The Bottom-Up Revolution: Recent Episodes
Strong Towns
This podcast features stories of the Strong Towns movement in action. Hosted by Rachel Quednau, it’s all about how regular people have stepped up to make their communities more economically resilient, and how others can implement these ideas in their own places. We’ll talk about taking concrete action steps, connecting with fellow advocates to build power, and surviving the bumps along the way—all in the pursuit of creating stronger towns.
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.
Most city-building games let players draw roads, place buildings, and watch a convincing skyline appear. Cristian Gonzalez kept noticing what was missing: homelessness, discrimination, parking, disconnected jobs, and the people who bear the cost when the economy turns. By leaving those things out, the games teach players to see cities as collections of buildings rather than places shaped by transportation, inequality, public services, and human behavior. His indie game Microlandia reverses the usual formula with cartoonish graphics and a demanding simulation that challenges the simplified logic of traditional city-builders, where growth often arrives without transportation constraints or social consequences. Microlandia gives players a place to test what happens when those tradeoffs enter the model and see how one decision reshapes the rest of the city.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES Microlandia (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 wider highway promises faster trips, new investment, and billions of dollars flowing into Houston. Susan Graham and Ally Smither have spent years asking who receives those benefits and who is asked to move, breathe more pollution, or watch another neighborhood get divided. Recorded at the 2024 Strong Towns National Gathering, this session follows Stop TxDOT I-45 through lost votes, a federal pause, and the long work of keeping people involved after the project moves forward anyway. The same system now struggling to maintain what it already built is still asking communities to make room for more.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES Ally Smither (LinkedIn), 'How an Opera Singer Joined the Fight Against Freeways' (Article) * Susan Graham (LinkedIn), '75-Year-Old Houston Advocate Refuses To Surrender to Highway Expansion Project' (Article) * Stop TxDOT I-45 (Site) * We Built the Best Interstate System. Now It’s Falling Apart. (Video) * Mission Accomplished Report (Site) * 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.
Residents are often told to get involved at City Hall, but first they have to figure out where to go, who has authority, and which committee will actually hear them. Jacob Hyman learned that firsthand when his attempt to advocate for multimodal transportation turned into a frustrating tour of local government. As a civil engineer and leader of Strong Towns Steubenville, he helped build a power map showing the officials, boards, departments, and relationships behind city decisions, giving residents a clearer route into a system that had been difficult even to describe. Hyman will also be a speaker at the Civic Leader Summit in Pensacola, Florida, from October 6–8, where he’ll lead a session on building power maps for local communities, and early-bird tickets are available now.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES Jacob Hyman (LinkedIn) * Strong Towns Steubenville (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.
In most suburban neighborhoods, a corner store or small commercial space can feel years away, even when residents want places to gather and local businesses need somewhere to begin. Rather than wait for a zoning change, Lauren Penn worked with a neighbor to turn their front yards into a tiny market with a baker, a coffee roaster, artists, children selling handmade goods, and people who might not otherwise have met. The project grew out of her interest in the “missing middle” of local economies: the space between an idea at home and a full commercial lease. For parents, especially mothers, markets like this can offer a realistic way to test a business idea and earn income during a season of life that does not fit neatly into a standard work schedule.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES* Lauren Penn (Site, LinkedIn) * Stronger Denton (Site) * Stronger Neighborhoods (Site) * Pop-Up Market Makers (Site) * How One Front Yard Became a Neighborhood Pop Up (Bottom-Up Short) * Local Recommendations:
+ Thai Ocha
+ L’Amitié Bistro
+ Two Gentleman of Verona Gelato
+ North Lakes Park
- 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.
Andrew Price spent nine years living without a car in Hoboken, New Jersey, where most daily trips could be handled on foot or by transit. Once he bought a car, even routine outings came with a new calculation: where he would park, how much it would cost, and whether driving was actually the easier option. An early Strong Towns member, Price examined places, non-places, and the difference between fine-grained and coarse-grained urbanism in articles. He reflects on how owning a car made him a stronger urbanist, a realization that connects back to his first years in Arkansas, where lawns, roads, and parking lots filled the landscape, but finding a place to sit outside with lunch still meant getting back in the car.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES Andrew Price (Blog, LinkedIn, X [Twitter]) * Places and Non-Places and Fine-Grained vs. Coarse-Grained Urbanism by Andrew Price (Articles) * 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.
Modern family life offers mothers an endless supply of services meant to make isolation more manageable, but Lauren Penn began wondering why so much support had to be purchased in the first place. After a violent crash near the crosswalk her children use to get to school pushed her into local activism, she began connecting unsafe streets and missing sidewalks to the exhaustion many mothers experience while coordinating transportation, childcare and social life largely on their own. Lauren shares how books, advocacy and small experiments with her daughters changed what she thought a neighborhood could provide. A place can either force every need into another private transaction or make room for families to help one another.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES Lauren Penn (LinkedIn) * Stronger Denton (Site) * Stronger Neighborhoods (Site) * Pop-Up Market Makers * How One Front Yard Became a Neighborhood Pop Up (Bottom-Up Short) * 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.
Cities regularly ask residents for feedback, especially when budgets tighten or difficult tradeoffs approach. Norm and Mary Kate Norton look at what changes when people respond as an organized group instead of a collection of individual voices. They trace how Local Conversations grow from first meetings and small projects into groups that can communicate clearly, build relationships with public officials and take part in larger policy fights. A good idea may open the door, but organized local support gives it a better chance of surviving the meeting, carrying into the next discussion and becoming something the city can’t easily set aside.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES Mary Kate Norton (LinkedIn) * Strong Towns Local Conversations (Map) * 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.
Vacant commercial space can drag down a street, but Evan Snow sees something else: a chance to make room for local artists, small businesses, and community life. As co-founder of Zero Empty Spaces, Snow helps transform empty properties into affordable artist studios and cultural hubs. He explains why closed doors do not help property owners, downtowns, or neighborhoods, and why a temporary use can still give artists a lasting foothold outside the home studio. The model works because it keeps the first step small, giving artists affordable space while helping property owners show what a vacant storefront could become. Evan will also be speaking at the Civic Leader Summit in Pensacola, Florida later this year in October.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES* Evan Snow (LinkedIn) * Zero Empty Spaces (Site) * Local Recommendations:
+ Yellow Green Farmer’s Market
+ Bike Trail
+ Krakatao Indonesian food
- 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.
When Washington state asked which residents had access to frequent transit, it ran into a surprisingly basic problem: that question is hard to answer without knowing where sidewalks, crossings and curb ramps actually are. Dr. Anat Caspi, director of the Taskar Center for Accessible Technology at the University of Washington, joins the show to talk about Open Sidewalks, a project that helps communities map pedestrian infrastructure in a shared, usable format. Her team has mapped hundreds of thousands of sidewalks, and now residents can help add the local details that determine whether a route actually works in daily life.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES Dr. Anat Caspi (LinkedIn) * Open Sidewalks Connect Map (Map) * 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.
Fayetteville, Arkansas, is growing fast, and housing is getting harder to build. Clark Eckels and Nathan McCloskey of Fayetteville Strong talk about Rethink the Lot, a tactical urbanism pop-up that turned downtown parking spaces into small-scale housing people could walk through. The housing and parking debate can easily get stuck in zoning language, council meetings, and abstract trade-offs, but this project gave people a physical way to understand what those rules mean on the ground. Clark and Nathan explain what residents worry about, why parking minimums matter, and what changed when people stood inside a home where a car would usually sit.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES* Clark Eckels and Nathan McCloskey (LinkedIn) * Fayetteville Strong (Site, Instagram, Youtube Video) * Local Recommendations:
+ Word Coffee
+ Crisis Brewing
+ Fossil Cove Brewing
+ Hugos
+ Hammontrees
+ Fayetteville Public Library
+ Razorback Greenway
- 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.
In New York City, the average rent is $4,700 a month and climbing. Over 500,000 housing violations are on file in the city, but the government database where they live is so outdated that most renters never see them. Farid Sofiyev, a sophomore and co-founder of Civic Reset NYC, built an interactive map of 40,000 of those violations and published the names of the 25 worst landlords in the city. This episode gets into how the map works, what the data reveals about NYC's rent crisis, and the zoning choices that got the city there.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES Farid Safiyev and Angelo Mazza (LinkedIn) * Civic Reset (Site, Instagram, Podcast) * Courtyard Urbanism: The Best of Both City and Suburb with Dr. Alicia Pederson (Podcast) * 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.
Van Buren, Maine, had a problem no town wants: it owned more than half of its downtown buildings through tax acquisition. When Luke Dyer became town manager after a long career in law enforcement, he was facing vacant storefronts, deteriorating buildings, flood-damaged land, and a downtown that had lost traffic after the port of entry moved away from Main Street. In this episode, Dyer shares how Van Buren began putting buildings back into productive use, turning an underused ice rink into pickleball courts, growing trees for Main Street in a community greenhouse, and converting its old town office into a business incubator. Luke is also a graduate of the Strong Towns Cohort Program and applications are now open for the 2026-2027 class.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES* Luke Dyer (LinkedIn) * Local Recommendations:
+ Acadian Village
+ Tasty Food Restaurant
+ Northern Maine Kolache
+ York's Kitchen
- 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.
Horry County, South Carolina has grown so fast that the median household can no longer afford the median home. Dylan Thompson has lived there his whole life, and he's running for county council because he thinks the people making decisions about that growth should actually be accountable to the people living through it. He's a former pastor running under the Forward Party, focused on flooding, housing, and development policy, and making the case that those issues don't have to break along party lines; they're the same things his neighbors on both sides of the aisle are worried about.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES Dylan Thompson (Facebook, 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.
Zoning reform matters, but Eric Kronberg says it is not enough on its own. Cities also need useful building types, realistic development math, better street design, thoughtful tax policy, and a clearer vision for what good neighborhoods can become. He and Tiffany explore why many cities say they want more housing but still make the most useful housing types illegal or impractical. They also talk about compact cottages, missing middle housing, Atlanta’s affordability challenges, and the overlooked power of a simple box, a good porch, and a house people can picture on their own block.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES* Eli Smith (LinkedIn) * Kronberg Urbanists & Architects (Site) * Housing Catalogue (Site) * Local Recommendations:
+ Little Tart Bakery
+ Summerhill Neighborhood
- 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.
Before Strong Towns became a national movement, its ideas spread through conversations, conferences, friendships and people willing to make room for a difficult message. For Member Week, Norm talks with Founders Circle member Paddy Steinschneider about watching Chuck Marohn’s work gain traction and why the movement has always depended on more than one voice. Paddy reflects on the role members can play when a community realizes its streets, budgets, infrastructure or public life are not working. He describes Strong Towns members not as a strike force, but as people with a toolkit: ready to help when a community realizes its streets, budgets, infrastructure or public life are not working.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES Paddy Steinschneider (LinkedIn) * Gotham Design & Community Development (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.
Nate Hood was the first person to donate to Strong Towns, back when the movement was still a blog, an irregular podcast, and a small circle of people asking better questions about cities. Norm Van Eeden Petersman talks with him about the early days of Strong Towns, the ideas that first made the movement feel different, and what has changed as those ideas have spread across North America. This is a story about growth, but also about why the movement’s power still comes from people noticing what is broken nearby and doing the next small thing.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES Nate Hood (LinkedIn) * Suburban Engagement Photos (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.
Eli Smith, director of the Faith-Based Housing Initiative, joins the show to talk about churches turning underused land and aging buildings into housing and everyday community spaces. He explains how his team helps congregations understand their property, imagine specific projects, and gain the language and tools they need to work with developers, lenders, and local officials. Eli and Tiffany dig into the tension between commuter churches and a more rooted parish model, and why thoughtful design often leads congregations beyond a standard apartment block toward pocket neighborhoods and shared spaces.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES* Eli Smith (LinkedIn) * Faith-Based Housing Initiative (Site) * What I've learned from faith-based housing (Substack) * Local Recommendations:
+ The Franklin Inn
+ Scoop
- 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.
A car had crashed into the same Madison coffee shop three times. That was enough for Josh Olson and Strong Towns Madison to push for a change on Willie Street — a dense, locally-owned corridor that doubles as a commuter shortcut during rush hour. The intervention they proposed cost a fraction of what the city had budgeted, took two weeks to implement, and ran as a two-month trial. Josh breaks down what made the argument land with city staff and commissioners, and what happened after the results came in.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES Strong Towns Madison (Site, Instagram) * Josh Olson (LinkedIn) * Counting Cranes (Substack) * 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.
In Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, housing debates are tied to favorite trees, familiar views, flood scars, and whether younger residents can afford to stay. Planning commissioner and neighborhood organizer Taylor Lightman talks about what it’s like to rewrite zoning in the same place you grew up. He explains how a housing committee rallied around ADUs, why they rolled back strict parking and owner‑occupancy rules, and how they worked through worries about students, flooding, and change itself. The conversation paints a detailed picture of housing reform in a small town that wants to welcome more neighbors without losing its character.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES* Taylor Lightman (LinkedIn) * Not Just Bikes & Strong Towns Youtube Playlist (Youtube) * Local Recommendations:
+ Mondragon Books
+ Lewisburg Farmers Market
+ Campus Theatre
- 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.
Evan Clark and Natalie Eger are college students studying sociology in Lexington, Virginia, and they came back from the 2025 National Gathering in Providence, RI fired up to do something. In the past year they've built a thriving local conversation group, turned a city council member into a regular at their monthly meetings, and had a broken sidewalk fixed fourteen days after they flagged it. They walk through how they started from scratch, made real change at the local level, and kept people showing up month after month.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES Strong Towns Lexington Introduces Community Planning Initiative to City Council (Article) * Strong Towns Lexington (Site, Instagram) * Evan Clark (LinkedIn) * Natalie Eger (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.
Mary Kate Norton, Strong Towns’ Mobilization Coordinator and Trainer, came to advocacy through other people’s stories: campus workers juggling multiple jobs, family members stuck without safe transportation options, and neighbors trying to find housing they could afford. Those experiences shaped how she sees local change now: as something rooted in attention, trust, and the willingness to let a place tell you what it needs. In this episode, Mary Kate reflects on how personal stories become public work, why successful local groups begin by listening, and how advocates can build movements that fit their own communities instead of copying someone else’s model.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES* Mary Kate Norton (LinkedIn) * Strong Towns Local Conversations (Site) * Local Recommendations:
+ Sisters' Sludge
+ Northern Coffeeworks
+ Fireroast Coffee
- 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.
Before the car took over, Spokane, Washington ran an extensive streetcar network that shaped its neighborhoods. Sarah Rose and Erik Lowe of Spokane Reimagined are working to recover that spirit through a bus system that has already surpassed pre-pandemic ridership, a zoning reform that opened the city to missing middle housing, and hand-built benches placed in all 29 neighborhoods, each painted by a local artist. Their city motto is "In Spokane, we all belong" and they're putting in the work to prove it.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES Erik Lowe (LinkedIn) * Sarah Rose (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.
On March 14, 2025, an EF3 tornado hit Cave City, Arkansas, directly, something the town of about 2,000 people had never experienced in more than a century. Mayor Jonas Anderson describes the shock of that night and the neighborly response that followed, but the story does not begin or end with disaster. Cave City had already been investing in its own center, moving City Hall to Main Street and supporting a new wave of local activity downtown. This conversation looks at how a small town’s existing relationships shaped its recovery and strengthened the work already underway.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES Jonas Anderson (LinkedIn, Site) * City of Cave City Arkansas (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.
Alkarim Devani has built over 1,000 homes in Calgary — fourplexes, row houses, a 212-unit heritage restoration — and noticed something strange: people kept asking about the small projects. That observation turned into a doctorate, a national education program, and a growing movement to make middle housing a viable career path for a whole new generation of city builders. In this episode, he talks about why the obstacles aren't what most people think, why large developers will never fill this gap, and what it's actually going to take to get more people building.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES Alkarim Devani (LinkedIn) * Alkarim Devani (Site) * mddl (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.
It’s farmers market season, so we’re revisiting this conversation with Shelby Wild, whose work in Lompoc shows how a weekly neighborhood market can reshape a community’s food system. This rerun highlights the deep local relationships, creative partnerships, and small-scale innovations that make markets like Route One a backbone of local resilience and access to good food.
Shelby Wild is a mom, lifelong gardener, and executive director of Route One Farmers Market in her hometown of Lompoc, California, which she started in 2018 after her neighborhood farmer’s market closed. The market runs every Sunday and is currently the only one within 50 miles on the central coast of California that offers both EBT and Market Match.
Wild and her team strive to make the market a place that brings together the diverse communities that call Lompoc home. At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, she led the market to be the first in the area to offer produce bags for curbside, contactless pickup, distributing hundreds of bags of local food to those under shelter-in-place restrictions. They’ve also launched the region’s first mobile farmer’s market, a next step in making local food part of everyday life in Lompoc.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES Route One Farmers Market (Site) * Route One Farmers Market (Instagram) * Shelby Wild (LinkedIn) * Check out Cold Coast Brewing Co., Dare 2 Dream Farms Homestead, and South Side Coffee Co. * 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.
In Portland’s Hollywood district, a neighbor-led walk inspired by Jane Jacobs helps people see a familiar street in a new way. Strong Towns PDX organizer Natalie Legras shares how she pulled together a low-key neighborhood walk that feels more like hanging out than hosting an event. Starting with a few map pins and a small group of neighbors, the walk opens up conversations about old houses turned apartments, new infill, and why some corners lost their shops. Natalie explains how donuts, farmers markets, and a welcoming volunteer culture keep people coming back, and how these modest efforts deepen care for Portland.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES Natalie Legras (LinkedIn) * Strong Towns PDX (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 traffic jam in a video game changed how Bryan Kelly saw his city. He traces the path from playing City Skylines and watching Not Just Bikes to noticing stroads, long waits at traffic lights, and people biking on sidewalks along Sheboygan’s Eighth Street. That shift pulled him into a Strong Towns book club in a local coffee shop, Critical Mass rides with neighbors, and quiet committee rooms where he was sometimes the only person at the microphone. When a council seat opened, he carried those lived observations into a campaign centered on safer streets and fiscally careful projects.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES* Bryan Kelly (LinkedIn) * Sheboygan Active Transportation (Site) * Local Recommendations:
+ Paradigm Coffee & Music
+ Three Sheeps Brewing
+ Evergreen Park
+ Harry’s Diner
- 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.
Strong Towns organizer Nick Dennis shares how, once he hosted a simple meetup, he discovered a whole network of already active people in Lancaster, Pennsylvania who just needed a way to connect their efforts. He and Norm talk about a small church turned neighborhood hub that’s now a coffee shop, bar, and venue where they even hosted a talk on Escape the Housing Trap. They also dig into Celebrate Lancaster and an open streets event that closes Water Street so people can enjoy the city on foot instead of in cars. Together, they show how these gatherings and small experiments are slowly reshaping how Lancaster experiences its streets and public life.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES Nick Dennis (LinkedIn) * Strong Towns Lancaster (Site) * West Art (Site) * Celebrate Lancaster (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!
Well-designed public spaces often look promising at opening, then slowly lose energy and use. Max Musicant explains how that decline comes down to what happens after construction—who maintains the space, how it’s programmed, and whether anyone is responsible for making it work day to day. From simple fixes like better seating and things to do, this conversation gets into why so many spaces never become places.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES* Max Musicant (LinkedIn) * Musicant Group (Site) * Practice of Place (Substack) * "Placemaking is Dead, Long Live Placemaking!" (Article) * Local Recommendations:
+ Grand Rounds Scenic Byway System
+ 612 Sauna Cooperative
+ Birchbark 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!
Barbara Didrichsen, known locally as “Traffic Granny,” describes how everyday walks filled with close calls in her Pleasant Ridge neighborhood in Cincinnati, Ohio pushed her to start documenting crashes and traffic problems on her streets. She and Norm talk through simple first steps, like signs and flags, and how they used those results to argue for stronger engineering fixes. Their conversation shows what long-term, resident-led traffic calming looks like on the ground.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES Barbara Didrichsen (LinkedIn) * Cincinnati Riding Or Walking Network (CROWN) (Site) * Cincinnati's Infrastructure (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!
Using Woodbury in Moscow, Idaho as a case study, this conversation digs into how one master-planned neighborhood pursues walkability, mixed use, and everyday community life on the edge of a small town. Builder Levi Wintz unpacks the tradeoffs around density, ADUs, financing, and city regulations, and how the push for a coherent plan meets the Strong Towns ethos of incremental change.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES* Levi Wintz (LinkedIn) * Woodbury Moscow (Site) * Townbuilers Podcast (Apple Podcasts) * Local Recommendations:
+ Humble Burger
+ Bucer's Pub
- 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!
