The Strong Towns Podcast

On their weekly podcast, Rachel and Chuck discuss the way the Strong Towns movement and incremental development can be a path toward inclusion for women, minorities, and other marginalized communities. They also talk about a recent trip to Burlington, VT and an upcoming visit to Los Angeles and Pasadena, CA. Also included in this episode, book and movie recommendations from Chuck and Rachel.

Are your taxes paying for the cost of your street? Nitin Gadia has created an interactive mapping tool to explore the answer to this question in his hometown of Ames, Iowa. Nitin works for MapStory, an open platform for organizing our knowledge about how the world changes over time and space. We highly recommend that you visit http://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2016/2/11/podcast-nitin-gadia-on-mapping to view the map we discuss in this episode, as well as a guide for creating your own map and more from Nitin.

Chuck and Rachel discuss upcoming trips to Burlington, VT and Los Angeles, as well as the Flint water crisis and pipe maintenance issues throughout the country. They also touch on a couple books about the Nat Turner rebellion and the Holocaust.

From a beautiful little neighborhood in Oklahoma City, Chuck Marohn interviews ULI members Shane Hampton and Jane Jenkins in front of a live audience. The conversation is about Oklahoma City past, present and future.

Rachel and Chuck recap #NoNewRoads Week and discuss Chuck's busy week of travel in January, including a trip to Oklahoma City, Deerfield Beach, FL and the City Engineer's Association of Minnesota Conference, where he encountered some backwards messaging but was able to sway some engineers toward the Strong Towns message. Also, they take a brief look at Donald Trump and his appeal to the wage earning class.

Susan Handy of the University of California at Davis speaks on induced traffic and impacts of fighting congestion through adding capacity. A summary of the findings can be found here.

Former Mayor of Seattle, Michael McGinn, discusses the tunneling project currently underway in Seattle, the discussions that led to the decision to proceed with a tunnel and subsequent actions by the governor, legislature and city to deal with the aftermath. McGinn also discusses the tradeoffs of how we fund transportation and what it will take to start spending less and getting more.

A conversation with Kevin Blanchard, former Public Works Director for the city of Lafayette. Kevin was part of the conversations in Lafayette involving Strong towns and Urban 3. He was instrumental in making the conversation over the fiscal realities of transportation spending part of the broader community dialog. His insights come from experience and echo many of the things being discussed by public works directors around the country.

Chuck and Rachel discuss this week's #NoNewRoads campaign. They touch on the new federal transportation funding bill, issues in Texas, Minnesota and Washington state, as well as a fascinating new tool you can use to look at transportation funding priorities in your own state.

Rachel Quednau interviews Randy Simes all the way from Seoul, South Korea, to talk about the Ohio Department of Transportation’s expected announcement of a major shift toward “fix it first” policy, and away from new road projects. Randy is the founder and managing editor of UrbanCincy, news sources for Cincinnati’s urban core, as well as an urban planner who has worked around the world.

Special guest Joe Minicozzi joins Chuck Marohn to talk about the movie The Big Short and their own experience with big money and shady land deals.

Member Support Specialist, Jason Schaefer, makes a guest appearance on the podcast along with Rachel Quednau, to discuss the week's events in Santa Rosa, CA, as well as new members, favorite podcasts, and the book, The Four Hour Work Week. Plus they share an announcement about an upcoming Strong Towns campaign.

Strong Towns is having a board meeting this weekend and Chuck's thoughts are on the changes the organization has made over the past year and what we face in the future. This episode is about the organization behind the Strong Towns movement.

Chuck and Rachel discuss a recent trip to Olympia, WA for a Curbside Chat, plus diversity (or lack of it) in local government. They also discuss the question, related to a recent Strong Towns story: Should local governments run golf courses and other public amenities or not?

After listening to the lecture series Redefining Reality: The Intellectual Implications of Modern Science, Chuck has some questions about whether or not modern economics, with it's Keynesian paradigm, is stuck at the Newtonian phase and is in need of an Einstein.