the Heart of the American Jobs Plan
Imagine one of those jesters who spins plates. They start out with one plate spinning. Then another. Then another. It’s really impressive…
OPINION: The American Jobs Plan Will Make Our Infrastructure Crisis Worse
The revenue the government receives as a result of the investment must cover the cost of the investment, otherwise it’s not an investment. It’s just consumption…
OPINION: What We Can Learn from the Skinniest Home in London
Building places with many hands from the bottom-up is messy and fraught with challenges, but it also gives us the capacity to evolve and adapt…
OPINION: Wasting Time, Wasting Money
“Plans to put the property to use have been underway in some form or another since the city voted to begin working to create a formal downtown area in 2009….”