Advertise on podcast: The Bottom-Up Revolution

Getting involved in your city doesn’t have to feel like homework. Margaret Allen works at a bank and is part of Strong Des Moines, where meetings feel less like formal civic duty and more like a group of people genuinely excited about figuring things out together. That atmosphere has pulled her deeper into city budgets, council meetings, and conversations she once would have tuned out. It has also made the group more willing to borrow good ideas from elsewhere, including Strong Towns Chicago’s improv series, as they find their own ways to make local issues easier to talk about and more fun to be part of. ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES Strong Towns Des Moines (Site, Instagram, LinkedIn) Find a Local Conversation near you (Site) Norm Van Eeden Petersman (LinkedIn) Do you know someone who would make for a great Bottom-Up Revolution guest? Let us know here.   This podcast is made possible by Strong Towns members. Thank you! Join fellow members discussing this episode in The Commons.

A small house in the backyard can solve a housing problem that changes several times over the life of a family. It might first give an aging parent a place nearby, then become a home for an adult child, a rental, or eventually a place for the homeowners themselves. Bradley Jones, founder of Tiny Homes of Tucson, has seen that flexibility become one of the biggest reasons families decide to build ADUs. In central Tucson, many older homes sit on deep lots with little more than dirt, a cactus, and room to spare, which gives families a chance to turn unused backyard space into housing that can keep adapting as their needs change. ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES Bradley Jones (LinkedIn) Tiny Homes of Tucson (Site, Instagram, YouTube) Local Recommendations:‍ Saguaro National Park Mount Lemmon Desert Museum Tombstone Amelia's Wildflower Tiffany Owens Reed (Instagram) Do you know someone who would make for a great Bottom-Up Revolution guest? Let us know here!   This podcast is made possible by Strong Towns members. Thank you! Join fellow members discussing this episode in The Commons.

Daniel Basubas thought New Zealand would feel very different from the sprawling Southern California communities where he grew up. Instead, he found many of the same development patterns and many of the same arguments over parking, bike lanes, and who streets are for. In Dunedin, he now helps lead the Urbanerds Ōtepoti Dunedin, a Strong Towns Local Conversation that meets at the local pub. The group gives people a low-pressure way to talk through those issues, meet others who care about the city, and get more comfortable participating in local decisions, whether that means commenting on a council plan or speaking at a public meeting. ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES Daniel Basubas (LinkedIn) Find a Local Conversation near you (Site) Norm Van Eeden Petersman (LinkedIn) Do you know someone who would make for a great Bottom-Up Revolution guest? Let us know here.   This podcast is made possible by Strong Towns members. Thank you! Join fellow members discussing this episode in The Commons.

A lot in Fairfax, Virginia, sat empty for 25 years, long enough that neighbors barely noticed it anymore. Oren Falkowitz, founder of Area 2 Farms, sees places like that as potential farms. He joins urban planner Jeffery Tompkins to talk about bringing food production back into neighborhoods using vacant lots, overlooked buildings, and other spaces conventional development often passes over. Their Urban Farms Toolkit tackles one of the biggest obstacles: zoning rules written for a very different kind of agriculture. For vacant parcels that may never attract conventional development, a farm can give the land a role in the neighborhood again. ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES Oren Falkowitz (LinkedIn), Area 2 Farms (Site) Jeffery Tompkins (LinkedIn), Proformus (Site), Thinking Big By Thinking Small (Substack) Urban Farms Toolkit (Site) Local Recommendations:‍ Natural State Provisions Wonderland Books Tiffany Owens Reed (Instagram) Do you know someone who would make for a great Bottom-Up Revolution guest? Let us know here!   This podcast is made possible by Strong Towns members. Thank you! Join fellow members discussing this episode in The Commons.

Floating homes are already common in parts of Europe, and Jeff Kraatz thinks North American cities could use the same idea to create entirely new neighborhoods on the water. The founder of Floating Towns explains what it actually takes to move beyond a few individual houseboats and build a community of 50 or 60 homes. The homes may float, but the harder work still happens on land: planning, approvals, infrastructure, affordability, and getting local leaders on board. With miles of waterfront sitting largely unused, Kraatz sees room for cities to grow in a direction they rarely consider. ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES Jeff Kraatz (LinkedIn) Floating Town (Site) Norm Van Eeden Petersman (LinkedIn) Do you know someone who would make for a great Bottom-Up Revolution guest? Let us know here.   This podcast is made possible by Strong Towns members. Thank you! Join fellow members discussing this episode in The Commons.

