Advertise on podcast: The Strong Towns Podcast

Massachusetts voters are being asked a surprisingly simple housing question: Should a single-family home be legal on a 5,000-square-foot lot with public sewer and water? Chuck talks with Andrew Mikula, a Boston policy researcher who spearheaded the volunteer effort behind Question 7, the ballot measure that would make that standard legal statewide. Andrew explains why the coalition chose such a modest baseline, how much control cities would still keep, and what infrastructure and affordability have to do with a seemingly small change in lot size. The ballot question sets the baseline, but the next fight is much more local: turning that rule into something that actually works in existing neighborhoods. Additional Show Notes Andrew Mikula (LinkedIn) Yes on 7 (Site, Instagram, Facebook) State Preemption Should Help Cities Become Better Cities (Article) Chuck Marohn (Substack)   This podcast is made possible by Strong Towns members. Thank you! Join fellow members discussing this episode in The Commons.

Parking reform used to feel like a niche fight. Now North Carolina has eliminated most parking mandates statewide, cities are following one another’s lead, and Tony Jordan says he sometimes finds out about reforms only after they happen. The Parking Reform Network co-founder explains what comes next once cities stop requiring businesses and homes to build parking by formula. That means dealing with crowded curbs, empty downtown lots, pricing, and the fear that removing parking will make access worse. Getting rid of the mandate may be the easy part, but once the mandates disappear, cities still have to answer the question those rules were trying to avoid: when parking really is scarce, who gets the space? Additional Show Notes Tony Jordan (LinkedIn) Parking Reform Network (Site) North Carolina eliminates minimum parking requirements for new developments (Article) Parking Reform Policy Cookbook (Site) Chuck Marohn (Substack)   This podcast is made possible by Strong Towns members. Thank you! Join fellow members discussing this episode in The Commons.

If housing feels impossibly expensive, one answer is that a smaller home, a less in-demand place, or a slower climb may simply be part of starting out and working your way up. But what if getting the house that has long stood at the center of the American Dream also pulls you farther from the jobs, family, community, or daily life you actually value? Continuing the conversation from Kevin Klinkenberg’s Messy City Podcast episode, “Is the Housing ‘Crisis’ Real?”, Chuck Marohn sits down with Kevin, urban designer Camille Cortes, and architectural designer Sheinya Joseph to ask whether younger adults can still follow the path his parents took toward the American Dream. If homeownership is still possible, what are people actually willing to trade to get it? Additional Show Notes Is the Housing "Crisis" Real? (Podcast Episode) Kevin Klinkenberg (LinkedIn) Camille Cortes (LinkedIn) Sheinya Joseph (LinkedIn) Homebuyers and the house price squeeze (Substack) Chuck Marohn (Substack)   This podcast is made possible by Strong Towns members. Thank you! Join fellow members discussing this episode in The Commons.

After six years of legal fights, we finally have a federal court ruling in Chuck’s dispute with Minnesota’s engineering licensing board. Chuck and Strong Towns executive director John Reuter go back to the complaint that started the case, why Chuck’s temporarily lapsed license became the opening for the board’s action, and how a dispute over his public advocacy turned into years of hearings and litigation. Chuck also reflects on reaching the end of a fight that has followed him for years and what the decision could mean for other engineers who have held back from speaking publicly about their profession. Additional Show Notes Confessions of a Recovering Engineer (Site) Can an Engineer Speak Out for Reform? (Article) Chuck Marohn (Substack)   This podcast is made possible by Strong Towns members. Thank you! Join fellow members discussing this episode in The Commons.

Strong Towns members filled the Commons with questions, and Chuck sat down to answer as many as he could. Should cities require data centers to pay for their own eventual cleanup? Has Strong Towns been too wary of the YIMBY movement? Are e-bikes headed toward a backlash before cities have figured out what they’re good for? He also gets into tiny homes, land value taxes, coworking spaces, dream podcast guests, and whether Strong Towns ideas are actually becoming mainstream. Members can join the Commons to submit future questions, read Chuck’s columns before publication, and take part in the discussions that follow. Additional Show Notes Friday News Digest (Site) A Mayor Willing to Tell His City the Truth (Article) Local Conversations (Site) The Commons (Site) Strong Towns Membership (Site) Chuck Marohn (Substack)   This podcast is made possible by Strong Towns members. Thank you! Join fellow members discussing this episode in The Commons.

