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…
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: 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….”
OPINION: How to Start Asking the Right Questions about Infrastructure Funding
“How do we get more….?” is the question of the addict. It allows destructive habits to conflate wants and needs…
OPINION: If We Want to Make Things Better, We’ll Have to Do It Ourselves, Part Two
The crossing of a Rubicon is also important because it can’t be uncrossed. A norm breached is no longer a norm…
OPINION: If We Want to Make Things Better, We’ll Have to Do It Ourselves, Part One
The fact that we live with injustice should not prevent us from seeing where people are broken…
The Pros and Cons of Strong Towns, Part Two
The neighborhood I live in used to have a dozen different grocery stores. Today it has none…
The Pros and Cons of Strong Towns, Part One
In terms of strong arguments against, there are two common ones that are weak and then one really good one that is never made…
OPINION: A Plan for Strong Rural Communities
America’s rural places are economically and culturally fragile, lagging urbanized areas in key metrics of health and success. The gap is growing…
OPINION: It’s All Local Now
It is 2am and I’m writing an article I wasn’t planning to write. In fact, until my teenage daughters intervened, I was planning to have a nice dinner…