Podcast · News

The Strong Towns Podcast

by Strong Towns · English · News

New episodes: Weekly
Typical length: 57 min
Latest: 5 Oct 2026
Language: English

Latest episode

5 Oct 2026 · 55 min

How Do We Design for Drivers?

Drivers are usually treated as the obstacle when cities try to build better places for walking, biking and transit. Houssam Elokda of Happy Cities and Nick Falbo of Mobycon argue that this framing misses something important: people-centered places still have to work for the people arriving by car. Their framework starts with a counterintuitive idea borrowed from Dutch design, that going slower can be faster, because what drivers often value most is a trip that feels steady and predictable rather than one that moves quickly in short bursts. This is a different way of thinking about street…

Play episode WhatsApp Download

Earlier episodes 29 most recent

E720 · 21 Sep 2026 · 49 min

Massachusetts Is Putting Starter Homes on the Ballot

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…
E719 · 14 Sep 2026 · 54 min

What Comes After Cities Kill Parking Mandates?

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…
E718 · 7 Sep 2026 · 1 hr 5 min

Is Homeownership Still Part of the American Dream?

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…
E717 · 31 Aug 2026 · 46 min

Chuck’s Engineering Lawsuit Finally Has a Ruling

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…
E716 · 24 Aug 2026 · 1 hr 3 min

Chuck on Data Centers, YIMBYs and E-Bikes

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…
E715 · 10 Aug 2026 · 1 hr 6 min

The $1 Trillion Infrastructure Backlog Cities Aren’t Counting

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…
E714 · 3 Aug 2026 · 50 min

This Atlanta Corridor Makes Walking Normal and Deadly

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…
E713 · 27 Jul 2026 · 52 min

America’s Half-Funded Highway System

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…
E712 · 20 Jul 2026 · 57 min

A Better Block Versus Years of Planning

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…
E711 · 13 Jul 2026 · 1 hr 3 min

The Transit Tradeoff No City Can Escape

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…
E710 · 6 Jul 2026 · 1 hr

Why Great Streets Are Not Enhancements

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…
E709 · 29 Jun 2026 · 57 min

The Deadly Road Design We Keep Defending

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…
E708 · 22 Jun 2026 · 1 hr 2 min

Inside the Strong Towns Leadership Transition

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,…
E707 · 15 Jun 2026 · 1 hr 9 min

What's the Housing Crisis Beneath the Housing Crisis?

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…
E706 · 8 Jun 2026 · 42 min

Rethinking the Federal Role in Transportation

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…
E705 · 28 May 2026 · 39 min

Illinois Housing Reform Gets Practical

Illinois is short roughly 130,000 homes today and needs about 240,000 more by 2030. The state can’t change mortgage rates or material costs, so Governor JB Pritzker of Illinois is targeting something else: the rules that make homes hard to build. He walks through the Build Initiative, a set of bills to legalize more ADUs and small multifamily buildings, relax some parking and stairway requirements, standardize impact fees, and put limits on permit delays. He also talks about local pushback, bipartisan support, and why these modest changes could mean more housing choices without the sense…
E704 · 18 May 2026 · 47 min

The Neighborhood Outside the Church Doors

A trip to Italy left Chuck surprised by how ordinary Catholic life felt in a country filled with churches. A later visit to Hasidic Brooklyn stayed with him for a different reason: families living under intense physical constraints, yet ordering their lives around faith and community. Those memories frame this talk at a Catholic church in Minnesota, where Chuck turns from faraway examples to a more personal question: what would it mean for a parish to care not only for the sanctuary, but for the blocks around it? Additional Show Notes Chuck Marohn (Substack) This podcast is made possible by…
E703 · 11 May 2026 · 41 min

A Congressman Makes the Case for Local Power

Congressman Jake Auchincloss joins the the Strong Towns podcast with a case for localism that takes it seriously without treating it as a cure-all. He explains why localism deserves a bigger role in national politics, not as a slogan, but as a way to rebuild trust and solve problems closer to the ground. That idea gets tested against some of the hardest problems facing cities today: transportation systems that reward expansion over maintenance, a housing market that has lost its entry-level rung, and federal policies that often struggle to match local realities. The conversation closes with…
E702 · 4 May 2026 · 57 min