A strong bond rating can tell investors that a city is likely to repay its debt. It says much less about whether that city can afford to replace the roads, pipes, and other infrastructure its residents depend on. Richard Ciccarone, president emeritus of Merit Research Services, developed a new metric using financial statements from nearly 2,000 cities to estimate that burden. When he compared the infrastructure burden with government bond ratings, the correlation was surprisingly weak. Cities can remain attractive to creditors while aging assets accumulate replacement costs that no bondholder can force them to address. Additional Show Notes Richard Ciccarone (LinkedIn) Infrastructure & Capital Assets Commitment Burden: Quantifying the Hidden Fiscal Risk (PDF) 'We Built the Best Interstate System. Now It’s Falling Apart.' (Video) Mission Accomplished Report (Site) Chuck Marohn (Substack)   This podcast is made possible by Strong Towns members. Thank you! Join fellow members discussing this episode in The Commons.

Atlanta’s Buford Highway supports apartment communities, small businesses, and an international food scene that draws people from across the region. It also carries six to eight lanes of fast traffic, and drivers use it as an alternate route when nearby interstates clog. More than 20% of trips happen outside a car, yet roughly 90% of the corridor’s space is reserved for vehicles. Rebecca Serna, executive director of Propel ATL, and Sagirah Jones, the organization’s program director, hosted walk audits to put residents, planners, and elected officials on the same road and show how people navigate it every day. The audits exposed an unexpected barrier: many people supported bigger changes while remaining convinced that someone else would never allow them. Additional Show Notes Rebecca Serna (LinkedIn) Sagirah Jones (LinkedIn) Propel ATL (Site) Buford Highway Community Walk Audit Summary of Findings (PDF) AARP Walk Audit Tool Kit (Site) 'We Built the Best Interstate System. Now It’s Falling Apart.' (Video) Mission Accomplished Report (Site) Chuck Marohn (Substack)   This podcast is made possible by Strong Towns members. Thank you! Join fellow members discussing this episode in The Commons.

The Highway Trust Fund brings in roughly $45 billion a year and spends closer to $80 billion. Congress keeps the system running by borrowing the difference and moving that money into a program still treated as if road users fully fund it. Rebecca Higgins, vice president of policy at the Eno Center for Transportation, explains how the fund reached this point and why the gap keeps growing. She and Chuck examine the choices lawmakers have avoided for decades, including higher taxes, lower spending, new fees, or a smaller federal role, and what happens when highway funding begins competing with other underfunded national priorities. Additional Show Notes Rebecca Higgins (LinkedIn) The Eno Center for Transportation (Site) The Last Exit: Fixing the Highway Trust Fund while Solvency is still Solvable (Report) 'We Built the Best Interstate System. Now It’s Falling Apart.' (Video) Mission Accomplished Report (Site) Chuck Marohn (Substack)   This podcast is made possible by Strong Towns members. Thank you! Join fellow members discussing this episode in The Commons.

Cities often spend years studying a street before making a change, only to discover that the public is reacting to plans no one has actually experienced. Krista Nightengale, executive director of Better Block, explains another approach: build a temporary version, invite people into it, gather data, and adjust what does not work. She and Chuck talk about winning over skeptical engineers, learning from residents, and making safer streets without waiting for a perfect plan. The goal is not to prove the first idea was correct, but to learn enough, quickly enough, to make the next decision better. Additional Show Notes Krista Nightengale (LinkedIn) Better Block (Site) Wikiblock (Site) Chuck Marohn (Substack)   This podcast is made possible by Strong Towns members. Thank you! Join fellow members discussing this episode in The Commons.

Putting a route near every community sounds fair until the buses only arrive once an hour. Jarrett Walker, author of Human Transit and principal of the firm helping Des Moines rethink its bus network, explains why cities cannot maximize frequency, coverage, and affordability at the same time. In Des Moines, the tradeoff comes with a 10% service cut, long waits, indirect routes, and streets that make some bus stops difficult or dangerous to reach. To understand whether the system is useful enough for people to actually rely on it, Walker asks a more revealing question: how much of the city can someone reach within a reasonable amount of time? Additional Show Notes Jarrett Walker (LinkedIn, Site) Human Transit (Book) Des Moines: Welcome to Your New Transit Network (Article) Final Network Report Reimagine DART (PDF) Chuck Marohn (Substack)   This podcast is made possible by Strong Towns members. Thank you! Join fellow members discussing this episode in The Commons.