A developer can check every box for parks and shared spaces and still create a place nobody wants to spend time in. Colby Cox has seen stormwater ponds, tiny playgrounds, and generic amenity packages counted as community space even when they do very little to bring different people together or give them a reason to stay. Norm Van Eeden Petersman talks with the Convergence Communities founder about what changes when those spaces are designed around actual human activity: kids playing, teenagers hanging out, people eating, exercising, gathering, and simply being around one another. A park can occupy the right number of acres, but what makes it feel alive enough that people actually choose to be there? ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES Colby Cox (LinkedIn) Convergence Communities (Site) The Granary (Site) Dogfish Brewery (Site) Norm Van Eeden Petersman (LinkedIn) Do you know someone who would make for a great Bottom-Up Revolution guest? Let us know here.   This podcast is made possible by Strong Towns members. Thank you! Join fellow members discussing this episode in The Commons.

When Calgary’s main water feeder line broke for the second time in two years, Nathan Hawryluk decided he needed to get more involved. He already had an unusual view of the city’s finances as a planning commissioner, where questions about new neighborhoods and the infrastructure needed to support them regularly cross his desk. Norm talks with Nathan about the “bad Goldilocks spot” behind those numbers, where the city’s obligations and the revenue available to meet them have drifted apart. As Nathan puts it, “Our taxes are too high for people to pay comfortably and too low to actually do the job.” ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES The Commons (Site) Strong Towns Calgary (Site) "I got put on a committee... now what?" Office Hours with John Reuter Norm Van Eeden Petersman (LinkedIn) Do you know someone who would make for a great Bottom-Up Revolution guest? Let us know here.   This podcast is made possible by Strong Towns members. Thank you! Join fellow members discussing this episode in The Commons.

What if an extra bedroom could make housing more affordable for a student while helping an older adult stay in their home? Alison Donnally founded Joey Co. to pair students looking for housing with older adults who have space to spare and could use help with everyday tasks. Students pay rent, earn money back through agreed-upon work, and gain a different kind of connection to the community around them. Donnally talks about what makes these matches work, why home sharing is still unusual in the U.S., and what this model reveals about how many housing options we’ve left off the table. ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES Alison Donnally (LinkedIn) Joey Co (Site) Local Recommendations:‍ Sol Food Pollo Tropical Tiffany Owens Reed (Instagram) Do you know someone who would make for a great Bottom-Up Revolution guest? Let us know here!   This podcast is made possible by Strong Towns members. Thank you! Join fellow members discussing this episode in The Commons.

Near El Morro, one of Puerto Rico’s most recognizable historic sites, a government road project called for cutting down 26 mature trees, widening a road, adding a roundabout, and turning part of a grassy area into parking. Giancarlo Gonzalez, an Old San Juan resident and founding member of a Strong Towns Local Conversation in San Juan, explains how neighbors discovered the plan and began asking why it was needed at all. Their petition has drawn more than 8,000 signatures, pulled the National Park Service into the fight, and forced new scrutiny of a project residents say was moving forward without their input. ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES Save El Morro (Site) VSJ Peatonal (Site) Local Recommendations:‍ Spiga Materia Prima Tiffany Owens Reed (Instagram) Do you know someone who would make for a great Bottom-Up Revolution guest? Let us know here!   This podcast is made possible by Strong Towns members. Thank you! Join fellow members discussing this episode in The Commons.

After moving to Chattanooga, Lisa hit three potholes in three years and ended up buying five new tires. She knew people elsewhere had taken pothole repairs into their own hands, and as a mosaic artist, she already had the materials to try her own version. Soon, bright smiley faces started appearing in Chattanooga’s streets. They attracted attention from drivers, neighbors, and eventually the city itself, raising questions about safety, public space, and what happens when one resident decides to fix something in her own strange, joyful way. Now Lisa keeps stacks of smileys in her car, ready for the next pothole that could use a little silliness. ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES Potholes of Chattanooga (Instagram) Chattanooga’s Smiley‑Face Potholes Show Creative Civic Problem‑Solving (Article) Norm Van Eeden Petersman (LinkedIn) Do you know someone who would make for a great Bottom-Up Revolution guest? Let us know here.   This podcast is made possible by Strong Towns members. Thank you! Join fellow members discussing this episode in The Commons.