Why Manchester’s Boom Isn’t the Whole Story

Is a city “dynamic” just because its charts point up and to the right? Chuck uses a week in the UK to question that assumption. In Manchester, a swelling population of 20‑somethings looks like success, until you notice how many smaller places have been drained to supply that energy. In one of those towns, residents speak of decline, crime, and the loss of their pub, even as few can name a moment they truly felt unsafe. Across focus groups, government programs, and carefully planned districts, he traces the same pattern and asks: when growth is easy to measure, what deeper dynamism are we…
E701 · 27 Apr 2026 · 59 min

How Inner City Highways Bankrupt Downtowns And How We Rebuild

When planner Patrick Kennedy started asking why prime land near downtown Dallas was filled with parking lots and boarded‑up buildings, the trail led straight to an elevated freeway: I‑345. He explains how making a hard economic case for removal—showing that taking the highway out could deliver the highest return on investment with minimal traffic impacts—grew into the Atlas of Inner City Highway Impacts, a data‑driven look at 142 U.S. cities. Kennedy details how inner‑city highways consume acres of valuable land, depress nearby property values, and either clog up all day in thriving metros…
E700 · 24 Apr 2026 · 45 min

New Zealand Keynote Planning In A World Of Limits

Speaking to planners in New Zealand, Chuck Marohn connects the country’s adopted infrastructure plan with a global pattern of cities that have grown themselves into insolvency. He traces the shift from incremental, pre‑Depression neighborhoods to postwar sprawl and explores what it looks like for planners to stop chasing the next expansion and start making better use of what’s already built. Additional Show Notes Te Waihanga (Site) Te Waihanga National Infrastructure Plan (Site) Chuck Marohn (Substack) This podcast is made possible by Strong Towns members. Thank you!
E699 · 20 Apr 2026 · 45 min

Why Persuasion Fails When You Lead With Data

Good arguments fail when they ignore how people feel. Chuck Marohn and Joshua Bandoch talk through using empathy, ethical persuasion, and values-based stories with everyone from public works directors to concerned residents. Their examples reveal why understanding fears and incentives often matters more than another chart or study. Additional Show Notes Joshua Bandoch (LinkedIn) How to Get What You Want (Book) How to be more persuasive (Tedx Talk) Joshua Bandoch (Site) Chuck Marohn (Substack) This podcast is made possible by Strong Towns members. Thank you!
E698 · 13 Apr 2026 · 57 min

Why Messy Cities Depend On People Who Take Action

Chuck and Kevin Klinkenberg explore why progress comes from people who stop waiting for permission and start doing things locally. They look at incremental developers, neighborhood groups, and the limits of top-down systems in cities like Kansas City. Along the way, they wrestle with incentives, housing, and how much order a city actually needs. Additional Show Notes Kevin Klinkenberg (LinkedIn) The Messy City Podcast (Spotify) The Messy City (Substack) The Messy City (Site) Chuck Marohn (Substack) This podcast is made possible by Strong Towns members. Thank you!
E697 · 6 Apr 2026 · 1 hr 3 min

Gas Taxes, Freeways, And What Washington Should Fund Now

Chuck Marohn and Tony Dutzik unpack the messy history of the gas tax, cross‑subsidies between states, and the moral story drivers were told about “user fees.” They revisit highway revolts, the rise of federal transit funding, and the long slide into Highway Trust Fund bailouts. Their conversation lays out stark choices for the next chapter of national transportation policy. Additional Show Notes Tony Dutzik (LinkedIn) Call "Time Out" on Highway Boondoggles (Article) Frontier Group (Site) What Comes After the Interstate Era? | New Report (Youtube) Read the Mission Accomplished White Paper.…
E696 · 3 Apr 2026 · 36 min