Street trees, benches, slower speeds, and beautiful proportions are often treated as extras, added only after the “real” engineering work is done. Victor Dover argues that this gets the whole assignment wrong. In this episode, he talks about the second edition of Street Design: The Secret to Great Cities and Towns and why great streets have to be designed as places, not just routes. Dover makes the case that beauty belongs in the brief from the beginning, because when a street is designed only for traffic flow, that is all it can ever really become: a place for traffic. Additional Show Notes Victor Dover (LinkedIn) Street Design (Book) Dover, Kohl, & Partners (Site) Chuck Marohn (Substack)   This podcast is made possible by Strong Towns members. Thank you! Join fellow members discussing this episode in The Commons.

Pedestrian deaths have climbed sharply since 2009, yet transportation agencies often point to small, recent dips as proof that things are getting better. Beth Osborne, president and CEO of Smart Growth America, returns to the Strong Towns Podcast to talk about the latest Dangerous by Design report and the choices that keep making American roads so deadly. She and Chuck dig into why state-owned roads are especially dangerous, how street design shapes driver behavior, and why blaming pedestrians or waiting for automated vehicles keeps the focus away from the roads themselves. The big question is this: when will we stop treating roadway deaths as the cost of getting around and start changing the roads that make them predictable? Additional Show Notes Beth Osborne (LinkedIn) Smart Growth America (Site) Dangerous by Design 2026 Report (PDF) The Deadly Rise of Giant Trucks and S.U.V.s (Article) Chuck Marohn (Substack)   This podcast is made possible by Strong Towns members. Thank you! Join fellow members discussing this episode in The Commons.

Strong Towns has always warned cities about the danger of fragile growth. Now, Chuck is applying that same lesson to the movement he helped build. In this episode, Chuck explains why Strong Towns can no longer depend on everything landing on his desk, and introduces the organization’s new Executive Director. His guest shares how he found Strong Towns as a Sandpoint city council member, his organizing work in Idaho and at the League of Conservation Voters, and why he finally decided he had to be inside the organization, not just on the board. Together, they talk about culture, management, local conversations, and the kind of leadership Strong Towns needs for its next phase. Additional Show Notes John Reuter (LinkedIn) Strong Towns Team (Site) Chuck Marohn (Substack)   This podcast is made possible by Strong Towns members. Thank you! Join fellow members discussing this episode in The Commons.

Lars Doucet digs into a problem that shows up in expensive cities, sprawling suburbs, and even countries Americans often point to as models: land. Monopoly, he argues, became frustrating by design because it captured something real about how land markets work. The episode connects that lesson to housing costs, land value tax, Henry George, Norway, Texas, sprawl, and the uncomfortable question every city eventually faces: who gets the value created by a place? Additional Show Notes Lars Doucet (LinkedIn) Land Economics (Site) Land is a Big Deal (Site) Enacting Land Value Return in your hometown (Substack) Chuck Marohn (Substack)   This podcast is made possible by Strong Towns members. Thank you! Join fellow members discussing this episode in The Commons.

Beth Osborne has watched the same story play out five times: a new federal transportation bill arrives with big language about goals and accountability, states adopt the right words, and nothing changes. Osborne, who led Transportation for America and worked inside USDOT, has been through five federal transportation reauthorizations, watched reform language get adopted and neutralized every single time, and arrived at a conclusion that would have surprised her younger self. Recorded at the Strong Towns National Gathering in Fayetteville, Arkansas, this conversation with Chuck Marohn digs into the gap between what the federal transportation program claims to do and what it actually delivers — on safety, on repair, on congestion, on emissions — and whether there's any version of federal involvement worth keeping. Additional Show Notes Beth Osborne (LinkedIn) Transportation for America (Site) Mission Accomplished Report (Site) The Highway Expansion Lightning Lane (Substack) Chuck Marohn (Substack)   This podcast is made possible by Strong Towns members. Thank you! Join fellow members discussing this episode in The Commons.