In Athens, Ohio, stroller struggles on broken sidewalks and a sea of parking lots pushed Stevie Hunter to become the city’s “sidewalk lady.” She joins Norm to talk about mapping every parking lot in town, auditing rebuilt streets with a homegrown SPACE metric, and pushing for curb ramps, benches, and daylighted intersections. Their conversation shows how one resident’s daily walks turned into real influence over how a city treats its walkers.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES Stevie Hunter (LinkedIn) * Strong Towns Athens (Instagram) * 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!
In this episode, Uthish Ganesh tells the story of returning to teach in the neighborhood where he grew up and refusing to accept his school’s bad reputation. From a boys’ group with a perfect graduation rate to a student-run food program serving hundreds of families, he shows what happens when you stop believing deficit narratives and raise the bar instead.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES Uthish Ganesh (Instagram) * 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!
Emma Durand-Wood never planned on public office. But what began as challenging a pawn shop, planting trees, and pushing for safer speeds in her Winnipeg neighborhood grew into coalitions and, eventually, a successful run for local office. She talks about stepping into the role, facing the information fire hose, and keeping family and community at the center.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES* Local Recommendations:
+ JC's Tacos
+ Historic Elmwood Cemetery
- Emma Durand-Wood (Site)
- 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!
Most crash analysis studios didn’t start inside City Hall—they were sparked by local members, neighbors, and conversation leaders who refused to accept dangerous streets as normal. Instead of waiting on the next grant cycle, Strong Towns is helping cities take small, fast steps at their most dangerous intersections through community-led crash analysis studios. Norm and Edward share how this work tests changes on the ground, builds data, and supports local champions both inside and outside city government.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES Edward Erfurt (LinkedIn) * Crash Analysis Studio (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!
In this episode, Josh Olson reflects on how he and others helped bring a Strong Towns local conversation group back to life in Madison, and kept it going with simple habits like reserving the same library room each month. It explores the projects that grew out of that effort, including safer street trials, Parking Day, and support for a major housing reform package. As the group took on these projects, members built relationships with city staff, showed up to public meetings, and pushed for small, low-cost changes—like turning a peak-hour traffic lane into parking—that the city implemented within months.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES* Local Recommendations:
+ Mother Fools Coffeehouse
+ Ahan Restaurant
+ Teasider
+ Lake Loop
- Strong Towns Madison (Site)
- Strong Towns Madison(Instagram)
- Counting Cranes (Substack)
- Vote for Madison in the Strongest Town Contest!
- 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!
After repeated crashes into a beloved coffee shop, residents in Madison, Wisconsin pushed for a fast, inexpensive lane change instead of another long, consultant‑driven process. Josh Olson explains how neighbors gathered speed data, won a two‑month trial, and helped make the change permanent. Along the way, he shares how that work fed into broader safety goals, housing reforms, and a shift from “why don’t we” to “how can we.”
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES Vote for Madison in the Strongest Town Contest! * Strong Towns Madison (Site) * Strong Towns Madison(Instagram) * Madison Property Tax Value Per Acre (Site) * Counting Cranes (Substack) * 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!
Chicago organizers Ellen Steinke and Dr. Chloe Groome walk through the fight to re-legalize ADUs, fix single-family zoning, and head off a looming transit fiscal cliff. They recount the campaign to save transit funding, including a sketch-driven show that turned insider debates about the Road Fund into something regular Chicagoans could act on. The episode follows their blend of detailed policy work, neighborhood organizing, and improv-rooted comedy.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES Vote for Chicago in the Strongest Town Contest! * Strong Towns Chicago (Site) * Strong Towns Chicago (Instagram) * 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!
Brian Kelly and Braden Schmidt went from curious residents to leaders helping redesign streets, modernize zoning, and unlock safer, more affordable neighborhoods in Sheboygan, Wisconsin. In this conversation, they share how modest first steps—showing up to meetings, testing a parklet, repurposing old materials—grow into city‑wide change. Their story traces the path from tentative beginnings to a community that’s learning, iterating, and steadily becoming stronger.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES Vote for Sheboygan in the Strongest Town Contest! * Sheboygan Active Transportation (Instagram) * Sheboygan Active Transportation (Facebook) * 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!
Steve Schaer and Patrick Schloss share how landlocked, eleven‑square‑mile West Allis, Wisconsin has become one of metro Milwaukee’s most business‑friendly cities by growing from within after major factory closures. They trace the community’s path from brownfields and aging corridors to adaptive reuse, new housing, and lively main streets filled with independent shops, coffee houses, and breweries. Along the way, they highlight zoning shifts, creative financing tools, arts events, transportation academies, and on‑the‑ground outreach that together have changed the city’s trajectory.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES Vote for West Allis in the Strongest Town Contest! * 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!
When Graham McBain moved to Sacramento, he realized he had no local friends—just nearby houses. In this episode, he shares the simple, sometimes scary steps that turned that street into block parties, front-yard hangouts, and kids biking freely between homes. The conversation traces that change on his block and highlights practical ways to start building community where you live, with the people already around you.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES* Local Recommendations:
+ Mesa Mercado
+ Shangri-La
- Hey Neighbor Hub (site)
- Hey Neighbor Hub (Instagram)
- Hey Neighbor Hub (YouTube)
- Hey Neighbor Hub (TikTok)
- 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!
Most parents worry about safer routes to school but can’t track every plan or attend every meeting. In Lafayette, Kirk Wandy and Brian Parsons help lead Vibrant Lafayette in doing the legwork—digging into projects like the School Street path, meeting with staff, and then giving busy families clear, targeted ways to show up when it matters most.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES Vibrant Lafayette (Site) * Vibrant Lafayette (Instagram) * 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!
Instead of waiting for permission or a grand plan, Preston Ross III started picking up trash on his own block—and kept going. Learn how that simple habit evolved into a nonprofit, a workforce program for unhoused neighbors, and a practical playbook for taking action in your town.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES* Local Recommendations:
+ A Place At The Table
+ Tapyard Raleigh
+ Lake Johson
+ North Carolina Museum of Art
- The Great Raleigh Cleanup (site)
- The Great Raleigh Cleanup (Instagram)
- 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!
A small Indiana city took on a 54‑mile, $3.4 billion highway with yard signs, town halls, and hard numbers. Mark Nowotarski traces six years of grassroots organizing against the MidStates Corridor, from local resistance in Dubois County to growing pressure at the State House. Along the way, Jasper’s story shows how a community can push back when a mega‑project threatens its future and quality of life.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES Don't make Southern Indiana's 'sacrifice zone' worse with Mid-State Corridor (Article) * Jasper, Indiana winner of the Strongest Town Contest in 2022 (Site) * Mark Nowotarski (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!
In an era of quick, generic construction, Austin Tunnell makes the case for caring about beauty and craft. He shares lessons from masonry, small‑scale development, and his own projects on creating places people actually enjoy using every day.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES* Local Recommendations:
+ Wheeler District
+ Clarity Coffee
+ Taco Nation
+ Akai Sushi
- The Building Culture Podcast (site)
- Building Culture (site)
- Townsend Project (site)
- 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!
Discover how Denton mom and civic advocate Lauren Penn turned her front yard into a thriving micro market for local makers and families, all without a big budget. She shares what it took, from permits and vendors to a rainy launch day, and how a small, homegrown experiment can help knit a neighborhood together.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES Pop-Up Market Makers (Instagram) * Pop-Up Market Makers (Site) * Stronger Denton * 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!
Downtown Portland is full of vacant lots, surface parking, and struggling storefronts—and every one of them has a price tag. Sam and Jeremiah break down how they estimated the city’s road and pipe costs, modeled new tax revenue from redeveloping a downtown highway, and started pushing for a vacancy fee. Their approach offers a clear template for linking land use to your city’s bottom line.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES* Local Recommendations:
+ Roste Chocolate House
+ PDX Coffee Club
- Strong Towns PDX (site)
- 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!
After moving through nine states, Aaron Caldwell chose Fayetteville as home—and started using his data skills to decode city finances and a key local bond. In this episode, his work on a modest South Fayetteville infill project, close collaboration with city staff, and a growing circle of locals working to make the city more resilient show what Strong Towns looks like through one resident’s life.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES Aaron Caldwell (LinkedIn) * Local Recommendations: + Hammontree's + Feed and Folly + Maxine's Tap Room * 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!
After the recession upended her architecture career, building a tiny house on wheels helped Macy Miller recover financially and dramatically lower her housing costs. She shares what that decision has opened up for her family—more freedom, more flexibility, and a life that better fits their values—and why similar options could matter for many others. When her small home in a central Boise neighborhood drew attention at city hall, Macy stayed in the conversation, helping the city pilot and eventually change its rules to make room for legal tiny houses.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES* Local Recommendations:
+ Book People
+ Hello Everything
+ Mikey’s Gyros
+ Palouse Clearwater Environmental Institute
+ One World Cafe
+ Hodgins Drug and Hobby
- Minimotives.com
- Tiny House Petition
- Tiny House Tour
- 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!
After seeing a neighbor struck by a car — again — Abigail Hoiland set out to make people walking impossible to overlook. She shares how Stop Umbrella works on real crosswalks and how one quirky tool can spark bigger conversations about community, walking, and safer streets.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES* Connect with Abigail Hoiland
+ Stopumbrella.com
+ 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!
Andrew Mikula is leading a grassroots campaign to put affordable housing on the Massachusetts ballot in 2026. The initiative would legalize single-family homes on smaller lots. Today, he shares how he's building a broad coalition — from bankers to housing advocates — to make incremental, family-oriented housing reform possible.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES* Connect with Legalize Starter Homes
+ Site
+ Facebook
+ Instagram
-
Read more:
- "Why Are Developers Only Building Luxury Housing?" by Daniel Herriges
- "Our Self-Imposed Scarcity of Nice Places" by Daniel Herriges
- 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!
Columbia, South Carolina, is the 12th deadliest metro for pedestrians in America. Columbia resident Regan Freeman is working to change that, as the director of a statewide pedestrian and bicycle safety nonprofit. Regan explains how he’s making progress despite the challenges — by meeting people where they are, showing what’s possible, and working both locally and at the state level.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES* Local Recommendations:
+ Indah Coffee
+ Farmer’s Market XChange
- Cola Town Bikes
- Palmetto Bike Walk
- People for Bikes Feature
- 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!
Most city apartments are designed for roommates, not families with babies. Bobby Fijan, co-founder of The American Housing Corporation, explains how floor plans force parents out of cities — and how to help young families stay in the neighborhoods they love.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES* Local Recommendations:
+ Rival Bros Coffee (site)
- The American Housing Corporation (site)
- 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!
Nick Frevold launched a Strong Towns Local Conversation in Huntsville, Alabama — and found more demand than he expected. He shares what it took to get started, build relationships, and turn concern into real momentum.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES Strong Towns Huntsville (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!
What if your neighborhood could raise the money it needs without waiting for grants or traditional funding? Kathleen Minogue, founder of Crowdfund Better, explains how crowdfunding builds financial resilience while strengthening community bonds and local ownership.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES* Local Recommendations:
+ Common Ground Coffee & Market
+ Idaho Capital Asian Market
+ Oldspeak Book Beer Bar
+ Boise Farmer's Market
- Crowdfund Better (site)
- 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!
Some of the most important street safety victories don’t make the news.
After a personal tragedy, Josh Stewart devoted himself to making streets safer. Today, he shares hard-earned lessons about how change really happens — and why patience and small experiments matter more than headlines.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES Hear more from Josh in his first episode on Bottom-Up Shorts. * 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!
When a nine-year-old rides the subway alone, is that neglect or normal childhood? Lenore Skenazy, a speaker, writer, and reality show host who was once dubbed "America's worst mom," makes the case for why kids need more independence and shares tactics for how parents can give it to them in the modern city or suburb.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES* Local Recommendations:
+ Lety’s Bakery
- Let Grow (site)
- Free Range Kids (site)
-
See more from Lenore:
- “Why I Let My 9 Year Old Ride the Subway Alone” (article)
- Free Independence Kit
- Lenore’s TedTalk
- 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. Click here to learn more about membership.
Strong Towns Chicago learned that fun isn't frivolous — it's essential for sustainable advocacy. Leader Alex Montero shares how the Local Conversation group uses urbanist comedy, neighborhood tours, and social events to keep volunteers energized and engaged while winning real policy changes.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES Want in on the action? Find a Local Conversation near you! * Alex Montero (Linktree) * Strong Towns Chicago (Linktree) * 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. Click here to learn more about membership.
Jennifer Truman didn’t set out to be a housing or transit advocate, but after running into the same problems while designing small projects in Raleigh, North Carolina, she started asking bigger questions. In this episode, she explains how noticing friction in everyday work led to her involvement in zoning reform, transit leadership, and launching a pro-housing movement.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES* CITYBUILDER (site) * The Rocket Shop (site) * Jennifer Truman (site) * Recommendations/Show Notes:
+ Dix Park
+ Trophy Brewery
+ The Can Open Food Truck Park in Durham
+ Oakwood Pizza Box in Raleigh
+ Two Roosters Ice Cream
+ Black and White Coffee and Videri Chocolate in downtown Raleigh
This podcast is made possible by Strong Towns members. Click here to learn more about membership.
What does it look like to actively love the place you live? Tiffany Owens Reed talks with New Haven Alder Caroline Tanbee Smith about community-building, public space, and how small, people-powered projects grow into lasting civic impact.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES* Local Recommendations:
+ Criscuolo Park
+ Ozzy’s Pizza
+ The Crooked Goat
+ Taqueria Oyameles
- Caroline Tanbee Smith (site)
- 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. Click here to learn more about membership.
Norm sits down with Connor Legros, an undergrad student studying city planning and administration. Connor explains how he's creating a one-stop-shop for building backyard cottages in Flagstaff, Arizona. He shares how better guidance and streamlined approvals can support local housing and reduce the burden on city staff.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES* Learn how to make housing easier to build in your community with the Strong Towns Housing Toolkits. * Connect with Connor:
+ LinkedIn
+ Instagram
- 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. Click here to learn more about membership.
In this special episode, Norm introduces Mary Kate Norton, Strong Towns' new Mobilization Coordinator and Trainer. Mary Kate shares about her background in grassroots organizing, leadership development, and coalition building. She also offers some tips for people hoping to make change in their communities.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES Find a Local Conversation near you. * Mary Kate Norton (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. Click here to learn more about membership.
When a tragic car crash forced street safety changes in Chattanooga, Tennessee, local businesses panicked about losing customers. But they soon discovered that foot traffic beats car traffic every time.
Emily Thompson, entrepreneur, author, and marketing chair of the North Shore Merchant Collective, explains how she helped push for increasing walkability and reclaiming space for people — and how those efforts made surrounding businesses more successful.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES* Local Recommendations:
+ Frazier Five and Dime
+ I Go Tokyo
+ Verre Noir
+ Basecamp
- Almanac Supply Co (site)
- 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. Click here to learn more about membership.
What happens when a planner stops following broken rules and starts rewriting them instead?
Brad Callender, director of planning and zoning for Monroe, Georgia, legalized the housing people actually need. Duplexes and backyard cottages are now popping up across town. He joins Norm today to explain how he did it as a department of one.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES Brad Callender (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. Click here to learn more about membership.
Megan Ramey has advocated for kid-friendly transportation for over a decade, culminating in her role as the Safe Routes to School Manager for Hood River County, Oregon.
Megan and Tiffany discuss the importance of walkability and bikeability for children, and Megan shares lessons she's learned from advocating in cities as big as Boston and towns as small as Hood River.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES* Local Recommendations:
+ Historic Columbia River Highway
+ Ten Speed Coffee Shop
+ Love and Hominy
- Walk And Roll Hood River County Schools (site)
- Bikeabout (site)
- 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. Click here to learn more about membership.
Your downtown isn't a money pit — it's a money pot. When Medicine Hat, Alberta, discovered the real financial value of traditional urban form, it sparked something bigger: a grassroots movement that's now changing who runs city hall. Superintendent of Planning Shawn Champagne joins Norm to discuss small bets, fiscal resilience, and why bottom-up change actually works.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES* Shawn Champagne: shacha@medicinehat.ca * Norm Van Eeden Petersman (LinkedIn)
This podcast is made possible by Strong Towns members. Click here to learn more about membership.
In her day job, Victoria Via is an architect who designs affordable housing. In her off hours, she's one of the leaders of a powerhouse Local Conversation in Portland, Oregon. Victoria joins Tiffany to explain what affordable housing has in common with luxury projects and how Strong Towns PDX is working with neighborhood groups and city officials to transform Portland for the better.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES* Local Recommendations:
+ Roste Chocolate House
+ Kate's Ice Cream
+ Orange & Blossom
+ Bike Summer (Pedalpalooza)
- Architects FORA (site)
- Strong Towns PDX (site)
- 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. Click here to learn more about membership.
What happens when a data analyst starts studying their hometown's finances? For Karl Urich, it meant seeing Albany, New York, in a whole new light. Karl shares how he makes intimidating financial statements accessible to everyone, why unbiased storytelling matters more than gotcha journalism, and practical tips for aspiring data storytellers.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES* Albany Data Stories (site) * Hudson Finance Decoder (site) * Karl Urich (LinkedIn) * Norm Van Eeden Petersman (LinkedIn)
This podcast is made possible by Strong Towns members. Click here to learn more about membership.
Why do some places make us want to stay forever while others repel us? In honor of Member Week, we're bringing back a great episode with architect Will McCollum. He explores the timeless principles of urbanism, why we need to democratize that knowledge again, and how understanding cities helps us understand what it means to be human.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES* It's Member Week at Strong Towns! Join the movement today. * Local Recommendations:
+ Piedmont Park
+ Bold Monk Brewing
+ The Works Food Hall
- Citymakers Collective (Website)
- Tiffany Owens Reed (Instagram)
- Do you know someone who would make for a great The Bottom-Up Revolution guest? Let us know here!
Strong Towns members are doing remarkable things in their communities, but none of it requires magic abilities. Norm shares what he's learned from 50 interviews — and explains how you can get involved.
Additional Show Notes* It's Member Week at Strong Towns! Join the movement by making a donation of any amount.
Many cities will greenlight a billion-dollar highway but struggle to paint a crosswalk. Liza Burkin has spent 12 years changing that through advocacy, private consulting, and federal policymaking. The founder of Providence Streets Coalition, she joins Tiffany to share hard-won lessons on political navigation and practical tools anyone can use to start transforming their streets.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES* Local recommendations:
+ Providence Pedestrian Bridge
+ Dave’s Coffee
+ The Village
+ Johnny Chimi’s
+ Woonasquatucket River Greenway
+ Streetmix
- Providence Streets Coalition (site)
- Neighborways (site)
- Tiffany Owens Reed (Instagram)
- Do you know someone who would make for a great Bottom-Up Revolution guest? Let us know here!
Hey listener! You hear from us all the time, but today we want to hear from you. We want your feedback on this podcast and any other Strong Towns podcast you like to listen to. Please fill out this quick survey to share your thoughts: strongtowns.org/survey
This podcast is made possible by Strong Towns members. Click here to learn more about membership.
Dr. Shakeel Dalal builds spaceships for a living, and he never planned to run for mayor of Longmont, Colorado. He just kept doing the next small thing that made sense. That led him from writing about city council meetings to moderating congressional debates, founding housing organizations, and running for office. Today, Shakeel joins Norm to discuss his journey, the challenges facing his community, and his advice for advocates.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES* Shakeel Dalal (site) * Norm Van Eeden Petersman (LinkedIn)
Hey listener! You hear from us all the time, but today we want to hear from you. We want your feedback on this podcast and any other Strong Towns podcast you like to listen to. Please fill out this quick survey to share your thoughts: strongtowns.org/survey
This podcast is made possible by Strong Towns members. Click here to learn more about membership.
What if you could change a dangerous street today instead of waiting 10 years? Isaac Gonzalez founded the advocacy group Slow Down Sacramento to prove that you can. Two years later, the group has helped transform Sacramento from a city that resists innovation to one that's embracing tactical urbanism.
Today, Isaac explains how he kickstarted this change and how you can do the same.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES* Stop waiting. Start acting. Learn how to analyze crashes and quickly transform streets today. * Connect with Isaac:
+ Slow Down Sacramento (site)
+ Email: slowdownsacramento@gmail.com
+ Strong SacTown (site)
- Norm Van Eeden Petersman (LinkedIn)
- Do you know someone who would make for a great The Bottom-Up Revolution guest? Let us know here!
This podcast is made possible by Strong Towns members. Click here to learn more about membership.