When Arec Ligon moved to Brownsburg, Indiana, he was frustrated by how few places nearby seemed worth lingering in. That frustration became Linger, a growing map of user-submitted third places across the country. Instead of ranking businesses, the site asks different questions: Is this place welcoming? Can people stay without spending much? Is the walk there actually comfortable? Arec built Linger around contributions from people who know these places firsthand which lets the map capture qualities a search engine usually misses, including the local stories that explain why people keep coming back. ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES Linger (Site, Instagram) Arec Ligon (LinkedIn) Norm Van Eeden Petersman (LinkedIn) Do you know someone who would make for a great Bottom-Up Revolution guest? Let us know here.   This podcast is made possible by Strong Towns members. Thank you! Join fellow members discussing this episode in The Commons.

Anne Keehnen has spent years building relationships in Nacogdoches, Texas, one conversation and one local effort at a time. She’s run for city council, worked with younger residents on walkability, stayed involved in city meetings, and kept looking for ways to connect people around street safety and neighborhood life. Anne compares that work to building good compost: the conversations and relationships accumulate, creating better conditions for the next idea to take root. Anne describes what she has learned from staying with a place for years and why seeing the same people, listening to their stories, and earning their trust can become part of the work itself. ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES Reclaiming Your Community: You Don’t Have to Move out of Your Neighborhood to Live in a Better One by Majora Carter (Book) Strong Towns Speech Club (Site) Norm Van Eeden Petersman (LinkedIn) Do you know someone who would make for a great Bottom-Up Revolution guest? Let us know here.   This podcast is made possible by Strong Towns members. Thank you! Join fellow members discussing this episode in The Commons.

Most neighborhoods have an invisible boundary where public space ends and private property begins. Rachael Harms Mahlandt started questioning that boundary after discovering tiny installations scattered around Portland: a rubber duck exchange, a toy car swap, miniature galleries, and other invitations to stop and interact. She eventually built her own, then began mapping hundreds of similar projects through Sidewalk Joy. What started with a dinosaur diorama in her front yard has become a way for strangers to linger, trade something small, meet a neighbor, and treat the edge of private property as a place for connection. ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES Rachael Harms Mahlandt (LinkedIn) Sidewalk Joy (Site) Local Recommendations:‍ Zuckercreme Strawberry Museum Mr. Plywood Threshold Brewery Tiffany Owens Reed (Instagram) Do you know someone who would make for a great Bottom-Up Revolution guest? Let us know here!   This podcast is made possible by Strong Towns members. Thank you! Join fellow members discussing this episode in The Commons.

Somerset, Kentucky, had historical markers scattered around downtown, but Jody McRoberts suspected many people barely noticed them. Through Strong Towns Pulaski, she turned those overlooked signs into a reason for people to slow down and look more closely at the place they lived. The group organized a walking tour, recruited five volunteer guides, and partnered with the local historical society to add research beyond what was written on each marker. One stop at the century-old Virginia Theater opened up a bigger question: What is an old building worth to a downtown when saving it costs money, but losing it would leave a hole behind? ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES Strong Towns Pulaski (Facebook Group, YouTube) Somerset Kentucky Walking Tours (YouTube Channel) Norm Van Eeden Petersman (LinkedIn) Do you know someone who would make for a great Bottom-Up Revolution guest? Let us know here.   This podcast is made possible by Strong Towns members. Thank you! Join fellow members discussing this episode in The Commons.

Density is often pictured as a huge apartment building surrounded by pavement, while a yard is treated as something only suburbia can provide. Dr. Alicia Pederson, founder of Courtyard Urbanist, wants cities to look at the block differently. Courtyard blocks arrange many small multifamily buildings around shared green space, giving families larger homes, nearby neighbors, and somewhere for children to play. The form can provide more housing and more usable outdoor space at the same time, while creating enough density to support local shops and transit. American cities haven’t run out of ways to build good family housing; they’ve written many of those possibilities out of their zoning codes. ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES Dr. Alicia Pederson (LinkedIn) Courtyard Urbanist (Site) Local Recommendations:‍ Merz Apothecary Gene's Sausage Shop Tiffany Owens Reed (Instagram) Do you know someone who would make for a great Bottom-Up Revolution guest? Let us know here!   This podcast is made possible by Strong Towns members. Thank you! Join fellow members discussing this episode in The Commons.