Balancing Big Experiments And Neighborhood Fixes In California Housing

In this moderated panel at the REACH Ideas + Action Summit, Chuck Marohn and California Forever’s Jim Wunderman tackle California’s housing crisis from two very different angles: maturing existing neighborhoods and building a brand‑new city. Together they wrestle with whether local reforms, new towns, or both can deliver real affordability in places like Santa Barbara and beyond. Additional Show Notes California Forever (Site) REACH (LinkedIn) Jim Wunderman (LinkedIn) Jocelyn Brennan (LinkedIn) Chuck Marohn (Substack) This podcast is made possible by Strong Towns members. Thank you!
E695 · 30 Mar 2026 · 50 min

Why Infrastructure Maintenance Might Be The Real Megaproject

New Zealand’s infrastructure commission added up every sector’s project wish‑list—and found a bill voters could never realistically pay. In this conversation, Geoff Cooper and Chuck Marohn unpack the national plan that starts by centering maintenance and renewals, then shows how that shifts the debate over big new projects, growth on the fringe, and the pressure on public budgets. Additional Show Notes Geoff Cooper (LinkedIn) Te Waihanga (Site) Te Waihanga National Infrastructure Plan (Site) Chuck Marohn (Substack) This podcast is made possible by Strong Towns members. Thank you!
E694 · 23 Mar 2026 · 1 hr 4 min

From Service Cuts To Understanding City Insolvency

The conversation follows Michel Durand-Wood's path from noticing small local cuts—closed pools, rising taxes—to understanding his city as structurally insolvent. Along the way, he and Chuck talk about grants, debt, Canadian and U.S. examples, and why efficiency alone hasn’t fixed anything. Additional Show Notes Dear Winnipeg (Site) You'll Pay For This! (Book) Chuck Marohn (Substack) This podcast is made possible by Strong Towns members. Thank you!
E693 · 16 Mar 2026 · 1 hr 7 min

Beyond Supply and Demand to Housing’s Unseen Financial Forces

Chuck walks through three ways of seeing the housing crisis: supply, demand, and the Strong Towns view that grapples with “dark finance” and capital flows. He explains why campaign-style wins and single-variable fixes rarely deliver real affordability. The episode closes with a candid update on recent leadership changes and how Strong Towns has restructured its media work over the past year. Additional Show Notes Chuck Marohn (Substack) This podcast is made possible by Strong Towns members. Thank you!
E692 · 26 Feb 2026 · 50 min

What Comes After the Interstate Era? | New Report

For years, the dominant explanation for America’s infrastructure problems has been that we haven’t invested enough. Yet federal spending on transportation is at historic highs, and frustration with the results continues to grow. This report offers a different interpretation. The Interstate Highway System achieved its original goal. The challenges we face today are not the result of failure, but of a system that continued long after its purpose was fulfilled. Understanding what comes after it is the work in front of us. Additional Show Notes ‍Watch on YouTube. Read the Mission Accomplished…

About The Strong Towns Podcast

The Strong Towns Podcast is a weekly conversation on the Strong Towns movement, hosted by Strong Towns Founder and President Charles Marohn and frequently featuring special guests. The podcast explores how we can financially strengthen our cities, towns, and neighborhoods and, in the process, make them better places to live. Join Chuck in examining how everything from urban design to economics to systems theory to psychology helps inform this core question.

The Strong Towns Podcast is a English news podcast from Strong Towns. Melo plays each episode straight from the publisher's own feed — no ads added, no account needed — and remembers where you stopped, in this browser only.

Publisher: Strong Towns
Language: English
Category: News
New episodes: Weekly
Typical length: 57 min
Latest episode: 5 Oct 2026
Feed: RSS — paste into any podcast app
Apple Podcasts: podcasts.apple.com/podcast/id369032477

RSS feed Apple Podcasts

More English news 6

Take it with you

The Melo app keeps playing with the screen off, works in the car and on your watch, wakes you to your station, and browses the whole catalogue offline. Free, no ads, no account.