McKenzie Ortiz is the founder of Pedestrian Pride, a digital storytelling project that uplifts the realities of life for working-class people who can't drive. She also serves on the Planning and Zoning Commission in Columbia, Missouri. Today, McKenzie joins Tiffany to discuss what it's really like to be a nondriver in America and how storytelling can transform advocacy.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES* Local Recommendations:
+ Uprise Bakery
+ Hitt Records
+ Ragtag Cinema
-
Learn more about Pedestrian Pride
- Website
- McKenzie Ortiz (site)
- 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. Click here to learn more about membership.
Sam Foster is an engineer, Local Conversation leader, and mayoral candidate in Marietta, Georgia. He joins Norm to talk about why he's running for office at 24 years old, how he uses social media to educate the public, and what he has planned for a more prosperous Marietta.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES* Connect with Sam:
+ Website
+ Instagram
+ TikTok
- A Better Cobb (site)
- Norm Van Eeden Petersman (LinkedIn)
- Do you know someone who would make for a great The Bottom-Up Revolution guest? Let us know here!
This podcast is made possible by Strong Towns members. Click here to learn more about membership.
Zoe Tishaev and Dylan DelliSanti work for the Institute for Justice, a nonprofit, public interest law firm. As part of the Cities Work program, they partner with cities to make it cheaper, faster and simpler to start small businesses. Today, they join Tiffany to talk about the importance of small businesses and to explain how cities can revitalize their local economies.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES* Local Recommendations:
+ The Pug
+ Copy Cat
- Cities Work
- 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. Click here to learn more about membership.
Tyler Moldovan is a bus driver, urban advocate, and community organizer in Port Huron, Michigan. Today, he joins Norm to share how his work in transit, street safety, and local arts is helping to build a safer and more connected city.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES Learn how your city can make its streets safer today with the Crash Analysis Studio model. * Norm Van Eeden Petersman (LinkedIn) * Do you know someone who would make for a great The Bottom-Up Revolution* guest? Let us know here!
This podcast is made possible by Strong Towns members. Click here to learn more about membership.
Kyle and Beverly Greenwood brought together nearly 2,000 residents to stop a proposed highway in Brazos County, Texas. What began with a single flyer turned into a community victory that protected historic ranches and homes. Today, they join Tiffany to explain how they took on a highway expansion and won.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES* Local Recommendations:
+ Messina Hof Winery
+ C&J BBQ
+ Joe’s Place
+ Bush Library
+ Aggie Land Safari
- No East Loop (site)
- 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. Click here to learn more about membership.
Mary Coddington is the founder of Twelve Inc., an affordable housing consulting firm based in Colorado. She also serves on the Denver Planning Board and works with the Colorado State Housing and Finance Authority. Today, she joins Norm to talk about her efforts to bring more housing affordability to her community on the neighborhood, city, and state levels.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES Want to bring more housing to your community? Download our brand-new housing toolkit, "Who Will Build the Housing-Ready City?" for free! * Mary Coddington (LinkedIn) * Norm Van Eeden Petersman (LinkedIn) * Do you know someone who would make for a great The Bottom-Up Revolution* guest? Let us know here!
This podcast is made possible by Strong Towns members. Click here to learn more about membership.
Linda Appel Lipsius is the executive director of Denver Urban Gardens, where she supports a network of over 200 gardens and food forests that produce 650,000 pounds of food annually. She also helps launch initiatives to help make Denver a greener, more food-resilient place.
Linda came on this podcast in July to discuss how community gardens can strengthen cities. Today, she rejoins Tiffany for a deeper dive into how the principles of permaculture can shape how we think about cities.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES* Permaculture Design Principles * Denver Urban Gardens (site) * Local Recommendations:
+ Little Owl Coffee
+ The Kitchen
+ Museum of Contemporary Arts
- 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. Click here to learn more about membership.
Erick Aune is the director of the Santa Fe Metropolitan Planning Organization, as well as a member of Strong Towns Santa Fe. He’s spearheading a major shift in his region’s approach to street safety and design, replacing outdated assumptions with policies that help people thrive. Today he shares his strategy for changing transportation policy.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES Erick was a participant in the Strong Towns Accelerator, a personalized coaching program that dives deep into Strong Towns principles and how to apply them. The next session on street design and transportation policy starts January 12, 2026. Click here to claim your spot. * Santa Fe Metropolitan Transportation Plan * Norm Van Eeden Petersman (LinkedIn) * Do you know someone who would make for a great The Bottom-Up Revolution* guest? Let us know here!
This podcast is made possible by Strong Towns members. Click here to learn more about membership.
Norm steps in for Tiffany on this episode of The Bottom-Up Revolution. He's joined by Donna Boelen, who served on the city council of Bloomington, Illinois, from 2019 to 2024. Donna shares how she went from speaking at public comment to winning office as a self-taught Strong Towns-style advocate — and offers tips for anyone considering a run for city council.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES Want to learn more about implementing the Strong Towns approach as an elected official? Join Mayor Erin Joyce of Braintree, Massachusetts, for a live virtual workshop at noon on October 23. * 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. Click here to learn more about membership.
What does it mean to live wisely and grow well in the desert? Judith Rognli of Strong Towns WashCo shares how St. George residents are facing water scarcity, rapid growth, and livability challenges as a community.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES Strong Towns WashCo * Norm Van Eeden Petersman (LinkedIn) * Do you know someone who would make for a great The Bottom-Up Revolution* guest? Let us know here!
This podcast is made possible by Strong Towns members. Click here to learn more about membership.
Butch Roussel is the founder of the 24 Hour Citizen Project, an annual event that connects everyday citizens with the expertise and resources they need to solve challenges in their town. Over the last decade, the 24 Hour Citizen Project has funded dozens of incredible projects to the tune of $170,000 and counting.
Butch joins Tiffany to discuss the big impact that small, locally funded projects can have on a community and how to bring those projects to life.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES Local Recommendations: + Blue Moon Saloon + Reve Coffee + Central Pizza + Festival Acadiens * The 24 Hour Citizen Project (site) * 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. Click here to learn more about membership.
In this special episode of Bottom-Up Shorts, Norm is joined by John Pattison, Strong Towns' community builder and head of the Local Conversations program. They discuss what drives people to start one of these local advocacy groups, as well as the real costs and rewards of stepping into leadership. They also explore how mentorship, shared tools, and bottom-up collaboration knit single-issue advocates into a culture of lasting community change.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES Learn more about Local Conversations. * Norm Van Eeden Petersman (LinkedIn) * Do you know someone who would make for a great The Bottom-Up Revolution guest? Let us know here! * Subscribe to The Bottom-Up Revolution* on iTunes, Google Podcasts, Podbean or via RSS.
This podcast is made possible by Strong Towns members. Click here to learn more about membership.
Jessica David and Josh Daley are co-founders of Local Return, a nonprofit in Rhode Island dedicated to building community wealth through ownership and investment. They empower residents through education and financing, with a particular focus on small-scale developers and small business owners. Today, Jessica and Josh explain how Local Return works, how it benefits communities, and the legal and technical challenges of starting this kind of program.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES Local Recommendations: + Apsara Thai + White Electric Coffee + Figidini’s Pizza * Local Return (site) * 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. Click here to learn more about membership.
Christine Corrado is a city councilmember in Brighton, New York. She’s also the founder of Brighton Safe Streets for All and has served on a variety of city committees, from the Zoning Board of Appeals to the Public Works Committee. She and Norm discuss how she’s making her community safer and more prosperous.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES* Brighton Safe Streets for All (Facebook) * Christine Corrado
+ LinkedIn
+ Town of Brighton (site)
- Norm Van Eeden Petersman (LinkedIn)
- Do you know someone who would make for a great The Bottom-Up Revolution guest? Let us know here!
This podcast is made possible by Strong Towns members. Click here to learn more about membership.
Professor Jack Duncan is a professor of architecture and preservation at the College of Charleston. His mission is to help students and communities understand and rediscover the human-scaled patterns that make places beautiful, legible, and lasting. Today, Jack joins Tiffany to discuss how this mission relates to architecture, urbanism, and craftsmanship.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES* Local Recommendations:
+ Nathaniel Russell House
+ Magnolia Plantation Gardens
+ Angel Oak on Johns Island
- Duncan & Co. Studio (site)
- 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. Click here to learn more about membership.
Gioia Calabretta is one of the leaders of Livable Lynchburg, a Local Conversation in Virginia. She is also Strong Towns’ graphic design intern. She and Norm discuss a walk audit she recently participated in, as well as her unique viewpoint as both a Local Conversation leader and Strong Towns staff member.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES* Livable Lynchburg (Instagram) * See more from Gioia:
+ LinkedIn
+ “I Refuse To Accept That My Best Days of Walkability Were in College” by Gioia Calabretta
- Norm Van Eeden Petersman (LinkedIn)
- Do you know someone who would make for a great The Bottom-Up Revolution guest? Let us know here!
This podcast is made possible by Strong Towns members. Click here to learn more about membership.
Will Gardner is the founder of South Coast Places For People, a new nonprofit — and Strong Towns Local Conversation — in Massachusetts. He previously founded Alma del Mar Charter Schools and now spends much of his time plotting street redesigns, housing reforms, and community events.
In this episode, Will discusses the three working groups his Local Conversation recently started, which focus on parking reform, backyard cottages, and street safety.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES* Local Recommendations:
+ Millicent Library in Fair Haven
+ New Bedford Whaling Museum
+ Ice Cream Cottage
- South Coast Places For People
- StrongHaven (Substack)
- Learn more about Strong Towns Local Conversations.
- 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. Click here to learn more about membership.
Today, Norm is joined by Jess and Dan Sollaccio from Warrenton, Oregon. Jess is a city commissioner and a small-scale housing developer. Dan is a commissioner for the Warrenton Budget Committee and works remotely for a financial institution. They explain their asset-based mindset for strengthening their community, as well as their efforts to redevelop a vacant building into a community hub.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES Jessica Sollaccio (site) * The Outpost (site) * Norm Van Eeden Petersman (LinkedIn) * Do you know someone who would make for a great The Bottom-Up Revolution* guest? Let us know here!
This podcast is made possible by Strong Towns members. Click here to learn more about membership.
Memphis, Tennessee, was ranked the #1 most dangerous metro area by Smart Growth America in 2024. That’s not stopping Kelsey Huse, a safe streets advocate and grad student studying city and regional planning. She’s tackling the problem head-on by analyzing car crash sites, helping launch a city-wide advocacy coalition, and raising awareness for safer infrastructure online.
Today, Kelsey joins Tiffany to share the inside scoop on Memphis’ dangerous design and how she’s working to change it.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES* Local Recommendations:
+ Lulu’s Cafe
+ Overton Park
- Follow Kelsey on Instagram at Memphis Urbanism
- Learn more about the Memphis Crash Analysis Studio.
- 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. Click here to learn more about membership.
Eva López Chávez is a city council member in Salt Lake City, Utah. Eva has been involved in many layers of local government, including working as a city staffer and construction project manager. Today, she and Norm discuss how she became a city councilor and how she’s building prosperity in her city.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES* Connect with Eva:
+ Instagram
+ LinkedIn
+ City Council (site)
- Bring the conversation to your community by booking Norm as a speaker!
- Norm Van Eeden Petersman (LinkedIn)
- Do you know someone who would make for a great The Bottom-Up Revolution guest? Let us know here!
This podcast is made possible by Strong Towns members. Click here to learn more about membership.
Ashley Thornton is the founder of Waco Walks, an organization devoted to promoting walkability in Waco, Texas. She was inspired to start the organization after spending a year with walking as her primary form of transportation.
Ashley and Tiffany discuss the design choices that make Waco difficult to walk in and how Waco Walks is working to change that.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES* Local Recommendations:
+ El Conquistador Mexican Restaurant
+ Dubl-R Burgers
+ Cameron Trading Company
+ Helados La Aztecas on 25th
- Waco Walks (Facebook)
- Act Locally Waco (site)
- 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. Click here to learn more about membership.
Mark Hoppen is a former city manager and Strong Towns member who’s been quietly strengthening communities in Washington state for decades. In this Bottom Up Short, Norm and Mark talk about why someone should pursue a career in city management, what real priorities look like in that role, and how to lead with both care and practicality.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES Gig Harbor Boatshop (site) * Bring the conversation to your community by booking Norm as a speaker! * Norm Van Eeden Petersman (LinkedIn) * Do you know someone who would make for a great The Bottom-Up Revolution* guest? Let us know here!
This podcast is made possible by Strong Towns members. Click here to learn more about membership.
Adult friendships are difficult. A big part of that is our built environment, which is often designed in a way that stifles social connection instead of supporting it. Kat Vellos is an author, facilitator, and connection coach who’s working to change that. She and Tiffany discuss the importance of community building, ways to redesign our built environment, and other steps residents and local leaders can take to help their community thrive.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES* Local Recommendations:
+ Jack London Square
+ Oakland's Grand Lake Farmer's Market
-
See more from Kat:
- We Should Get Together (site)
- “We Should Get Together: The Secret to Cultivating Better Friendships” (book)
- 1-on-1 coaching
- Platonic Action Lab (course)
- Downloadable tools: Better than Small Talk and the Better Conversations Kit
- 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. Click here to learn more about membership.
Ashley Salvador is a city councilor in Edmonton, Alberta. She’s a national leader in housing reform, zoning modernization, and urban revitalization. Ashley joins Norm on this Bottom-Up Short to discus one of her recent initiatives, which focuses on reducing the number of derelict and dangerous properties in the city. Ashley shares how she helped bring Canada’s first Derelict Tax Subclass into effect and how it’s driving revitalization.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES* More from Ashley:
+ “Cleaning Up Our Communities: Canada’s First Derelict Tax Subclass a Success”
+ “Will Edmonton Be the First Major Canadian City to Eliminate Parking Minimums?”
+ “Want more local businesses in your neighborhood? Then legalize ‘Accessory Commercial Units.’”
+ “The Bottom-Up Revolution is... Building Gentle Density and a Grassroots Campaign for City Council”
- Norm Van Eeden Petersman (LinkedIn)
- Do you know someone who would make for a great The Bottom-Up Revolution guest? Let us know here!
This podcast is made possible by Strong Towns members. Click here to learn more about membership.
Jeral Poskey is the founder and CEO of Swyft Cities, a California-based tech company that's spearheading a totally new transportation system. Jeral explains his unique approach to creating realistic transportation innovations. He describes the transportation system Swyft Cities has created and how it could address the issues that many cities face — like traffic, land wasted on parking, and difficulty with infill development.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES* Local Recommendations:
+ Gelato Classico on Castro
+ Season's Noodles and Dumplings Garden
+ Ox9 Lanzhou Handpulled Noodles
+ California Street Complete Street
+ Bay Trail
- Swyft Cities (site)
- 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. Click here to learn more about membership.
Dr. Alicia Pederson is a writer and advocate who encourages cities to adopt courtyard urbanism, a style of development where mixed-use buildings surround a shared courtyard. Today, she joins Norm to explain the benefits of this development style and how to advocate for it.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES* Drawing by Leon Krier * 6 housing reforms that could help make courtyard blocks possible. * Read more from Alicia:
+ Urban Courtyard (X/Twitter)
+ “Chicago’s affordable housing plan demands a courtyard block blueprint” *Chicago Tribune*
+ “The courtyard block solution to Chicago’s family flight problem” *Chicago Tribune*
+ “A better way to approach the challenge of Lincoln Yards” *Crain’s Chicago Business*
- Norm Van Eeden Petersman (LinkedIn)
- Do you know someone who would make for a great The Bottom-Up Revolution guest? Let us know here!
This podcast is made possible by Strong Towns members. Click here to learn more about membership, including member-exclusive perks.
Meet Burhan Azeem, a city councilor in Cambridge, Massachusetts. A graduate of MIT, he’s the youngest councilor in the city’s history and has a special focus on housing affordability and street safety.
Burhan has successfully expanded zoning for affordable housing, removed parking minimums, and helped build bike lanes throughout the city. He also helped found a nonprofit that impacts housing policy on the state level. Today, he and Tiffany sit down to discuss how he got to this point and what he’s working on next.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES* Local Recommendations:
+ Café 1369
+ Kendall Rooftop Garden
+ Greenline Bike Path
- Burhan Azeem (site)
- 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. Click here to learn more about membership, including member-exclusive perks.
What happens when a city’s design puts lives at risk—and someone decides to speak up?
In this episode, you’ll meet Army Master Sgt. Ben Hultquist, one of the leaders of Strong Towns Fayetteville, a Local Conversation in North Carolina. After a string of preventable deaths, Ben testified in city hall. Now, that testimony is helping turn the conversation in Fayetteville toward people-first design and safer streets.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES Strong Towns Fayetteville (Facebook) * Learn how to make your streets safer with the Crash Analysis Studio model. * Norm Van Eeden Petersman (LinkedIn) * Do you know someone who would make for a great The Bottom-Up Revolution* guest? Let us know here!
This podcast is made possible by Strong Towns members. Click here to learn more about membership, including member-exclusive perks.
Linda Appel Lipsius is the executive director of Denver Urban Gardens, where she supports a network of over 200 gardens and food forests that produce 650,000 pounds of food annually. She also helps launch initiatives to help make Denver a greener, more food-resilient place.
Linda and Tiffany discuss the importance of nature in urban resilience and the benefits of community gardening, from access to healthy food to community building and mental health improvement. Linda explains how a permaculture design philosophy can help cities become more resilient.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES* Denver Urban Gardens * Local Recommendations:
+ Little Owl Coffee
+ The Kitchen
+ Museum of Contemporary Art
- 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. Click here to learn more about membership, including member-exclusive perks.
Wendy Nash is the founder of Get Around Caboolture, a grassroots transportation initiative in Caboolture, Australia. She and Norm discuss the group's efforts to promote more transportation options, including hosting the first Week Without Driving outside the U.S. Wendy emphasizes the importance of tailoring messages to different audiences and explains why she would like to see more comedy in advocacy.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES Get Around Caboolture * Strong Towns Academy * Norm Van Eeden Petersman (LinkedIn) * Do you know someone who would make for a great The Bottom-Up Revolution* guest? Let us know here!
This podcast is made possible by Strong Towns members. Click here to learn more about membership, including member-exclusive perks.
Brandi Thompson is the “accidental” co-founder and leader of Strong Towns ABQ, a Local Conversation in Albuquerque, New Mexico. She’s lived in eight states and has worked as a rattlesnake wrangler, a grant writer, and a teacher. She currently works as a flight nurse, providing care to patients who need to be air-lifted to the hospital.
Today, Brandi sits down with Tiffany to discuss the strategies that have helped Strong Towns ABQ successfully advocate for zoning reform and against highway expansions.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES* Strong Towns ABQ (site) * Local Recommendations:
+ Old Town Plaza
+ Bike In Coffee
+ High and Dry Brewing
- 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. Click here to learn more about membership, including member-exclusive perks.
Alyssa Lee and Kay Crumb are leaders of Strong SacTown, one of the largest and most successful groups in the Strong Towns Local Conversations program. Based in Sacramento, California, the group has 140 engaged members, balances multiple ongoing initiatives, and successfully collaborates with city staff.
In this Bottom-Up Short, Alyssa and Kay share their advice for building and sustaining a successful Local Conversation.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES Strong SacTown (site) * Alyssa Lee discussed this topic in more depth at the 2025 Strong Towns National Gathering. You can check out her presentation slides here. * Norm Van Eeden Petersman (LinkedIn) * Do you know someone who would make for a great The Bottom-Up Revolution* guest? Let us know here!
This podcast is made possible by Strong Towns members. Click here to learn more about membership, including member-exclusive perks.
Craig Cassar is a first-term city councilor in Hamilton, Ontario. Prior to serving in public office, he acquired nearly 25 years of private sector leadership experience. Craig is a believer in the Strong Towns philosophy of city building, an advocate for active and public transportation, and a passionate environmentalist.
Today, Craig and Tiffany discusses the challenges Hamilton faces and the progress the city has made. They also talk about the importance of a holistic approach to city building, including creating synergy between urbanism and environmentalism.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES* Craig Cassar (site) * Local Recommendations:
+ Tiffany Falls
+ Dundas Valley Trail System
+ James Street North Art Crawl
- 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. Click here to learn more about membership, including member-exclusive perks.
Jesse Russell is a small-scale developer and Strong Towns member from Bend, Oregon. He joins Norm to discuss the ways he’s helping create more attainable homes in his hometown. He also explains how he works with the community and city officials to remove barriers to good development.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES Hiatus Homes (website) * Bend made it to the Final 4 in this year’s Strongest Town Contest. There are many great lessons that cities of all sizes can learn from their hard work. Click here to read more about their progress. * Norm Van Eeden Petersman (LinkedIn). * Do you know someone who would make for a great The Bottom-Up Revolution* guest? Let us know here!
This podcast is made possible by Strong Towns members. Click here to learn more about membership, including member-exclusive perks.
Eric Higbee is a landscape architect and writer who teaches university courses on community engagement at the University of Washington Department of Landscape Architecture. He works on community design and planning projects through his award-winning landscape architecture practice, Convene.
Today, Eric joins Tiffany to discuss the importance of community engagement, why attempts at this kind of engagement often fail, and how to succeed at it.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES* Read more from Eric in his Substack, The Answer is Community * Convene (site) * Local Recommendations:
+ Third Place Books
+ Café Vitta
+ UpGarden
+ Columbia City Business District
- 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. Click here to learn more about membership, including member-exclusive perks.
In today’s Bottom-Up Short, Norm is joined by Kevin McDonnell, the mayor of Petaluma, California, and Dave Alden, co-leader of Petaluma Urban Chat. Kevin and Dave discuss their Know Before You Grow initiative, a community-driven effort focused on smart, financially strong development. They share how this initiative has helped direct attention toward building housing in Petaluma’s downtown, where services already exist and infrastructure is more financially viable.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES Petaluma Urban Chat (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. Click here to learn more about membership, including member-exclusive perks.
Dr. Patricia Tice has been an transportation engineer, planner, researcher and self-proclaimed geek for nearly 30 years. She spent the first decade of her career doing hundreds of traffic impact studies. In 2011, she started her own consulting firm and, a few years later, completed a PhD in transportation engineering.
In this episode of The Bottom-Up Revolution, Patricia talks about her research into human behavior, as well as the role of human interaction and LEGO in urban design.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES* Read more from Patricia on her Substack ProFound City Insights * Local Recommendations:
+ Winter Garden Farmers Market
+ Way Chocolate and Coffee
+ Scoops Old Fashioned Ice Cream
+ Market to Table Restaurant
- Tiffany Owens Reed (Instagram)
- Do you know someone who would make for a great Bottom-Up Revolution guest? Let us know here!
Vignesh Swaminathan is an engineer, transportation planner, and content creator. Formerly the the CEO of a civil engineering firm, he now works as a project engineer and has over 1.7 million followers on TikTok, where he discusses urban infrastructure and transportation planning.
Tiffany and Vignesh discuss how transportation planning affects other aspects of cities such as housing. Vignesh explains how he works with quick-build projects, intersection design, and social media to make cities stronger.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES* See more from Vignesh:
+ At the National Gathering!
+ On TikTok
+ On Instagram
-
Local Recommendations:
- Downtown San Jose
- Bay Trail
- San Pedro Square
- CalTrain
- Tiffany Owens Reed (Instagram)
- Do you know someone who would make for a great Bottom-Up Revolution guest? Let us know here!
Danny Wind is a Local Conversation leader and Regional Transportation Commission member from Lake County, California. In this Bottom-Up Short, Danny discusses their Open Street Map Project, which gives people a space to share photos and descriptions of the everyday challenges they face. Danny explains how this method of humbly observing where people struggle is a powerful force for change and how it intersects with their Regional Transportation Commission work.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES Read more about Danny: “A Love That Helps Your Place Live Up To Its Full Potential” * Learn more about the Strong Towns approach to public investment. * Norm Van Eeden Petersman (LinkedIn). * Do you know someone who would make for a great Bottom-Up Revolution* guest? Let us know here!
Noah Roth is the founder of Streetcraft, a platform that uses visual storytelling and urban design to explore and improve the built environment. He joins Tiffany to talk about what led him to this form of advocacy, how visualizations can bring people on board with a project, and what he’s learned since starting his platform.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES* Want to hear more from Noah? Get your National Gathering tickets today! * Streetcraft (YouTube) * Local Recommendations:
+ Sleeping Bear National Dunes
+ The Flying Noodle
+ Farm Club
- Tiffany Owens Reed (Instagram)
- Do you know someone who would make for a great Bottom-Up Revolution guest? Let us know here!
Danny Lapin is a revitalization specialist with the New York State Department of State. He and Norm discuss the ways that New York state is encouraging bottom-up community development, as well as Danny’s strategies for getting buy-in from communities that are wary of state programs or intervention.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES Danny Lapin (LinkedIn) * Read more about Danny: “A Strong Towns Voice in State Government” * Norm Van Eeden Petersman (LinkedIn). * Do you know someone who would make for a great Bottom-Up Revolution* guest? Let us know here!
Rachel Leonardo is the video producer at Strong Towns. She has a bachelor’s degree in architecture and specializes in breaking down complex topics into clear, actionable ideas that inspire local change.
Rachel and Tiffany discuss the importance of collaboration in building great places that foster community, culture, and connection. They explore how social media can encourage that collaboration and how it intersects with Strong Towns’ mission.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES* Want to hear more from Rachel? Get your National Gathering tickets today! * See Rachel’s work:
+ Studio Leonardo (YouTube)
+ Strong Towns (YouTube)
-
Local Recommendations:
- Bar Casa Jesus Mari
- Posada de Sorauren
- Gosaria Coffee Shop
- Tiffany Owens Reed (Instagram)
- Do you know someone who would make for a great Bottom-Up Revolution guest? Let us know here!
Hazen Elwood is a student, a member of Strong Towns Calgary (in Alberta, Canada), and a community manager with the organization For the City. Today, Norm and Hazen discuss ways to build an advocacy network and the power of raising local awareness through storytelling.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES Unsprawling (site) * Calgary made it to the Elite Eight in this year’s Strongest Town Contest. There are many great lessons that cities of all sizes can learn from their hard work. Click here to read more about their progress. * Norm Van Eeden Petersman (LinkedIn). * Do you know someone who would make for a great Bottom-Up Revolution* guest? Let us know here!
Justine Underhill is an elected city council member in Falls Church, Virginia, and an award-winning video journalist and independent filmmaker. She’s worked for international and domestic news organizations, created an award-winning docuseries, and started an educational YouTube channel.
Justine joins Tiffany to discuss how media can be used to connect with people and drive change.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES* Want to hear more from Justine? Get your National Gathering tickets today! * Learn more about Justine’s work:
+ YouTube Channel
+ Falls Church Forward
-
Local Recommendations:
- Panjshir Restaurant
- Saturday morning farmer's market
- Cherry Hill Park
- Northside Social
- Café Kindred
- Godfreys
- Tiffany Owens Reed (Instagram)
- Do you know someone who would make for a great Bottom-Up Revolution guest? Let us know here!
How do you turn three people with snow shovels into an initiative that gets covered on the news, triggers a city-funded pilot program, and inspires people to stay in the city long-term? That’s what Andrew Neidhardt and Dustin Moore of Walkable Albany, a Local Conversation in New York, are here to explain.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES Walkable Albany (site). * Norm Van Eeden Petersman (LinkedIn). * Do you know someone who would make for a great Bottom-Up Revolution* guest? Let us know here!
Rosaline Hill is a registered professional planner and awards-winning architect from Ottawa, Canada. She’s consulted on zoning for the city of Ottawa and is the founder and principle architect of BuildingIn, a planning program that helps municipalities reach their housing goals through infill development.
Today, Rosaline joins Tiffany to discuss the complexities of housing reform. She explains how she created a 3D modeling program that helps municipalities visualize and argue persuasively for development.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES* Local Recommendations:
+ Equator Coffee
+ Capital Pathway Bike Trail
-
Learn more about Rosaline’s work:
- BuildingIn (site)
- Walkable Ottawa (site)
- Ottawa Cohousing (site)
- Learn about the six simple code reforms local officials can implement today to welcome new housing.
- Tiffany Owens Reed (Instagram)
- Do you know someone who would make for a great Bottom-Up Revolution guest? Let us know here!
In this episode of Bottom Up Shorts, Norm is joined by Saeed Vahid, a Local Conversation leader from Richmond Hill, Ontario. They talk about how he started the Local Conversation, how the group is collaborating with city officials, and how the expansion of the Greater Toronto Area has affected Richmond Hill.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES Strong Richmond Hill (site). * Norm Van Eeden Petersman (LinkedIn). * Do you know someone who would make for a great Bottom-Up Revolution* guest? Let us know here!
Diane Alisa is an author and founder of the nonprofit End Car Dependency. Her nonprofit helps support families by making it easier to get around safely without a car, build strong support networks, and empower children to be part of their communities.
Diane joins this episode of The Bottom-Up Revolution to discuss the impact of car-dependent design on families and the importance of building integrated communities (or "villages").
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES* Support the work of advocates like Diane by becoming a Strong Towns member today! * Local Recommendations:
+ Downtown Provo
- “Love Letter to Suburbia: How to Restore the American Village” by Diane Alisa
- End Car Dependency (website)
- Tiffany Owens Reed (Instagram)
- Do you know someone who would make for a great Bottom-Up Revolution guest? Let us know here!
Daniel Bloemker is a Strong Towns member and Local Conversation leader from Bellingham, Washington. He’s been instrumental in advancing local efforts on parking reform, housing, and community spaces. He joins Norm in this Bottom-Up Short to discuss these efforts and the progress the city has made.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES* Want to support advocates like Daniel? Become a Strong Towns member today. * Bellingham won the “Most Progress in Building Better Budgets” award in the Strongest Town Contest. There are many great lessons that cities of all sizes can learn from their hard work.
Elizabeth Turman-Bryant is a councilmember in Burlington, Washington. She's passionate about community building, revitalizing historical areas, and making Burlington more bicycle and pedestrian friendly.
Turman-Bryant joins Tiffany to discuss her journey from nonprofit work to local government. She explains some of the projects she’s working on and the importance of striking a balance between the responsiveness of bottom-up activism and the influence of local government involvement.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES* Local Recommendations:
+ Tacos Tecalitlan
+ Train Wreck Bar
+ Railroads Pizza and Bar
+ Taste of Thai by Wipa
- Tiffany Owens Reed (Instagram)
- Do you know someone who would make for a great The Bottom-Up Revolution guest? Let us know here!
Denyse Trepanier is the president of Bike Walk Alameda, a nonprofit organization in the island city of Alameda, California. She joins Norm to discuss the city's efforts to improve biking infrastructure, including the creation of a network of low-stress bikeways and neighborhood greenways.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES Bike Walk Alameda (site) * Alameda made it to the Sweet 16 in this year’s Strongest Town Contest, from a list of almost 40 nominees. There are many great lessons that cities of all sizes can learn from their hard work. Click here to read more about their progress. * Norm Van Eeden Petersman (LinkedIn) * Do you know someone who would make for a great The Bottom-Up Revolution* guest? Let us know here!
Steven Zittergruen is a city councilor and Strong Towns member from Decorah, Iowa. In this Bottom-Up Short, he joins Norm to discuss the ways he’s making his community stronger. His efforts include revamping Decorah’s budgeting process, helping launch Decorah’s Local Conversation group, and writing about local governance.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES Dear Decorah (Substack) * Learn how to do the math in your own community. * Decorah made it to the Elite Eight in this year’s Strongest Town Contest. There are many great lessons that cities of all sizes can learn from their hard work. Click here to read more about their progress. * Norm Van Eeden Petersman (LinkedIn) * Do you know someone who would make for a great The Bottom-Up Revolution* guest? Let us know here!
Will McCollum is a registered architect and the president and co-founder of Citymakers Collective, a nonprofit that teaches aspiring architects and planners how to design resilient, beautiful and prosperous places.
He joins Tiffany on this episode of The Bottom-Up Revolution to talk about what it takes to design environments for human flourishing, as well as the importance of educating the next generation of architects and planners.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES* Local Recommendations:
+ Piedmont Park
+ Bold Monk Brewing
+ The Works Food Hall
- Citymakers Collective (Website)
- Tiffany Owens Reed (Instagram)
- Do you know someone who would make for a great The Bottom-Up Revolution guest? Let us know here!
Amy Emery is a community leader focused on fostering sustainable growth and smart development in Warrenville, Illinois. In today’s Bottom-Up Short, she joins Norm to discuss several initiatives the city is running, including an incubator program for local businesses and a zoning overlay that allows for mixed-use development.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES Warrenville made it to the Sweet 16 in this year’s Strongest Town Contest, from a list of almost 40 nominees. There are many great lessons that cities of all sizes can learn from their hard work. Click here to read more about their progress, and remember to vote today in the Championship Round! * Norm Van Eeden Petersman (LinkedIn) * Do you know someone who would make for a great The Bottom-Up Revolution* guest? Let us know here!
Sarah Rose is an artist from Spokane, Washington, who uses her art to raise awareness about street safety and the protection of native insects. She is active in her city’s Local Conversation, Spokane Reimagined, and often speaks with local reporters and at city council meetings. She joins Tiffany on this episode of The Bottom-Up Revolution to talk about how the intersection of advocacy and art is driving change in Spokane.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES* Local Recommendations:
+ Pacific to Palouse Wine Bar
+ Page 42 Bookstore
+ Zola
+ “One Block Revolution” by Summer Hess
-
Connect with Sarah Rose:
- Website
- Spokane Reimagined (Website)
- Tiffany Owens Reed (Instagram)
- Do you know someone who would make for a great The Bottom-Up Revolution guest? Let us know here!
Hannah Rechtschaffen is the director of the Greenfield Business Association in Greenfield, Massachusetts. She joins Norm on this episode of Bottom-Up Shorts to discuss the unique challenges and opportunities that Greenfield faces and how it’s becoming a stronger town.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES* Read more about Greenfield:
+ Hope for More Affordable Housing Options Is Growing in Greenfield (article)
+ Strongest Town Nomination
+ Visit Greenfield (site)
- Feeling inspired? Vote for Greenfield in the Strongest Town Contest!
- Norm Van Eeden Petersman (LinkedIn)
- Do you know someone who would make for a great The Bottom-Up Revolution guest? Let us know here!
Kip Santos is a trained civil engineer and construction manager who quit his job to build Local Conversations full-time. Now he splits his time between the U.S. and Canada, nurturing the groups he's founded and building missing middle housing
In this episode of The Bottom-Up Revolution, Santos talks about what inspired him to quit his job, what his different groups are working on, and how he became an small-scale developer.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES* The Strong Towns National Gathering is coming to Providence this June! Get your ticket today. * Local Recommendations:
+ Nitro Coffee Bar
+ East Bay Bike Path
+ Providence Athenaeum
+ Del’s Lemonade
- Tiffany Owens Reed (Instagram)
- Do you know someone who would make for a great The Bottom-Up Revolution guest? Let us know here!
Sean Hayford Oleary is a city council member in Richfield, Minnesota. A Strong Towns member of seven years, Hayford Oleary has helped reintroduce duplexes, reduce parking mandates, and support walkable, financially strong neighborhoods in his community. In this episode of Bottom-Up Shorts, he and Norm discuss the progress Richfield is making in becoming a stronger town.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES Richfield made it to the Sweet 16 in this year’s Strongest Town Contest, from a list of almost 40 nominees. There are many great lessons that cities of all sizes can learn from their hard work. Click here to read more about their progress, and remember to vote next week in the Final Four matchup! * Norm Van Eeden Petersman (LinkedIn) * Do you know someone who would make for a great The Bottom-Up Revolution* guest? Let us know here!
Montana Gau is the founder of Strong Denver, a Local Conversation in Colorado. A software engineer by trade, he built the group into a registered nonprofit with a board of directors and several hundred members. Now, city officials are reaching out to the group for collaboration on a variety of initiatives.
In this episode of the The Bottom-Up Revolution, Gau joins Tiffany to discuss Strong Denver’s origins and where the group is now. He talks about how his role shifted as the group grew, from advocating “on the ground” to creating a space where others can more effectively advocate, and the new challenges and opportunities he has because of it.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES* Local Recommendations:
+ Rino Neighborhood
+ South Broadway
+ Washington Park
+ Irish Rover Pub
- Strong Denver (Twitter/X)
- Tiffany Owens Reed (Instagram)
- Do you know someone who would make for a great The Bottom-Up Revolution guest? Let us know here!
Travis Goedken is the city manager of Decorah, Iowa. In this Bottom-Up Short, he joins Norm to talk about a few of the practices and reforms that are making Decorah strong, including making its budgeting easier to understand for residents, embracing a highly collaborative planning process, and opening up new housing options by finding creative loopholes in restrictive state laws.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES Feeling inspired? Vote for Decorah in the Strongest Town Contest! * Travis Goedken (LinkedIn) * Norm Van Eeden Petersman (LinkedIn) * Do you know someone who would make for a great The Bottom-Up Revolution* guest? Let us know here!
Ryan Andrews is the CFO of Hiatus Homes, a small-scale development company in Bend, Oregon. He is also the CFO of the Hiatus Capital Fund, which helps Bend locals invest in development projects in their own community. He’s managed more than 20 investment funds and syndications across real estate debt, equity and venture capital, and he specializes in capitalizing construction and development projects.
In this episode of The Bottom-Up Revolution, Andrews discusses the importance of local investment and explains how to fund small-scale development in a way that channels profits back to locals, instead of outside investors. He and Tiffany discuss the success this model is having in Bend and how it could be replicated in other cities.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES* Feeling inspired? Vote for Bend in the Strongest Town Contest! * Local Recommendations:
+ Crosscut Pub
+ Mount Bachelor Community Inc.
-
Hear more about Hiatus Homes:
- “The Bottom-Up Revolution Is...Making a Big Impact With Tiny Homes” (podcast)
- Hiatus Homes (website)
- Tiffany Owens Reed (Instagram)
- Do you know someone who would make for a great The Bottom-Up Revolution guest? Let us know here!
David Jenkins is a city councilor in La Plata, Maryland, as well as the city’s Local Conversation leader. He joins Norm on this episode of Bottom-Up Shorts to discuss his work with the city’s budget, particularly his efforts to share the city’s financial information with the community in a way that’s easy to understand and actually allows residents to participate in the budgeting process.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES* La Plata Financial Sustainability podcast * The Local-Motive session that inspired Jenkins: “Parsing Through Your Local Budget to Find Some Real Answers” * “You’ll Pay for This! How We Can Afford a Great City for Everyone, Forever” by Michel Durand-Wood * Learn more about:
+ Finance in a Strong Town
+ Local Conversations
- Norm Van Eeden Petersman (LinkedIn)
- Do you know someone who would make for a great The Bottom-Up Revolution guest? Let us know here!
Dr. Jonathan Gingrich is a professor of engineering at Dordt College in Iowa. A trained chemical and environmental engineer, he started teaching transportation engineering due to staffing shortages. Unsatisfied with the standard materials required for the class, he incorporated the book "Confessions of a Recovering Engineer" by Chuck Marohn into his curriculum and had his class conduct a Crash Analysis Studio.
In this episode of The Bottom-Up Revolution, Dr. Gingrich shares how his unusual background helped him see past engineering codes and look for a better way to design streets. He explains the logistics of incorporating crash analysis and safe street design into the classroom, as well as the benefits it had for his students.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES* Local Recommendations:
+ Dordt College
+ The Fruited Plain
+ Casey’s Bakery
-
Learn more:
- Crash Analysis Studio
- "Confessions of a Recovering Engineer" by Chuck Marohn
- “How One Professor is Inspiring the Next Generation of Transportation Engineers”
- Tiffany Owens Reed (Instagram)
- Do you know someone who would make for a great The Bottom-Up Revolution guest? Let us know here!
Josh Stewart is an advocate from Littleton, Colorado. A year ago, his 12-year-old son was struck and killed by a car while biking to school. Since then, Josh has been relentlessly pushing for safer streets in his community. He joins Norm in this Bottom-Up Short to share his story and what he’s learned over the last year of advocacy work.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES “The Cost of an Extra Foot” (article) * “Large Trucks Need Better Street Design” (article) * Learn more about the Crash Analysis Studio model for responding to and preventing car crashes. * Norm Van Eeden Petersman (LinkedIn) * Do you know someone who would make for a great The Bottom-Up Revolution guest? Let us know here! * Subscribe to The Bottom-Up Revolution* on iTunes, Google Podcasts, Podbean or via RSS.
Jesse Russell is the founder and CEO of Hiatus Homes, a development company in Bend, Oregon, that specializes in small home design and cottage community development. In 2019, he introduced Bend’s first small-scale housing community. He’s also been involved in citywide policy and incentive reform for small-scale development and urban infill.
Russell joins Tiffany on today’s episode of The Bottom-Up Revolution to discuss his journey from Los Angeles TV producer to small-scale developer. They talk about how to navigate the challenges of building small homes, including city policies and project financing, and how this kind of development can benefit communities.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES* Local Recommendations:
+ Deschutes Bar
+ Boneyard Brewery
+ Hayden Homes Amphitheatre
+ Whitewater Park Surf Wave
- Hiatus Homes (website)
-
Learn how to bring more housing to your city:
- “The Housing-Ready City: A Toolkit for Local Code Reform”
- Accelerator program, spring session: Get expert guidance in making your community housing ready.
- Tiffany Owens Reed (Instagram)
- Do you know someone who would make for a great The Bottom-Up Revolution guest? Let us know here!
- Subscribe to The Bottom-Up Revolution on iTunes, Google Podcasts, Podbean or via RSS.
In this Bottom-Up Short, Norm is joined by Christian Schick, the leader of Strong Towns RVA, a Local Conversation in Richmond, Virginia. The group has built a lot of momentum in the past year, and Schick talks about how they did that in a productive and helpful way, particularly while juggling local elections.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES Strong Towns RVA (Linktree). * Norm Van Eeden Petersman (LinkedIn). * Do you know someone who would make for a great The Bottom-Up Revolution* guest? Let us know here!
Mike Christensen is the executive director of the Utah Rail Passenger Association, where he works to educate the public and policy makers about the value of investing in passenger rail. He also serves on Salt Lake City’s planning commission, as well as the boards of the Utah chapter of the Congress for the New Urbanism, the Utah Transit Riders Union and the national Rail Passengers Association.
Christensen joins Tiffany Owens Reed on this episode of The Bottom-Up Revolution to discuss the benefits of passenger rail, including how it can lead to more productive land use, as well as his work advocating for better public transit outside of metropolitan areas.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES* Local Recommendations:
+ Temple Square
+ Red Iguana
+ Park Cafe
- Mike Christensen (Twitter/X)
- Utah Rail Passenger Association (website)
- Amtrak Long Distance Study
- Tiffany Owens Reed (Instagram)
- Do you know someone who would make for a great The Bottom-Up Revolution guest? Let us know here!
Varsha Gopal is an architect from Chennai, India. She is putting Strong Towns ideas into action by starting conversations about what makes places thrive — what makes them special, sustainable and prosperous. On this episode of Bottom-Up Shorts, she joins Norm to discuss two research projects she recently conducted in her city and what they taught her about thriving cities, urban design and community engagement.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES Norm Van Eeden Petersman (LinkedIn). * Do you know someone who would make for a great The Bottom-Up Revolution guest? Let us know here! * Subscribe to The Bottom-Up Revolution* on iTunes, Google Podcasts, Podbean or via RSS.
Maricela Sanchez is a city council member and anesthesiologist from Prosser, Washington. She has lived in major cities all over the U.S., including Los Angeles, San Francisco and New York City. In today’s episode, she joins Tiffany to discuss how her travels and profession molded her perspective on what makes a town safe and resilient. They also discuss Sanchez’s role as a councilor, where she focuses on creating safe, walkable neighborhoods and improving active transportation.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES* Local Recommendations:
+ Historic Mercer Building
+ Princess Theatre
+ Brewminatti Coffee Shop
- Tiffany Owens Reed (Instagram)
- Do you know someone who would make for a great The Bottom-Up Revolution guest? Let us know here!
Stanis Moody Roberts is a business owner from the Portland, Maine area. For the past year he has been organizing locals to oppose a highway expansion that would have claimed eight acres of his land. He joins Tiffany on today’s episode of The Bottom-Up Revolution to discuss this journey and the progress his community has made — including how they convinced their town council to rescind support for the project and delayed construction by several years.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES* Local Recommendations:
+ Mr. Tuna
+ Bubba’s Sulky Lounge
+ Smiling Hill Farm
- Tiffany Owens Reed (Instagram).
- Do you know someone who would make for a great The Bottom-Up Revolution guest? Let us know here!
Welcome to this episode of Bottom Up Shorts! Today, Norm is joined by Andrew and Anna Carley, the leaders of Strong Towns Grand Rapids, a Local Conversation in Michigan. They discuss the progress they’ve made in advocating for policy changes in their city and how they became one of the go-to groups that city officials turn to when they’re considering policy changes.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES Strong Towns Grand Rapids (site). * Want to hear more from the Carleys? Hop on the Spring Local Motive Tour, where they’ll share their tactics for regional organizing and letter-writing campaigns. * Norm Van Eeden Petersman (LinkedIn). * Do you know someone who would make for a great The Bottom-Up Revolution* guest? Let us know here!
Emily Hutcheson is a bike advocate in San Antonio, Texas, and a mom of three. She joins Tiffany on this episode of The Bottom-Up Revolution to discuss her work improving bike infrastructure in her city. They discuss her path to advocacy, some of the initiatives she’s spearheaded, including a bike club and bike bus, and the response from the public and local officials.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES* Local Recommendations:
+ Bright Coffee.
+ Copper Rose Winebar.
+ SoHill Café.
- Tiffany Owens Reed (Instagram).
- Do you know someone who would make for a great The Bottom-Up Revolution guest? Let us know here!
Spencer Coyne is the mayor of Princeton, British Columbia. As a proud Strong Towns member, he works to bring incremental development and community resilience to his city. Coyne joins this Bottom-Up Short to explain how he’s implementing the Strong Towns approach in Princeton, including how to incrementally reform a zoning code and how to do a lot with a small amount of funding.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES* Connect with Spencer Coyne:
+ Facebook.
+ LinkedIn.
- Norm Van Eeden Petersman (LinkedIn).
- Do you know someone who would make for a great The Bottom-Up Revolution guest? Let us know here!
In this episode of The Bottom-Up Revolution, host Tiffany Owens Reed is joined by Ellie Riggs and Ryan Carter from Catawba Riverkeeper, a grassroots organization that preserves the waters of the Catawba-Wateree River basin in North Carolina.
They discuss stormwater’s effect on the environment, how it’s connected to parking reform and developers, and a new stormwater management bill that Riggs and Carter are introducing to the North Carolina state legislature in a few weeks. They also discuss Riggs and Carter’s experience with advocacy at the state level.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES* Local Recommendations:
+ Legion Brewing.
+ Birdsong Brewing.
+ The Diamond Restaurant.
+ McGill Rose Garden.
- Catawba Riverkeeper Website.
- 2025-2026 Catawba Riverkeeper Legislative Agenda.
- Tiffany Owens Reed (Instagram).
- Do you know someone who would make for a great The Bottom-Up Revolution guest? Let us know here!
In this episode of Bottom-Up Shorts, host Norm Van Eeden Petersman is joined by Michael Bassili, one of the leaders of Strong Towns Nanaimo, a Local Conversation group based in British Columbia, Canada. Bassili explains how his Local Conversation created a parking campaign that convinced their city council to vote 8-1 to eliminate parking mandates in their downtown.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES* Connect with Strong Towns Nanaimo:
+ Website.
+ Instagram.
+ LinkedIn.
- Try Strong Towns Nanaimo’s letter of support generator.
- Norm Van Eeden Petersman (LinkedIn).
- Do you know someone who would make for a great The Bottom-Up Revolution guest? Let us know here!
Matt Harder is the founder of Civic Trust, a participatory budgeting company that provides technology infrastructure, communications and process methodology to help citizens participate in their governments’ budgeting process.
In this episode of The Bottom-Up Revolution, Harder joins host Tiffany Owens Reed to discuss participatory budgeting, a method of getting resident input on how a city’s budget is spent. They talk about the three phases of participatory budgeting, the benefits and challenges to implementing this method, and real-world examples of where it’s been implemented.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES* Transcript available on our site. * Local Recommendations:
+ Pearl Street Mall.
+ Verde Burritos.
+ Chautauqua Park.
- Civic Trust (website).
- Tiffany Owens Reed (Instagram).
- Do you know someone who would make for a great The Bottom-Up Revolution guest? Let us know here!
In this special episode of Bottom-Up Shorts, host Norm Van Eeden Petersman is joined by Edward Erfurt, chief technical advisor for Strong Towns, to discuss a transformative 4-step approach to public investment.
They explore real-world examples of this approach in action, including the inspiring stories of Sheboygan, Wisconsin, and Chisholm, Minnesota. These stories illustrate the power of starting small, focusing on what's possible today, and engaging local energy to build something truly transformative over time.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES* Read more about the incremental approach to public investment:
+ “The Strong Towns Approach to Public Investment” (article).
+ “Starting a Local Business Can Be As Easy as Setting Up a Chair” (article).
+ “Learn the 4-Step Process for Public Investment” (Academy course).
- Norm Van Eeden Petersman (LinkedIn).
- Do you know someone who would make for a great The Bottom-Up Revolution guest? Let us know here!
In this episode of Bottom-Up Shorts, host Norm Van Eeden Petersman is joined by Jake Loftis, a pastor and leader of the Local Conversation group Strong Towns Blair. They discuss the ways that North America’s built environment can lead to social isolation and how Loftis used his local paper to combat that isolation and encourage engagement in his community.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES Transcript available on our site. * Read more about Loftis and Strong Towns Blair. * Norm Van Eeden Petersman (LinkedIn). * Do you know someone who would make for a great The Bottom-Up Revolution* guest? Let us know here!
In this episode of The Bottom-Up Revolution, host Tiffany Owens Reed is joined by Chloe Groome and Aaron Feldman, co-leads of the Local Conversation group Strong Towns Chicago.
They discuss the initiatives that Strong Towns Chicago is working on, including legalizing fourplexes throughout the city and getting city officials involved in tactical urbanism. They also talk about the challenges the group faces and their strategies for overcoming those difficulties, including building a coalition with other advocacy groups.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES* Local recommendations:
+ The winter Christkindlmarket
+ Summer streetfests.
+ Four Moon Tavern.
+ Live music concerts.
+ Lou Malnati’s Pizzeria.
- Strong Towns Chicago (Instagram).
- Tiffany Owens Reed (Instagram).
- Do you know someone who would make for a great The Bottom-Up Revolution guest? Let us know here!
In this episode of Bottom-Up Shorts, host Norm Van Eeden Petersman is joined by Joshua Hopkins, the newly elected mayor of Chugwater, Wyoming. They discuss Hopkins’ path to becoming mayor and how he created a rodeo ring that provides a third place for his community and supports local businesses and walkability.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES Tri-County Mercantile. * Read more from Strong Towns about Chugwater. * Norm Van Eeden Petersman (LinkedIn). * Do you know someone who would make for a great The Bottom-Up Revolution* guest? Let us know here!
Sara Studdard is a community engagement and communications expert. She’s also a partner at City Thread, a nonprofit consulting firm that specializes in helping city governments design and implement active mobility plans.
Studdard joins this episode of The Bottom-Up Revolution to explore how having a variety of mobility options (walking, biking, public transit, etc.) benefits communities, as well as the importance of effective messaging and communication.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES* Local recommendations:
+ Nowhere Coffee.
+ Westwood Neighborhood.
-
City Thread (site).
- “Communication Strategies That Work” (blog).
- “How to Activate Local Support Through Messaging” (blog).
- Case Study: Providence, Rhode Island.
- Tiffany Owens Reed (Instagram).
- Do you know someone who would make for a great The Bottom-Up Revolution guest? Let us know here!
In this episode of Bottom-Up Shorts, host Norm Van Eeden Petersman is joined by Sully Israel, leader of Strong Towns Santa Barbara, a Local Conversation group. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Santa Barbara’s main street was closed to car traffic, which revitalized the area. Now, Israel and his group are working to keep the street closed to cars and address the community’s other needs in the public realm.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES See more from Sully on his YouTube channel Sullyville or connect with him on LinkedIn. * Strong Towns Santa Barbara (site). * Local coverage of efforts to keep State Street car free. * Norm Van Eeden Petersman (LinkedIn). * Do you know someone who would make for a great The Bottom-Up Revolution guest? Let us know here! * Subscribe to The Bottom-Up Revolution* on iTunes, Google Podcasts, Podbean or via RSS.
In this episode of Bottom-Up Shorts, host Norm Van Eeden Petersman is joined by Ken Kunka, a consultant and coach for small-scale developers. A former building and permitting manager, Kunka helps others develop their craft as builders of stronger communities, with a focus on infill development. Here’s how he does it.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES Norm Van Eeden Petersman (LinkedIn). * Do you know someone who would make for a great The Bottom-Up Revolution* guest? Let us know here!
Jaime Izurieta is an architect, designer and author from Montclair, New Jersey, who focuses on the interaction between users and the built environment. He’s also the founder of Storefront Mastery, an award-winning creative agency that works with place management organizations to design and activate interactions between local businesses and their community.
This week, Izurieta joins host Tiffany Owens Reed to discuss the importance of designing experiences, instead of just buildings, and how local leaders can shift their perspectives of downtowns to make them more successful.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES* Local recommendations:
+ Le French Dad Bakery.
+ Local Coffee Montclair.
+ Watchung Booksellers.
+ Tino’s Artisan Pizza.
- Storefront Mastery (site).
- Check out Jaime Izurieta’s book, “Main Street Mavericks.”
- Learn more about the Storefront Renaissance League.
- Tiffany Owens Reed (Instagram).
- Do you know someone who would make for a great The Bottom-Up Revolution guest? Let us know here!
In this episode of Bottom-Up Shorts, host Norm Van Eeden Petersman is joined by Julie Emery, one of the leaders of Strong Milwaukee, a Local Conversations group. Emery and her group are helping to make their community stronger by building bus benches. Here’s how they started their program and how it’s evolving.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES Norm Van Eeden Petersman (LinkedIn). * Do you know someone who would make for a great The Bottom-Up Revolution* guest? Let us know here!
Katy Clagett is a commercial real estate appraiser, but at her core, she’s an urban explorer and champion for overlooked spaces. At this year’s National Gathering, she won the Small Bets Competition for her “Flock Party” pitch of reclaiming a neighborhood alley using sheep and goats.
Clagett joins this episode of The Bottom-Up Revolution to talk about the ways bottom-up projects can bring neighbors together and build community, as well as her experience with spearheading this kind of project.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES* Local recommendations:
+ Manheim Gardens.
+ Broadway Cafe.
- Flock Party before-and-after images.
- Tiffany Owens Reed (Instagram).
- Do you know someone who would make for a great The Bottom-Up Revolution guest? Let us know here!
In this episode of Bottom-Up Shorts, host Norm Van Eeden Petersman is joined by Sarah, the leader of Strong Towns Poway/Rancho Bernardo, a Local Conversations group. Sarah and several of her friends teamed up to install bike racks in places that were lacking them. Here’s how they used a really small budget and lots of determination to make something good happen in their community.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES Norm Van Eeden Petersman (LinkedIn). * Do you know someone who would make for a great The Bottom-Up Revolution* guest? Let us know here!
This Member Week, we’re excited to introduce you to Bottom-Up Shorts, a new collection of 10-minute episodes that we're adding to The Bottom-Up Revolution feed. Each week, Member Advocate Norm Van Eeden Petersman will talk with inspiring guests who are taking action in their community.
This week, he’s joined by Manav Sharma, one of the leaders of Strong Towns Vancouver, a Local Conversations group. Sharma and his group were inspired to make their community stronger through the tactical deployment of stickers. Here’s how they’re doing it.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES Become a member today! * Strong Towns Vancouver sticker campaign coverage, pictures and video. * Resources for creating safe and productive streets. * Norm Van Eeden Petersman (LinkedIn). * Do you know someone who would make for a great The Bottom-Up Revolution* guest? Let us know here!
Rik Adamski is the founder and president of Ash+Lime, a planning firm that strives to help cities and neighborhoods create thriving places by drawing on the wisdom of the past. Originally from Chicago, Adamski consulted for several of the most prominent planning organizations in the U.S. before moving to Texas and embracing a more nimble, actionable and participatory approach to developing communities.
In this episode of The Bottom-Up Revolution, Adamski joins host Tiffany Owens Reed to discuss his approach to urban planning, the challenges of implementing a new planning approach in cities, and the importance of community engagement and incrementalism.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES* Local recommendations:
+ Ten Bells Tavern (reopening soon).
+ Texas Theatre.
+ Jefferson Boulevard.
+ Tyler Station.
+ Stockyards District in Fort Worth.
- Ash+Lime (website).
- A Better Brainerd report.
- Tiffany Owens Reed (Instagram).
- Do you know someone who would make for a great The Bottom-Up Revolution guest? Let us know here!
Norm Van Eeden Petersman is the director of membership and development at Strong Towns. He regularly writes for Strong Towns on topics including housing, transportation and community building. He also co-leads his area’s Local Conversation, Deltans for People-Oriented Places.
In this episode, Petersman joins host Tiffany Owens Reed to discuss his work with Strong Towns and the importance of building community in your place. They also share an exciting update about the future of The Bottom-Up Revolution.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES* Local Recommendations:
+ Dunbar Lumber..
+ Nerd Feeder.
+ Localz Urban Cafe.
+ My Original Danish Pastry Baker.
- Tiffany Owens Reed (Instagram).
- Do you know someone who would make for a great The Bottom-Up Revolution guest? Let us know here!
Yamini Karandikar is the leader of Strong Towns San Antonio, a Local Conversation in Texas that advocates for safer streets and alternative transportation. Among other efforts, she successfully nominated an intersection in her city for review in the Strong Towns Crash Analysis Studio and is co-hosting a Local-Motive session on improving street safety. Professionally, she works in process improvement strategy within the electric and gas industry.
In this episode of The Bottom-Up Revolution, Karandikar talks with host Tiffany Owens Reed about her advocacy journey, what it’s like to conduct a Crash Analysis Studio, and how her community is changing for the better.
If you want more information about Karandikar’s experience with the Crash Analysis Studio and how it’s transforming her community, join her Local-Motive session on October 24 at noon CDT: “From Crash to Community Empowerment: How Addressing a Car Crash Helped Save and Change Lives.”
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES* Local recommendations:
+ The Friendly Spot.
+ The Station Café.
- Tiffany Owens Reed (Instagram).
- Do you know someone who would make for a great The Bottom-Up Revolution guest? Let us know here!
Jacob Hyman is a civil-site engineer in training and the leader of Strong Towns Steubenville, a Local Conversation in Ohio. Originally from Florida, he moved to Steubenville after serving in the Air Force and started the city's Local Conversation two years later. He works for Crabtree Group, Inc., which provides site engineering services for traditional neighborhood developments and infill development across the country and globe.
Today, Hyman joins host Tiffany Owens Reed on The Bottom-Up Revolution to discuss the challenges of revitalizing a Rust Belt city, how Strong Towns Steubenville is tackling those challenges, and how a combination of creativity, community and faith could be exactly what Steubenville — and cities like it — need to thrive.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES* Local recommendations:
+ Steubenville Nutcracker Village.
+ Leonardo's Coffeehouse & Renaissance Coffee Roasting Co.
+ Spyridon Studios.
+ Chesterton & Co. Cigars.
+ Yorgo's Gyros & Potatoes.
+ 4th Street Standard.
+ Martonis Pizza.
- Tiffany Owens Reed (Instagram).
- Do you know someone who would make for a great The Bottom-Up Revolution guest? Let us know here!
Tiffany Elder is a licensed general contractor, realtor and real estate investor/developer in Durham, North Carolina. She is the owner of Paradigm Construction (a design-build construction firm) and Paradigm Properties (a real estate brokerage firm). She also facilitates real estate ownership and investing seminars for residents.
Elder joins this episode of The Bottom-Up Revolution to discuss her career path, how her various roles intersect, and the challenges and opportunities she’s faced in Durham.
To hear more from Elder, check out her Local-Motive session “Investing in Housing Development that Strengthens Neighborhoods Without Pushing People Out.” You can join live today at noon CDT or access the recording at any time in the Strong Towns Academy.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES* Local recommendations:
+ Bar Virgil - Downtown.
+ Nzinga’s café.
+ Walk downtown.
+ Duke Gardens.
+ Tiffany Elder’s TEDx Talk.
- Tiffany Elder (website).
- Tiffany Owens Reed (Instagram).
- Do you know someone who would make for a great The Bottom-Up Revolution guest? Let us know here!
Jennifer Krouse is a real estate strategist and the CEO of Liberty House Plans, an architectural publishing house that provides architectural plans for neighborhood-friendly buildings. Previously, she served as a business advisor to real estate developers and a consultant in the field of municipal productivity. She is a member of the National Town Builders Association and holds a BA from Williams College and an MBA from the Stockholm School of Economics.
Krouse returns in this episode of The Bottom-Up Revolution to dive deeper into what it means for an area to be productive. She and host Tiffany Owens Reed also discuss the importance of social capital and smart municipal investment strategies.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES* Local recommendations:
+ Peter Pan Donuts.
+ Liberty House Plans.
+ Columns Jennifer has written for Strong Towns.
- Tiffany Owens Reed (Instagram).
- Do you know someone who would make for a great Bottom-Up Revolution guest? Let us know here!
Paloma Delgadillo is a council member in the city of Broomfield, Colorado. Originally from Texas, Paloma holds a B.A. in economics and a minor in statistics from the University of Chicago undergraduate program. She also earned a master’s degree in analytics from the University of Chicago Graham School.
In this episode of The Bottom-Up Revolution, Delgadillo joins host Tiffany Owens Reed to discuss her efforts to make her city more resilient, including through parking reform.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES* Local recommendations:
+ Arista Deli.
+ Proto's Pizzeria Napoletana.
- Tiffany Owens Reed (Instagram).
- Do you know someone who would make for a great The Bottom-Up Revolution guest? Let us know here!
Alec Davis is a native of Des Moines, Iowa, with a background in engineering and consulting. In 2018 he left the corporate world to venture out as an entrepreneur, starting a restaurant alongside his brother back home in Des Moines. In 2023, after learning more about zoning and advocacy, he started Momentum Des Moines, an urban advocacy organization.
On this episode of The Bottom-Up Revolution, Davis joins host Tiffany Owens Reed to talk about Momentum Des Moines’ efforts to build a better city by working with local government to end car dependency and make the city more accessible for everyone.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES* Local recommendations:
+ Dough Co. Pizza.
+ Des Moines Biergarten.
+ Lua Brewing.
+ Big Grove Brewing.
+ Bartenders Handshake.
+ Lucky Lotus.
+ Lachelle's.
+ Cheese Bar.
- Tiffany Owens Reed (Instagram).
- Do you know someone who would make for a great Bottom-Up Revolution guest? Let us know here!
- Subscribe to The Bottom-Up Revolution on iTunes, Google Podcasts, Podbean or via RSS.
Jennifer Krouse is a real estate strategist and the CEO of Liberty House Plans, an architectural publishing house that provides architectural plans for neighborhood-friendly buildings. Previously, she served as a business advisor to real estate developers and a consultant in the field of municipal productivity. She is a member of the National Town Builders Association and holds a BA from Williams College and an MBA from the Stockholm School of Economics.
On this episode of The Bottom-Up Revolution, Krouse joins host Tiffany Owens Reed to talk about the ways Liberty House Plans makes incremental development easier and less risky. They also discuss the art of placecraft — also known as placemaking — and the importance of places being productive.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES Liberty House Plans (site). * Tiffany Owens Reed (Instagram). * Do you know someone who would make for a great Bottom-Up Revolution* guest? Let us know here!
Seth Zeren is a a neighborhood developer and founding member of Strong Towns, as well as a self-proclaimed recovering city planner and a writer at the Build the Next Right Thing Substack. A San Francisco native, Zeren now lives with his family in Providence, Rhode Island, where he works as an incremental developer.
Zeren returns in this episode of The Bottom-Up Revolution to talk with host Tiffany Owens Reed about the political side of incremental development and how to deal with issues like balancing needed development with the increased property taxes that development usually brings.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES Build the Next Right Thing (Substack). * Tiffany Owens Reed (Instagram). * Do you know someone who would make for a great The Bottom-Up Revolution* guest? Let us know here!
Erik Lowe is the founder of Reimagine Spokane, a grassroots group of citizens who are calling for safer streets and better transit in Spokane, Washington. He's also the designer of the “Spokane Reimagined” plan, a $1 billion proposal to improve safety and connectivity in Spokane over 20 years. On this episode of The Bottom-Up Revolution, he joins host Tiffany Owens Reed to talk about transit advocacy and the importance of walkability and safe streets.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES* Local recommendations:
1. Riverfront park, food truck, falls, gondola.
2. Atticus Coffee.
3. Domini’s Sandwiches.
- Tiffany Owens Reed (Instagram).
- Do you know someone who would make for a great The Bottom-Up Revolution guest? Let us know here!
Seth Zeren is a a neighborhood developer and founding member of Strong Towns, as well as a self-proclaimed recovering city planner and a writer at the Build the Next Right Thing Substack. A San Francisco native, Zeren now lives with his family in Providence, Rhode Island, where he works as an incremental developer.
On this episode of The Bottom-Up Revolution, Zeren joins host Tiffany Owens Reed to talk about his path to becoming an incremental developer with a midsize real estate firm, the stark divide between most modern developers and non-developers, and his approach to both incremental finance and philosophy.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES Build the Next Right Thing (Substack). * Tiffany Owens Reed (Instagram). * Do you know someone who would make for a great The Bottom-Up Revolution* guest? Let us know here!
Erin Joyce is the mayor of Braintree, Massachusetts. She’s also a professional civil engineer, former chair of her local planning board, former PTO president, youth soccer coach, and mom to three boys.
She’s joining host Tiffany Owens Reed today on The Bottom-Up Revolution to discuss what it’s like to build strong towns as an elected official, the challenges and opportunities she’s faced, and the importance of community engagement in local government.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES* Erin Joyce (site). * Local recommendations:
+ Widowmaker Brewery in the Blue Hills.
+ Foley's Ice Cream Shop.
+ Thayer Birth Place, Historical Society.
- Tiffany Owens Reed (Instagram).
- Do you know someone who would make for a great Bottom-Up Revolution guest? Let us know here!
Ilana Preuss is the founder and CEO of Recast City, a program that helps cities build strong downtowns by empowering small-scale manufacturers. She is also the author of “Recast Your City: How to Save Your Downtown with Small-Scale Manufacturing.” Previously, she was the vice president and chief of staff at Smart Growth America and led the technical assistance program at the EPA Smart Growth Program. She is a TEDx speaker on, “The Economic Power of Great Places,” and a featured keynote speaker.
In this episode of The Bottom-Up Revolution, Preuss joins host Tiffany Owens Reed to discuss the importance of small-scale manufacturing and her experiences as a city builder.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES Local recommendations: + Bespoke Not Broke Consignment + The People’s Book + The Olive Lounge * Tiffany Owens Reed (Instagram). * Do you know someone who would make for a great Bottom-Up Revolution* guest? Let us know here!
Danny Pearlstein is the policy and communications director at Riders Alliance, a nonprofit transit advocacy organization in New York City. With degrees in environmental studies and urban planning from Cornell, a degree in law from Cardozo and a history on the New York City Council, Pearlstein works to ensure every New Yorker has access to frequent, reliable, accessible and affordable public transit. Today, he joins host Tiffany Owens Reed to discuss congestion pricing, car dependency and public transit in the Big Apple.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES Rider’s Alliance (site). * Tiffany Owens Reed (Instagram). * Do you know someone who would make for a great Bottom-Up Revolution* guest? Let us know here!
In this special episode for Member Week, Tiffany interviews Strong Towns Community Builder John Pattison. Pattison works with advocates in hundreds of communities as they start and lead local Strong Towns groups called Local Conversations. In the interview, they explore how these groups embody the bottom-up nature of the Strong Towns movement, some of the ways Local Conversations have successfully improved their cities, and how becoming a member supports the Local Conversations program.
In addition to his work with Strong Towns, Pattison is the author of two books, most recently “Slow Church” (InterVarsity Press), which takes inspiration from Slow Food and the other Slow movements to help faith communities reimagine how they live life together in the neighborhood. He and his family live in Silverton, Oregon.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES Become a member today! * Tiffany Owens Reed (Instagram). * Do you know someone who would make for a great Bottom-Up Revolution* guest? Let us know here!
In this special edition of The Bottom-Up Revolution, recorded last week at the 2024 National Gathering, we have a double interview with Susan Graham and Ally Smither. Graham and Smither are part of a movement in Houston Texas called Stop TxDot I-45, which is working to prevent a massive highway expansion.
Susan is a retired nurse who has lived in Houston for decades and who started the movement after hearing about the Texas Department of Transportation’s plans for her neighborhood. Ally is originally from London, Ontario, in Canada. A professional opera singer, she stumbled upon the world of transportation advocacy during COVID-19, as well as finding a new professional path in communications, community advocacy and (most recently) as chief of staff for Texas Senator-Elect Molly Cook.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES Stop TxDot I-45 (site). * Tiffany Owens Reed (Instagram). * Do you know someone who would make for a great Bottom-Up Revolution* guest? Let us know here!
Brian Boland is a native of Cincinnati and the founder of Bridge Forward Cincinnati, an advocacy group working to reclaim 19 acres of city land from urban highways. He has a master’s degree in Urban Sustainability and Resilience and 30 years of experience in neighborhood revitalization. In addition to his work with Bridge Forward Cincinnati, Boland is the founder of CNU Midwest and a member of Strong Towns. He helped organize this year’s Congress for the New Urbanism, which will be held May 15-18 in Cincinnati, directly after the Strong Towns National Gathering.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES Bridge Forward Cincinnati (site). * Tiffany Owens Reed (Instagram). * Do you know someone who would make for a great Bottom-Up Revolution* guest? Let us know here!
Christian Gray is a native of Southern California, but now resides in Omaha, Nebraska, with his family, where he is the co-executive director of inCOMMON Community Development, an organization that aims to alleviate poverty at a root level by uniting and strengthening vulnerable neighborhoods. Gray has worked in the field of national and international community development for 16 years, and we’re excited to have him on The Bottom-Up Revolution this week to talk about his community and the work he’s doing in it!
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES inCOMMON Community Development (website). * Tiffany Owens Reed (Instagram). * Do you know someone who would make for a great Bottom-Up Revolution* guest? Let us know here!
Sara Joy Proppe is a native of Texas, but lives in St. Paul, Minnesota. She has a degree in urban planning, and has over a decade of professional experience and managing private real estate development projects, as well as leading community placemaking workshops throughout the Midwest. She's the founder and director of Proximity Project, a consultancy that helps churches discover how they can use placemaking to connect with the local community.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES Proximity Project (website). * Check out Grand Rounds Scenic Byway, Summit Avenue, Cathedral Hill, and West 7th St. * Tiffany Owens Reed (Instagram). * Do you know someone who would make for a great Bottom-Up Revolution* guest? Let us know here!
Armando Moritz-Chapelliquen is a passionate community organizer in Pennsylvania's Lehigh Valley. With extensive experience in providing reports and educational materials on community and economic development, he has collaborated with organizations such as the Association for Neighborhood and Housing Development, the U.S. Economic Development Administration, and the Local Initiative Support Corporation, where he currently serves. Beyond his professional commitments, Armando is a dedicated father and volunteers actively within his local school district. In this episode of The Bottom-Up Revolution, we delve into Moritz-Chapelliquen’s role as a grassroots community advocate.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES Armando Moritz-Chapelliquen (LinkedIn; Twitter/X.) * Check out Easton Public Market and Plants and Coffee. * Tiffany Owens Reed (Instagram). * Do you know someone who would make for a great Bottom-Up Revolution* guest? Let us know here!
Maddy Novich is a criminal justice professor at Manhattan College, a mom of three, and an Instagram influencer living in New York City—you might know her as @cargobikemomma. Novich fell in love with cargo biking during a trip with her family to Europe in 2019, and launched an Instagram account when she came back to just share her love of biking around the city and to help other people, especially other women, realize that this mobility option is available to them.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES Maddy Novich (Instagram). * Check out Vinetaria, Lalibela, and Double Dutch Espresso. * Tiffany Owens Reed (Instagram). * Do you know someone who would make for a great Bottom-Up Revolution* guest? Let us know here!
Deatra Kemp is a native of Milwaukee with a long background in the real estate industry. She is passionate about helping close the home ownership gap within her city's Black and Hispanic communities. As the Vice President of Programs at Acts Housing, she oversees the homebuyer coaching, lending, and home rehab programs that help first-time homebuyers realize their dream of owning a home.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES Acts Housing (website). * Tiffany Owens Reed (Instagram). * Do you know someone who would make for a great Bottom-Up Revolution* guest? Let us know here!
On this week’s episode, we’ve got a special double interview with Adam Greenfield and Miriam Schoenfield, who are both freeway fighters based in Austin, Texas. Greenfield is a transportation and land-use advocate and co-founder of Rethink35. Schoenfield, who is a board member at Rethink35, is a professor at The University of Texas at Austin. Challenging the expansion of a massive highway is one of the biggest missions one can take on in any city, so we’re excited to have Greenfield and Schoenfield on the show to talk about this important work that they’re doing.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES Rethink35 (website). * Tiffany Owens Reed (Instagram). * Do you know someone who would make for a great Bottom-Up Revolution* guest? Let us know here!
Jessica Peacock is a native of Raleigh, North Carolina, and for the past four years, she’s been fighting to reopen her great-grandparents’ neighborhood grocery store in the Walnut Terrace neighborhood. The endeavor has required her to go through an extensive rezoning process, and on this week’s episode, she’s going to share what that journey has been like for her.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES Peacox Market (website). * “Raleigh Woman Battles City Hall to Reopen Her Great-Grandparents' Neighborhood Store,” by Asia Mieleszko, Strong Towns (May 2023). * Tiffany Owens Reed (Instagram). * Do you know someone who would make for a great Bottom-Up Revolution* guest? Let us know here!
Today’s Bottom-Up Revolution guest is Jon Jon Wesolowski, who is an old friend of host Tiffany Owens Reed. Wesolowski lives in Chattanooga, Tennessee, with his wife and two kids and works full time in social media. Outside of work, he makes content for various social media platforms—mostly TikTok and Instagram—related to urbanist issues. He was a founding member of the Chattanooga Urbanist Society, a bottom-up group of residents who are making their city better through tactical action, and is also a member of the Chattanooga Local Conversation group.
On this episode, host Tiffany Owens Reed chats with Jennifer Gaughran. Gaughran is a resident of San Diego, California, and outside of her full-time job in marketing, she runs the Strong Towns Toastmasters group, where folks interested in cities and public speaking gather every week online to refine their speaking skills, while talking about various urban issues and Strong Towns concepts.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES Learn more about Strong Towns Toastmasters. * Check out Gaughran’s adventure story podcast for children, The Adventures of Red Knight. * Tiffany Owens Reed (Instagram). * Check out the Gaslamp Quarter, Balboa Park, and Old Town. * Do you know someone who would make for a great Bottom-Up Revolution* guest? Let us know here!
On this episode of The Bottom-Up Revolution, host Tiffany Owens Reed chats with Dustin LaFont. LaFont is the proud executive director of Front Yard Bikes, a youth workforce development program providing safe spaces for youth in Baton Rogue, Louisiana, to learn bike mechanics, welding, urban gardening, cooking, riding safety, and providing after-school jobs.
LaFont first began repairing bikes with a few kids on his front yard in the summer of 2010, but as demand grew, the community rallied behind the project. Through the years, Front Yard Bikes has included over 2,000 youth and more than 10,000 bikes. With two after-school sites and a full-service bike shop in Mid City, Front Yard Bikes has become the largest community bike shop in the state and hopes to do even more with the amazing youth that champion the good work.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES Front Yard Bikes (website). * Tiffany Owens Reed (Instagram). * Check out Highland Coffees, City Roots, Chow Yum, and French Truck Coffee. * Do you know someone who would make for a great Bottom-Up Revolution* guest? Let us know here!
Alisha Loch is a Strong Towns member, a mother of three, and a founding board member of Norwood Together, a community development corporation in Norwood, Ohio—which was a finalist in the 2022 Strongest Town Competition. A lover of cities, Loch enjoys community events, parks, porches, and anything that increases the small-town feel of Norwood. She is passionate about working alongside other residents to keep her neighborhood vibrant for future generations.
Strong Towns members like Alisha Loch are making a difference in their communities. Will you join them by becoming a member today?
On this episode of The Bottom-Up Revolution, host Tiffany Owens Reed talks with Scott Jones. Jones is a lifelong resident of Long Beach, California, where he is the co-founder and executive director of We Love Long Beach, a nonprofit that encourages and equips residents to build connections with their neighbors through acts of generosity and hospitality.
Their work shows how simple gestures of hospitality can be on-ramps to deeper connections with our neighbors, which can translate into friendships, meaningful political collaboration on the local level, and effective defense against loneliness.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES We Love Long Beach (website / Instagram / Facebook / X). * Tiffany Owens Reed (Instagram). * Check out Domenico’s Restaurant, Nick’s on 2nd, and Alamitos Bay. * Do you know someone who would make for a great Bottom-Up Revolution* guest? Let us know here!
Aimee and Cody Frederick are the owners of Blockhouse Coffee, a specialty coffee house in a historic part of downtown Richmond, Texas, a small town in the Houston metro area.
Even though they aren’t from Richmond or even from Texas, their café is just one way they are demonstrating radical commitment to their city. They also lead a Strong Towns Local Conversation group called Fortify Richmond and cultivate real estate. Aimee co-hosts a podcast called Born in the Bend and, starting in 2020, she began serving on the city’s zoning and planning commission…all of that in addition to raising two kids!
Ultimately for the Fredericks, their efforts boil down to their love of hospitality and building community, and they’ve got a lot to share in this episode of The Bottom-Up Revolution!
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES Block House Coffee & Kitchen (website / Instagram). * Born in the Bend podcast. * Tiffany Owens Reed (Instagram). * Check out the Fort Bend Museum, Harlem Road Texas BBQ, Trough Juice, Mercy Goods, and Shady Oak Primary School. * Do you know someone who would make for a great Bottom-Up Revolution* guest? Let us know here!
Shelby Wild is a mom, a lifelong gardener, and executive director of Route One Farmers Market in her hometown of Lompoc, California, which she started in 2018 after her neighborhood farmer’s market closed.
As both a traditional farmer’s market and a nonprofit, Wild’s goal for Route One Farmers Market is to increase access and break down barriers to local food in California’s Lompoc Valley. The market runs every Sunday and is currently the sole market for 50 miles of the central coast of California that offers customers both EBT and Market Match.
Wild and her team strive to make the market a place that brings together the diverse communities that call Lompoc home. At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, Wild led her market to be the first in the area to offer a produce bag for curbside contactless pickup for all customers, distributing hundreds of bags of local food for those under shelter-in-place restrictions. Last year, they launched the first ever mobile farmer’s market in Santa Barbara County, and just recently, Wild was honored as Woman of the Year by her local Chamber of Commerce at their annual awards banquet.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES Route One Farmers Market (website). * Shelby Wild (LinkedIn). * Tiffany Owens Reed (Instagram). * Check out Cold Coast Brewing Co., Dare 2 Dream Farms Homestead, and South Side Coffee Co. * Do you know someone who would make for a great Bottom-Up Revolution* guest? Let us know here!
On this episode of The Bottom-Up Revolution, host Tiffany Owens Reed is joined by Marques King, a licensed architect, practicing urban designer, and small-scale developer operating out of Detroit, Michigan.
Originally from Detroit, King returned home after spending a decade in Washington, DC, and now runs a design firm that specializes in incremental development projects. His work is driven by a desire to see a more sustainable future for his city by providing human-scale neighborhoods that are accessible to a wider variety of people across the social-economic spectrum.
King also serves as a faculty member of the Incremental Development Alliance and is an adjunct faculty member at the University of Maryland’s School of Architecture, Preservation & Planning.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES Marques King (Twitter/X). * Fabrick (website). * Tiffany Owens Reed (Instagram). * Check out the Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA), Islandview Villages, The Red Hook, Marrow, Yum Village, and the Detroit Riverfront. * Do you know someone who would make for a great Bottom-Up Revolution* guest? Let us know here!
On today’s episode of The Bottom-Up Revolution, host Tiffany Owens Reed is joined by Gary Oddi, a longtime resident of Temecula, California, who served in public education as a teacher and administrator before retiring in 2016. A lifelong biker, he founded Bike Temecula Valley in 2020, a nonprofit that advocates for more active transit in his city.
Along with his duties as president of Bike Temecula Valley, Oddi is also a substitute administrator for the Temecula Valley Unified School District and the director of the Murrieta Creek Regional Trail Four Cities Planning Team. He also sits on the city of Temecula Services Commission and continues to lead drives and educate the community about active transportation.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES Gary Oddi (Twitter/X). * Tiffany Owens Reed (Instagram). * Bike Temecula Valley (website). * Check out Le Coffee, La Bottega, and Temecula Valley Wineries. * Do you know someone who would make for a great Bottom-Up Revolution* guest? Let us know here!
This week on The Bottom-Up Revolution, host Tiffany Owens Reed talks with Barry Greene Jr., an urban journalist and local advocate from the Southside neighborhood of Richmond, Virginia. After spending time in Brooklyn and Charlotte, Greene returned to Richmond earlier this year and launched his Substack, Density Dad.
On Greene’s blog, he draws on his experience as a husband and father to write about city and urban design issues in an accessible manner, and also advocates for urban design that’s friendly to families, children, and seniors. In addition to working full-time as a fundraising and grants manager for an environmental nonprofit, he also serves on the board of Virginia Rapid Transit and the Partnership for Smarter Growth.
Today, Greene talks with us about his work with advocacy and his success as a small business owner.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES Tiffany Owens Reed (Instagram). * Barry Greene Jr. (Twitter). * Density Dad (Website). * Check out Urban Hang Suite, the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, T. Tyler Potterfield Memorial Bridge, and Shades of Moss (Greene’s own local business!). * Do you know someone who would make for a great Bottom-Up Revolution* guest? Let us know here!
Noah Tang, high school history teacher in Bloomington, Illinois, discovered the power of small steps when he invited a few friends over to discuss the city's housing issues. From that initial gathering, a Local Conversation movement was sparked that led to the city unanimously changing its zoning code. This change allows residents more flexibility to adapt to housing needs and build additional housing units (ADUs) on their property.
In this episode of the Bottom-Up Revolution podcast, host Tiffany Owens Reed catches up with Tang. They talk about why he chose to get involved in local government, his recent trip to the Netherlands, and how things are progressing in Bloomington. This episode follows Strong Towns' coverage of the Local Conversation Bloomington Revivalists' journey for change earlier this year.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES Tiffany Owens Reed (Instagram). * Noah Tang (Twitter). * “History Teacher Steps Up and Starts the Conversation for Change in Bloomington, Illinois,” by Seairra Sheppard, Strong Towns (February 2023). * Learn more about starting your own Local Conversation. * Check out Bloomington's Farmers Market, McLean County’s History Museum, Epiphany Farms Restaurant, and Coffee Hound Cafe. * Do you know someone who would make for a great Bottom-Up Revolution* guest? Let us know here!
Who are the people working to make their places stronger?
On this episode of The Bottom-Up Revolution, host Tiffany Owens Reed interviews LeVette Fuller. Fuller was born and raised in Shreveport, Louisiana, and has served for four years on the city council, ran for mayor, and is now working in real estate. She’s taken part in many projects pointed toward creating a stronger, more adaptable city, including Reform Shreveport, which hosts a Fiscal Impact Analysis conducted by Urban3 on their site, as well as a portal for citizens to inform the city of local needs.
Tune in to this episode and hear Fuller talk about Shreveport, its unique history, and how she’s bringing new ideas to the city.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES LeVette Fuller (Twitter). * Reform Shreveport (Website). * Tiffany Owens Reed (Instagram). * Check out Vinyl Coffee, Herby K’s, Southern Maid Donuts, the R.W. Norton Art Gallery Botanical Gardens, and Sweetport Ice Cream! * Do you know someone who would make for a great Bottom-Up Revolution* guest? Let us know here! * Support this podcast by becoming a Strong Towns member today.
After taking a hiatus for her maternity leave, Rachel Quednau is back with a new episode of The Bottom-Up Revolution, where she's introducing Tiffany Owens Reed, who will soon be our new host for the podcast.
Those of you who have been around here for a while may recognize Tiffany as one of our regular writers and a previous guest on this very podcast, as well as a featured speaker in many of our workshops and events—including, most recently, the National Gathering. She's also a member of our advisory board, and, in general, has been involved with Strong Towns for many years.
We're so excited to welcome Tiffany to The Bottom-Up Revolution. We invite you to get to know her in this episode and look forward to hearing more from her in the coming weeks!
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES Read Strong Towns articles by Tiffany. * Check out Tiffany’s previous appearance on The Bottom-Up Revolution. * Read more of Tiffany’s writing at Cities Decoded. * “Patterns, Placemaking, and People: 3 Questions for Observing Your City,” by Tiffany Owens Reed, Strong Towns (June 2023). * Learn the 4-Step Process for Public Investment from Tiffany over at the Strong Towns Academy. * Do you know someone who would make for a great Bottom-Up Revolution* guest? Let us know here! * Support this podcast by becoming a Strong Towns member today.
While Rachel is on maternity leave, we’re re-running some of our best and most popular episodes of The Bottom-Up Revolution podcast.
This episode, which we published in May of 2021, came to us because Strong Towns Community Builder John Pattison is friends with the guest, Coté Soerens and her husband, Tim. In the podcast you’re about to hear, the focus is on a wonderful neighborhood coffee shop that Soerens opened to be a gathering place in her community of South Park in Seattle. But we’ve been thinking about this episode recently because John also let us know that Coté and Tim have been leading an effort called Reconnect South Park to tear down a harmful highway that cuts through the neighborhood.
Soeren’s coffee shop, Resistencia, has served as a convening space for advocates working on this issue, a perfect example of how a neighborhood café can create so much benefit for a city—not just in providing jobs, providing local goods, activating a storefront—but also in being a “third space” where people can get together and work on making their city stronger. If you want to learn more about how to get involved in stopping wasteful highways in your city, check out our End Highway Expansion campaign.
Additional Show Notes* Resistencia website. * Reconnect South Park website. * Visit the End Highway Expansion campaign page. * Strong Towns articles on gentrification. * Urban Fresh Food Collective. * Support this podcast by becoming a Strong Towns member today.
While Rachel is on maternity leave, we’re re-running some of our best and most popular episodes of The Bottom-Up Revolution podcast.
This episode from August of 2021 is a fascinating story about a Strong Towns member who literally bought a road in order to try and make it safer. Mary Moriarty Jones lives in Honolulu, where plenty of roads are privately owned, which is what made this story possible. You’ll hear a lot more about that process and why Jones is so passionate about making this street safer for her children to walk to school. But since we recorded, we also have an update to share: Jones emailed a couple months ago to say that she successfully transferred ownership of the road back to the city and county, who now plan to add sidewalks and crossings to hopefully make the street safer for everyone who uses it.
This is ultimately the story of someone who was so dedicated to the Strong Towns mission and so believed in the cause of safer streets that she did everything she possibly could to make it happen. We hope that those who come after her do not have to fight quite so hard just to ensure they can safely walk to work or school without risking their lives. But we’re thankful and inspired by advocates like Mary Jones. Check out our Safe and Productive Streets campaign if you want to connect more with these efforts.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES A couple of articles about Mary Jones’s quest for safer streets, from Civil Beat*: “This Diamond Head Mom Found An Unusual Way To Fight City Hall“ and “Diamond Head Mom Who Took Over Road Riles Neighbors By Charging For Parking.” * Safe and Productive Streets campaign page. * Support this podcast by becoming a Strong Towns member today.
While Rachel is on maternity leave, we’re re-running some of our best and most popular episodes of The Bottom-Up Revolution podcast.
The episode we’re re-running this week is one of Rachel’s all-time favorites. It features our amazing colleague Lauren Fisher, although that’s not why it’s a favorite. Rather, it’s because of the candid way Lauren speaks about her life and the choices she has made to build household resilience: raising animals, growing food, mending and crafting things herself rather than buying new, and, perhaps most important of all, developing deep connections with neighbors and family for the good times and the bad.
Since we recorded this conversation in the summer of 2021, Lauren and her husband have moved to a new home in the same area which offered them greater opportunities for their little homestead. Her parents also moved in with them into the basement unit of the house and plan to eventually build an accessory dwelling unit for them to live in long term. In addition to the chickens and rabbits she was already raising, they’ve added sheep. Lauren’s also been selling and exchanging things like flowers and eggs with people in her town, and plans to do more of that in the coming months. All of these things are not only a way to provide for the family, but also a way to meet her neighbors. You’ll hear more about why that’s so important and the role of community in building resilience throughout this conversation.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES “#DotheMath on Chicken Regulations,” by Lauren Fisher, Strong Towns (August 2020). * “5 Places to Meet New People to Join the Strong Towns Conversation,” by Lauren Fisher, Strong Towns* (April 2021). * Sign up for Strong Towns email. * Support this podcast by becoming a Strong Towns member today.
While Rachel is on maternity leave, we’re re-running some of our best and most popular episodes of The Bottom-Up Revolution podcast.
We were reminded about this episode after recently recording a new interview with Sarah Cipkar, a small-scale developer based in Windsor, Ontario, whose interest in accessory dwelling units prompted her to build her own ADU.
Today’s re-run conversation with Ashley Salvador was recorded in the fall of 2021. Salvador is a big advocate for accessory dwelling units and, like Cipkar, lives in Canada, in the city of Edmonton. (Canadians must be onto something when it comes to expanding housing options and making housing more affordable!) We could sing the praises of accessory dwelling units all day, but the basic gist is that they allow homeowners to build a small additional apartment on their land, meaning rental income for the owner and the chance for a new resident to live in a desirable neighborhood at a much lower cost than the typical home in that area. It’s a win-win situation.
What started for Salvador as a research project turned into people asking her for input on how they could build their own ADUs and navigate the zoning and permitting processes, so she started an organization to help teach people about all of this. And eventually, she was so driven to make her community stronger that she decided to run for city council and won in 2021.
It’s a trajectory we’ve heard about many times on this show: Someone starts exploring an issue they care about, momentum gets built around that issue and other people start joining the cause, and, sometimes, that individual decides to take the next step into leadership and run for local office. You’ll hear about that whole journey in this conversation, which is one of our most popular episodes to date.
Additional Show Notes* YEGarden Suites website. * Check out the related interview with Sarah Cipkar. * “Will Edmonton Be the First Major Canadian City to Eliminate Parking Minimums?” by Ashley Salvador, Strong Towns (May 2020). * “How to Get Rid of Parking Minimums,” a Strong Towns webcast featuring Ashley Salvador. * Follow Ashley Salvador on Twitter. * Support this podcast by becoming a Strong Towns member today.
On this special Member Week episode of the show, Chuck Marohn and Strong Towns Member Advocate Norm Van Eeden Petersman talk about the membership experience at Strong Towns and the new initiatives we hope to launch soon. We hope you enjoy it, and if you want to be in on the Strong Towns member experience, then join us! Become a Strong Towns member today.
While Rachel is on maternity leave, we’re re-running some of our best and most popular episodes of The Bottom-Up Revolution podcast.
This one, originally recorded in February of 2021, shares the amazing success story of Alfred Melbourne, who came out of prison, got access to a small, trash-filled plot of land, and began tilling it, improving his neighborhood in the process. Eventually he turned that into a non-profit urban farm operation, Three Sisters Gardens, where young people learn skills and the produce is donated in an area without much fresh food access—plus, Melbourne’s now expanded to other plots around the city.
The organic (pun intended) growth of this effort has impacted so many people and shows how a little seed money and guidance can allow an entrepreneur to thrive. Think about that when you see billions of dollars allotted for highway expansion. Imagine what we could do if we took a fraction of that money and used it to jump-start neighborhood improving efforts like Three Sisters Gardens.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES * Three Sisters Gardens website. * Three Sisters Gardens Instagram page, where you’ll find photos and videos. * Center for Land-Based Learning. * “This Modern Farmer Employs At-Risk Youth to Keep Them Off the Streets,” by Alfred Melbourne, Modern Farmer (January 2021). * Send your story ideas and guest suggestions to rachel@strongtowns.org. * Support this podcast by becoming a Strong Towns member today.
You know this narrative by now, right? Maybe it’s even your story: Someone gets fired up about an issue in their community and starts taking steps to address it. Next thing they know, neighbors are coming to them for advice, momentum is building around this issue, and they’re finding a whole community of people who care about that thing, too. This turns into a broader effort to change, not just that initial issue, but also all the Strong Towns issues that are connected to it…
Today’s guest is Sarah Cipkar, and she experienced her own version of this journey. A few years ago, she decided to take the step to build an accessory dwelling unit in her yard in Windsor, Ontario. An accessory dwelling unit (also called an additional dwelling unit, ADU, or granny flat, among other terms) just refers to any small housing that’s added to an existing lot. It could be a small apartment built over your garage or a mini cottage constructed in the backyard of your home.
Cipkar successfully built that ADU, found a great tenant, and the property was soon providing income for her family, plus a new sense of community with her tenant, who helped out with watching the house while Cipkar was on trips, shared meals with her family, and more. (Cipkar will tell you about the myriad benefits of ADUs in this episode. This is just the beginning of the list, really.)
After going through the intensive process of not just building the ADU, but first jumping through the many government hoops, permits, and financing challenges to get the project off the ground in the first place, Cipkar was motivated to help others navigate this process, too. She started a pilot project called ADUSearch, which is an online hub where anyone can look up their address and find out what sorts of additional dwelling units could be built on their property. She began this initiative with properties in Windsor, but is now expanding it, thanks to some grants and partnerships, to encompass the entire country of Canada.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES * ADUsearch.ca website. * Visit Sarah Cipkar’s website. * ADUsearch and Sarah Cipkar on Instagram. * Learn more about Accessory Dwelling Units in the Strong Towns Action Lab where you can find core insights, case studies, key articles and more. * Backdoor Revolution: The Definitive Guide to ADU Development by Kol Peterson. * Send your story ideas and guest suggestions to rachel@strongtowns.org. * Support this podcast by becoming a Strong Towns member today.
Erin Stewart has served as mayor of New Britain, Connecticut, since 2013. She was elected at the age of just 26 and was the youngest mayor in the city’s history. Mayor Stewart is a Republican with a particular passion for building safer streets, revitalizing neglected properties, and helping New Britain’s downtown thrive.
In this conversation, Mayor Stewart talks about her efforts to increase housing downtown, especially given the history of a highway that cut through New Britain during the urban renewal period decades ago. She sees the financial and social value of investing in places that prioritize people walking, biking, and enjoying life—not just people driving through. She also knows how important access to affordable transportation options is for many of her constituents who don’t own cars.
Mayor Stewart is committed to listening to New Britain residents and responding to their concerns, no matter what political party they associate with, and she’s seen serious success improving the financial situation in her town, lifting them out of a deficit hole into a surplus.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES * Read more about Mayor Stewart. * New Britain’s Plan of Conservation and Development. * New Britain’s Complete Streets Roadmap. * Send your story ideas and guest suggestions to rachel@strongtowns.org. * Support this podcast by becoming a Strong Towns member today.
Norm Van Eeden Petersman has biked every street in his community in Delta, British Columbia, with his son; helped found a Strong Towns Toastmasters group; and decided to speak up at a city council meeting in favor of allowing more rental housing.
That moment of standing up at a council meeting led him to look around at the others who were also supporting the rental housing initiative and gather those people together into what eventually became Del-POP: Deltans for People-Oriented Places, a Local Conversation group that is discussing and advocating on Strong Towns issues in their city. In particular, this group has focused on speaking up when they support something and sharing that support with elected officials to help bolster positive change. They recognized how often people speak up in opposition to things they don’t like and decided to counteract those negative voices with advocacy for things—housing, bike lanes, small businesses, etc.—instead of just against things.
Norm joined the Strong Towns team in late July as our brand-new Member Advocate. Prior to this, Norm was a pastor and in this conversation, he’ll discuss the connection he sees between his religious ministry and his Strong Towns leadership, plus share about Del-POP and the other efforts he’s made in his community to build a stronger town.
We know you’ll be inspired by Norm’s enthusiasm and vision!
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES * Del-POP website. * Join the Strong Towns Toastmasters group. * Learn more about Strong Towns Local Conversation groups and how to start your own. * Bottom-Up Revolution episode featuring Cary Westerbeck (founder of Bo-POP). * Contact Norm: norm@strongtowns.org. * Send your story ideas and guest suggestions to rachel@strongtowns.org. * Support this podcast by becoming a Strong Towns member today.
A couple of years ago, we surveyed Strong Towns’ supporting members and one of the questions we asked was how they would characterize their profession and engagement with the movement. Were they involved in Strong Towns as an elected official, city staff person, urban planner, or engineer—or actually just a concerned citizen who cares deeply about their city?
While we had many responses in all of those professional categories, the biggest one was the last one: regular people who care about their communities. Today’s guest is one of those folks, although it’s not right to say she is “just” a concerned citizen—nor is that true of most people involved in this movement.
Emma Durand-Wood is a writer, editor, and former librarian. She’s also a leader in her neighborhood association and a big advocate for street trees. Durand-Wood lives in Winnipeg in Canada, which she calls “a big little city.” She started getting involved in local issues after a pawn shop was being proposed in her neighborhood and she and some neighbors got together to say that business wasn’t a great fit for their community. Since then, she started a blog about her city and neighborhood, made the choice to walk and bike and take transit with her family instead of driving everywhere, helped revive her neighborhood association, and led an initiative to plant more street trees.
In this interview, Durand-Wood talks especially about that last item and the surprising power of trees to transform your city. She also discusses the value of neighborhood gatherings, big and small, including the “front yard pancake party” she and her husband host.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES * Follow Emma Durand-Wood on Twitter. * Read her blog, Winnipeg O’ My Heart. * Read “Henderson Highway Blues,” a Strong Towns article by Emma Durand-Wood. * Learn more about the Glen Elm Boulevard Tree Project. * Visit the Trees Please Winnipeg website. * Check out the Glen Elm Neighborhood Association website. * Send your story ideas and guest suggestions to rachel@strongtowns.org. * Support this podcast by becoming a Strong Towns member today.
Spencer Gardner is an urban planner and Strong Towns member who moved to Spokane, Washington, a few years back because it offered him and his family an affordable place to live, where they found a traditional neighborhood they could walk and bike in.
Since that move, however, the city—like so many across the U.S.—has become increasingly unaffordable and Spencer has stepped up to help try and change that. An opening in city leadership led him to apply to be Spokane’s planning director and he was hired to the position earlier this year. He’s been part of several important reforms in the city including, significantly, some substantial modifications to their accessory dwelling unit code, which is allowing a lot more of these small homes to be built at a time when greater housing options at low price points are desperately needed.
Spokane also undertook a unique “interim zoning ordinance” to allow up to four units to be built on any lot—a change that happened in record time compared with the years (or even decades) these sorts of reforms usually take to occur in the typical city. Spencer goes into detail about how and why that could occur, and the way he sees it as a special pilot program they can learn from that may pave the way to more permanent change.
In this conversation, Spencer also shares prescient insights on urban planning and how those in this profession need to find ways to move past talking. It can be more comfortable to continue to plan, as a planner, he says. We need to turn that planning into action.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES * Strong Towns articles by Spencer Gardner. * More information about the Strong Towns lawsuit with the Minnesota Engineering Licensing Board and how you can support our efforts to reform the engineering profession: strongtowns.org/supportreform. * Send your story ideas and guest suggestions to rachel@strongtowns.org. * Support this podcast by becoming a Strong Towns member today.
Today’s guest on The Bottom-Up Revolution podcast has been a supporting member of Strong Towns for 10 years! Lindsey Meek’s story will be familiar to some of you, especially those in the city-building professions.
Years back, she was an engineer doing some of the typical projects that many civil engineers end up doing these days: building suburban subdivisions. Somewhere along the way, she encountered Strong Towns and especially the now famous video, “Conversation with an Engineer.” As she describes it, she “saw the light” and was convinced that engineering didn’t have to be about paving endless roads to the middle of nowhere and building expensive suburban developments on the edge of town. It could be about making places more prosperous and people-centered, not less.
Today, she works for a healthcare company, helping them develop facilities designed for healing and comfort. She’s also led some efforts to get these large campuses to think about how to be a good neighbor to the surrounding community and helped implement street and public space designs to facilitate that. In this conversation, Lindsey talks about her work today as well as her previous leadership and Strong Towns organizing in Rochester, Minnesota.
This conversation might be especially interesting to the engineers out there wondering how they can make a positive difference with their careers and not keep maintaining the suburban status quo. But it will also appeal to anyone who’s hoping to build stronger towns where they live.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES * “Conversation with an Engineer” video. * Lindsey Meek (Twitter). * Send your story ideas and guest suggestions to rachel@strongtowns.org. * Support this podcast by becoming a Strong Towns member today.
Urban highways are ubiquitous in pretty much every city across America. They cut through neighborhoods, make navigation challenging, decrease property values, and bring exhaust and noise into our communities. But they also help people move quickly from one end of the city to the other, which is why they were built in so many cities, especially during the suburban boom of the 20th century, when they helped people travel from jobs in the city to homes in the suburbs.
Today, there’s a movement to stop building and expanding these highways, and Strong Towns is a leading voice in that fight. There’s also a movement to try to undo the harm that they’ve already caused and remove them—or parts of them—altogether.
The Treme neighborhood of New Orleans has been home to one such highway for decades: the Claiborne expressway. Treme is an active, culturally rich community near the heart of the city, but it’s been harmed by the dust, noise, disruption, pollution, crime, and economic disinvestment that resulted from this highway cutting through the neighborhood. Amy Stelly, whose family has been in Treme for decades, is helping lead a fight to remove that highway for good.
She’s an urban planner and artist who knows what the neighborhood was like before this highway and sees how its removal could help local businesses thrive, help more residents invest in their homes, and make Treme a safer, more enjoyable place to live and spend time—not just a place to speed through quickly.
To help fellow residents see that potential and push for that change, she’s led community gatherings, activism, and poster campaigns to show what Treme could be without the highway. On this episode of The Bottom-Up Revolution podcast, she shares a wealth of candid insights about the need for highway removal and the process to make it happen.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES * Claiborne Avenue Alliance website. * Amy Stelly on Twitter. * “Cracking the Code on Fighting Highway Expansion Projects,” by Amy Stelly, Strong Towns (May 2022). * Congress for the New Urbanism. * “Treme Planner Says It’s Time to Remove the Claiborne Expressway,” by Rich Collins, Biz New Orleans. * “Highways destroyed Black neighborhoods like mine. Can we undo the damage now?“ by Amy Stelly, Washington Post. * Send your story ideas and guest suggestions to rachel@strongtowns.org. * Support this podcast by becoming a Strong Towns member today.
Podcast host and Strong Towns Program Director Rachel Quednau has been eyeing electric bikes for some time now, and, while she hasn’t made the leap to purchase one herself just yet, she loves seeing the growth of this industry and the possibilities it opens up for people to have better, cheaper transportation options beyond cars.
Stephanie and Sean Tuff also started seeing that possibility a few years ago and they turned that into a new electric bike business. A few years back, Steph and Sean and their three young children were spending more time outside and looking for ways to get around town that weren’t as expensive or polluting as a car. They found that biking provided this for them and so much more—the chance to really see the city around them instead of just letting it blur past through a windshield, the chance to enjoy fresh air and exercise and, frankly, to have more fun getting around than the typical car commute.
But with young kids in tow and the difference in their abilities to bike quickly at the same speed—especially in hilly areas—they ended up turning to electric bikes to help make their travels even better and easier than on a regular bike.
Eventually they partnered with friends to start a new e-bike company: Tuff Hill eBikes. Opening their business during the pandemic led them to choose a hybrid model where they don’t have a formal storefront but they give people the chance to meet up and test drive a bike, access maintenance, and more.
For Steph and Sean, this isn’t just about sales—although they’ve been quite successful in their enterprise. “We don’t just see it as selling bikes,” says Sean, “we see it as connecting people to a bigger community.” In this conversation, you’ll hear the Tuffs talk about how biking around their city has helped them understand Strong Towns concepts in a real and up-close way, and how they hope that getting more people on e-bikes will allow those people to share in the Strong Towns approach and mission, too.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES * + Tuff Hill eBikes. + Not Just Bikes (YouTube). + “Are Electric Bikes a Passing Fad or a Revolutionary Transportation Tool?” by Rachel Quednau, Strong Towns (February 2022). + “How Dutch Cities Restored the ‘Freedom to Roam’,” by Chris and Melissa Bruntlett, Strong Towns (June 2021). + Youth En Route website. + Send your story ideas and guest suggestions to rachel@strongtowns.org. + Support this podcast by becoming a Strong Towns member today.
Today’s guest hails from Hyattsville, Maryland, a growing inner ring suburb of Washington, DC. Danny Schaible is a city councilperson, a Strong Towns member, and the founder of the Hyattsville Street Design Team. We know you’re going to want to hear more about that last one especially!
Schaible has a degree in landscape architecture and spent years working for the National Park Service. He brings that love of public space and awareness of design issues to his leadership in the Hyattsville City Council. Like so many people you’ve heard from on this show, Schaible got pulled into local politics when an issue in his neighborhood grabbed his attention—in this case a misguided and poorly-thought-out development down the street. As he became involved in learning and advocacy around that project, he eventually decided to step up and run for city council, and won in 2019.
In addition to that, he also got inspired to start a “street design team” in his city after reading about the concept in the Strong Towns book, Confessions of a Recovering Engineer. His team of dozens of residents has discussed the book together, conducted bike tours and walk audits, and looked at crash data on dangerous stroads in Hyattsville, among other things.
We hope this conversation gets you thinking about how you might even organize something similar in your own city.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES * “Establishing a Street Design Team” (online course from Strong Towns’ Local-Motive Tour). * Confessions of a Recovering Engineer (book). * Toole Design (planning firm). * Get in touch with Danny Schaible: dschaible@hyattsville.org. * Send your story ideas and guest suggestions to rachel@strongtowns.org. * Support this podcast by becoming a Strong Towns member today.
A Strong Towns approach is all about seeing the challenges in your city and taking that next smallest step to start addressing them. Today’s guest on The Bottom-Up Revolution podcast, Strong Towns member Ari Feinsmith, exemplifies that spirit. When he started biking to college (about a 15-minute ride from his house in Sunnyvale, California), he quickly realized how dangerous and challenging it was just to get from point A to point B without a car.
So, Ari began attending public meetings and introducing himself to local elected officials who might be able to make streets a little safer. He joined the Silicon Valley Bicycle Coalition, eventually becoming team leader of his local chapter. Since getting fired up about these issues a couple years ago, he’s been involved in many successful campaigns to add bike lanes and bike parking, and to make intersections safer for people on bikes. The natural effect is that this also makes streets safer for everyone—in a vehicle, walking, you name it.
While he was advocating for design and policy changes, Ari was also noticing how many people in his community didn’t have the opportunity to bike because they had old bikes that were broken down, and they didn’t know how to fix them. Thinking about what small step he could take to change that situation, he helped set up a series of bike repair events, in which he coordinated volunteers, got use of a local parking lot, and negotiated discounts with a local bike shop for new parts. In total, he and his fellow volunteers have helped over 300 bikes get fixed.
Ari has also been thinking about transportation issues in his city on a holistic level, and after reading Strong Towns, one thing that really stood out to him was the amount of excessive, wasteful parking in his city—space that could be better used for businesses or homes. So he helped lead a campaign to decrease parking minimum requirements in Sunnyvale.
Additional Show Notes * Bike Sunnyvale website. * Ari’s comprehensive guide to starting a free bike repair event in your town. * Ari was named a Bike Champion of the Year 2022 by Bike to Wherever Days. Read about him and the award here. * “We Require WAY Too Much Parking,” by Seairra Shepherd (article about Ari’s efforts to end parking minimums in Sunnyvale, CA). * Send your story ideas and guest suggestions to rachel@strongtowns.org. * Support this podcast by becoming a Strong Towns member today.
Montavius Jones is a Strong Towns member who describes himself as “getting radicalized” about urban planning issues on Twitter. (This conversation is actually a good argument for the positive potential of Twitter as a place to meet people, connect and share ideas!) Jones majored in commercial real estate in college, and brings that expertise to his work today at a community development financial institution, as well as a lot of on-the-ground advocacy in Milwaukee. A few years ago, he also had the opportunity to travel around Central and South America, observing the way so many cities to the south have built themselves with people as the priority, not cars. In particular, he talks about his all time favorite city, Mexico City, and why it’s a perfect example of successful, strong urban planning.
Jones sees the connections between the challenges that many communities, especially mid-size cities like Milwaukee, face: population stagnation, educational and health disparities, safety, housing affordability… He sees solutions in a Strong Towns approach to urban planning. In this conversation, you’ll also hear about an initiative he helps lead called Urban Spaceship. We’ll just leave that as a teaser since the name alone should be enough to get you intrigued.
Additional Show Notes * Find Montavius Jones on Twitter. * Check out Jones’ travel blog. * Incremental Development Alliance. * Newaukee. * “Design Speed is a Value Statement,” by Charles Marohn, Strong Towns (July 2021). * “The Strong Towns Approach to Public Investment,” by Charles Marohn, Strong Towns (September 2019). * Send your story ideas and guest suggestions to rachel@strongtowns.org. * Subscribe to The Bottom-Up Revolution on iTunes, Google Podcasts, Podbean, or via RSS. * Support this podcast by becoming a Strong Towns member today.
If you live in a small town, grew up in one, or just have a rural community that’s close to your heart, you’ve probably heard things like, “Young people don’t stay in this community,” or “After the plant closed, we’ve been losing population.”
When people leave and no one comes to replace them in smaller towns, businesses shut down, schools are half-empty, open positions can’t be filled, and even basic services are a struggle to cover with declining property taxes. It’s a downward spiral.
Today’s guests are doing something about that. Jennifer Stromsten is the Director of Programs at the Brattleboro Development Credit Corporation in Brattleboro, Vermont, and Alex Beck runs their Welcoming Communities program. These leaders take a holistic approach to addressing problems like population decline through economic investment, workforce training, and, of particular interest for our conversation today, inviting new Americans—refugees—to their community and helping them integrate and find employment when they arrive.
Jen and Alex talk about how this Welcoming Communities initiative has breathed new life into their rural town, giving a sense of hope for the future, filling necessary jobs and rebuilding the economic prospects of the place. Their organization has worked with local businesses to partner them with new immigrants, coordinating transportation, setting up interpreters when needed, and figuring out what training these refugees need to get back on their feet and begin employment in Brattleboro. It's a situation that everyone is benefitting from.
Additional Show Notes * Visit the Brattleboro Development Credit Corporation website. * Send your story ideas and guest suggestions to rachel@strongtowns.org. * Support this podcast by becoming a Strong Towns member today.
A few weeks ago, we announced a series of five core campaigns we’re going to be focusing on over the next few years at Strong Towns, including ending highway expansion, encouraging transparent local accounting, advocating for safe and productive streets, legalizing incremental housing development, and ending parking minimums. None of these are new issues for us, but we’ll be placing a special focus on them and providing a ton of resources and action steps you all can take in your cities to make these Strong Towns visions a reality.
Today’s guest, Jonathan Curth, is here to talk about that last campaign issue: ending parking minimums. He’s the development services director for the city of Fayetteville, Arkansas—one of the first U.S. cities to eliminate commercial parking minimums. These are laws that mandate the amount of parking spaces a business needs to provide. They’re on the books in many U.S. cities and they reach a point of absurdity—an overreach of government that harms local businesses, small-scale developers, home owners, and renters. Luckily, a growing movement of cities is smashing these outdated laws, and you can see the full list on our map of cities that have ended parking minimums.
Jonathan talks a lot more about why these regulations are a problem and why Fayetteville decided to put an end to them, not only because they were harming business opportunities, but also because they were leaving important historic buildings downtown vacant or at risk of destruction, simply because those places were built before cars or parking minimums were a thing. Jonathan also talks about the slow, but important, results that have come about since minimums were eliminated in Fayetteville, including new restaurants opening, vacant lots getting filled, and city staff having a much quicker process to approve new permits for developments and business start-ups.
At the end of the day, eliminating parking minimum requirements is about getting rid of a law that’s unnecessary. Let the market, business owners, and property owners decide what parking is needed, otherwise you’ll end up with empty lots instead of productive places.
Additional Show Notes * Explore parking resources, case studies, and more in our Action Lab. * View a comprehensive map of cities that have ended parking minimums. * Send your story ideas and guest suggestions to rachel@strongtowns.org. * Support this podcast by becoming a Strong Towns member today.
On last week’s episode of The Bottom-Up Revolution podcast, we heard from two inspiring Strong Towns members, Nick and Amanda Lanata, and this week we’ve got another member story for you. A brief plug: If you didn’t get a chance to become a supporting member during Member Week last week, there’s still time. Join the movement and join incredible people like Nick, Amanda, and today’s guest, Ann Zadeh.
Zadeh has been a part of the Strong Towns movement as a member for more than six years. During that time, she served as city council member in Fort Worth, Texas, and she’s now the executive director of Community Design Forth Worth, which is “a forum for ideas that empower and strengthen all Fort Worth communities through design.” She’s also an urban planner by training.
In this conversation, we’ll hear about the ways Zadeh has navigated leadership in a politically diverse community by focusing on the economic arguments that everyone can get behind. She also talks about her experience running for city council, as well as a run for mayor. And she discusses the unique process she leads at Community Design Fort Worth, helping educate the public and translate complex planning issues—often in order to seed the ground before a controversial issue like re-zoning or building bike lanes comes up for a vote.
Like so many Strong Towns advocates, Zadeh will inspire you with her dedication to her city and her belief that anyone who’s passionate about their place can step up to make it stronger.
Additional Show Notes * Community Design Fort Worth website. * “Learn the 4-Step Process for Public Investment,” an on-demand Strong Towns Local-Motive workshop featuring Tiffany Owens. * Send your story ideas and guest suggestions to rachel@strongtowns.org. * Support this podcast by becoming a Strong Towns member today.
Welcome to a special Member Week episode of The Bottom-Up Revolution podcast, featuring two amazing Strong Towns members: Nick and Amanda Lanata, from Zachary, Louisiana. Nick is a data scientist and Amanda works for the Louisiana Main Street program, and also helps run a small family business. It probably won’t come as a surprise to hear that when this duo encountered Strong Towns, they were hooked and soon got involved.
Nick was drawn to Strong Towns’ focus on doing the math and assessing the value per acre of developments in our cities. He’s even done analyses on his own community and shared those with elected leaders. Amanda was interested in the Strong Towns approach to helping downtowns and small businesses get activated again and grow economically resilient.
The Lanatas took the Strong Towns mission and really ran with it over the last couple years: meeting and getting to know their city councilors, helping their neighbors see the potential in their city, starting a Local Conversation group, and allowing the Strong Towns approach to guide their personal choices—like how they get around town.
We’re excited for you to hear from these inspiring Strong Towns members and hope that you’ll take a step and join them by becoming a member yourself.
Additional Show Notes * Learn more about value per acre analyses. * Not Just Bikes on YouTube * Visit the Urban3 website * Send your story ideas and guest suggestions to rachel@strongtowns.org. * Subscribe to The Bottom-Up Revolution on iTunes, Google Podcasts, Podbean, or via RSS. * Support this podcast by becoming a Strong Towns member today.
We’ve all heard the phrase “housing crisis” a thousand times these days. Many of us have been personally impacted by a lack of available housing, whether you’re a young person who has been hoping to buy your first home, but are totally unable to because of high costs and competition—or whether you’re someone who has experienced homelessness because of eviction, job loss, or any number of other reasons.
There are a lot of people proposing solutions to this housing crisis and one of them is today’s guest, Beth Silverman. But the solution she’s been working on isn’t one of the typical responses you might have heard lately, like “we just need to build more homes,” or “we just need more government subsidies for housing.” Rather, it’s about uniting for-profit landlords and developers, together with non-profit service organizations toward a common goal of getting people housing who need it.
Beth Silverman is the founder and executive director of the Lotus Campaign, whose mission is “[t]o increase the availability of housing for people experiencing homelessness by engaging the for-profit sector as a partner in the solution.” She sees herself partly as a translator between entities that typically work separately and rarely talk to one another. She knows that nonprofits have services, connections, and insights to offer, and that landlords and real estate professionals can bring innovation, capital and access to housing, for homeless people or people at risk of homelessness.
During its short time in operation, the Lotus Campaign has already housed more than 360 individuals and families for a cost to their organization of less than $1,000 per person each year, and most of those people are able to stay housed after their participation in the program ends.
Additional Show Notes * Visit the Lotus Campaign website. * Send your story ideas and guest suggestions to rachel@strongtowns.org. * Support this podcast by becoming a Strong Towns member today.
Today’s guest has built trails in the Grand Canyon, lived atop a tower as a forest fire lookout, and served as a traveling nurse. She’s also Strong Towns’ 2022 Neighborhood Storyteller, with weekly columns publishing every Tuesday, sharing about life in her neighborhoods and the small steps she’s taking to make them a little stronger.
Karla Theilen lives in Missoula, Montana, but also spends time in other parts of the state through her nursing work, and visits Minnesota regularly, where she grew up and still has family. In this conversation, Karla talks about the way she finds value, connection, and things to celebrate, wherever she’s visiting, and treats all these places as temporary homes. You’re more likely to find her in a local coffee shop perusing the community bulletin boards than in a chain restaurant because she knows that the local spots are where the best stories can be found.
We’ve been honored to feature some of those stories in Karla’s weekly column on the Strong Towns website, and we’re excited for you to hear from her today about everything from crafting and hobbies, to the things she’s learned while walking her dog, to her attitude of saying “yes” to adventure.
Additional Show Notes * Subscribe to the Life in a Strong Town Substack. * Read all of Karla’s columns. * Learn more about our open Member Advocate position and apply today. (Applications due by 11:59 p.m. CT on May 22, 2022.) * Send your story ideas to rachel@strongtowns.org. * Support this podcast by becoming a Strong Towns member today.
There’s something special about Michigan. Two of our past seven Strongest Town Contest winners have come from the state (Muskegon and Traverse City), we hear inspiring stories from Michigan all the time, and we have some amazing, dedicated members doing good work in the Great Lakes state.
Today’s guest is one of those people. Cooper Frost hails from Charlotte, Michigan, a rural community of about 10,000 people outside of Lansing. For a while, he had been absent from the town, but during the pandemic, he came home to Charlotte and has since made it his mission to help it grow stronger.
He’s stepped up to get involved in a number of local organizations with a particular focus on economic development. He’s also purchased his mother’s house, and has begun investing in it to help build up generational wealth and stability. Additionally, Frost has been dedicated to sharing the message about bottom-up, incremental transformation through talking with community members about the Strong Towns movement and books.
Frost is part of a long line of advocates, many of whom we’ve featured on this show, who believe in their hometowns and want to see them thrive. He knows that building up passion for the place where he came from will help those around him see its value and make it stronger over the long run. He’s all about taking that next smallest step to see this vision come to fruition.
Additional Show Notes * Charlotte Rising website. * Learn more about our open Member Advocate position and apply today. * Send your story ideas to rachel@strongtowns.org. * Support this podcast by becoming a Strong Towns member today.
Today’s guests are doing innovative agriculture work that is deeply rooted in history in their small town of San Elizario, Texas. David Cantu and Maya Sanchez are two local government leaders who have helped spearhead projects to encourage San Elizario residents to grow food for themselves and food to sell—all tailored to their unique desert environment. They’re tapping into historical knowledge of what plants grow best in these conditions and hoping other desert-dwellers can learn from this, too.
These efforts are particularly meaningful in a border town where almost half of the population lives below the poverty line. These are opportunities to grow food in backyards and gardens to feed one’s family, and this program has also helped residents grow produce to sell to local restaurants and stores, or turn into other food businesses, themselves.
David Cantu is an alderperson and Maya Sanchez in the City Administrator for San Elizario. Both are very active in their city, in this agricultural initiative, and in their own gardens, too.
We interviewed Cantu and Sanchez for an article back in 2020, and, as you’ll hear in this interview, since that time they’ve helped more of the community be involved in growing food, connected these efforts with flood mitigation goals, and even had the chance to sell locally grown produce to neighboring cities.
Additional Show Notes * “This Texas Town Is Growing Stronger By Thinking Inside the Box”,” by Rachel Quednau, Strong Towns (August 2020). * Learn more about our open Member Advocate position and apply today. * Send your story ideas to rachel@strongtowns.org. * Subscribe to The Bottom-Up Revolution on iTunes, Google Podcasts, Podbean, or via RSS. * Support this podcast by becoming a Strong Towns member today.
Jay Stange is a former newspaper reporter, teacher, community organizer, and Alaska native. He’s also the Content Manager at Strong Towns. In this conversation, he’s talking about his efforts to slow down cars on busy stroads in both his former neighborhood in Anchorage, as well as his current neighborhood in West Hartford, Connecticut.
Jay discusses the ways he’s worked with neighbors to push for the change, tested out temporary approaches, and addressed the concerns of business owners along the roads in question. In his working class, renter-dominated neighborhood in Anchorage, these efforts were also part of a larger movement to help people believe in the future of their neighborhood and combat apathy—to show people that they had something to be proud of in their community.
In the episode, we also talk about Jay’s lifelong love of biking, from riding his bike to sports practice as a kid when his parents couldn’t drive him, to bike commuting and biking with his own kids today. Plus, we discuss Jay’s belief that change should look fun and it should happen collaboratively. We know you’re going to appreciate the energy and passion Jay brings to this conversation. It’s something he brings to all of his work at Strong Towns.
Additional Show Notes * “The Road that Killed a City,” by Jay Stange, Strong Towns (March 2022). * “The Pedalling Pastor,” by Jay Stange, Strong Towns (March 2022). * Read all articles by Jay. * Send your story ideas to rachel@strongtowns.org. * Subscribe to The Bottom-Up Revolution on iTunes, Google Podcasts, Podbean, or via RSS. * Support this podcast by becoming a Strong Towns member today.
It’s news to exactly no one that we’re living in polarized times. But Strong Towns advocates are doing their best to push back against polarization in their communities. In fact, it’s a core value of our movement that we work with people on all parts of the political spectrum, because we know that the change we seek across North America won’t happen without everyone on board.
Today’s guests on The Bottom-Up Revolution podcast, hosted by Rachel Quednau, are doing the challenging but important work of bridging political divides in their home state. Carlos Alfaro and Jacob Pritchett founded Arizona Talks as a platform for learning, dialogue, and connection for individuals impacting public policy. They facilitate debates, conversations, and dialogues amongst residents and leaders throughout Arizona. It’s a diverse state full of lots of different political views, and Carlos and Jacob have navigated those waters to bring together Democrats, Republicans, and folks between and outside those labels for constructive conversation on the issues that matter.
In this interview, they talk about how this project came to be, some of their successes and failures, and their advice for others trying to build common ground in a polarized time.
Additional Show Notes * Arizona Talks website. * Send your story ideas to rachel@strongtowns.org. * Subscribe to The Bottom-Up Revolution on iTunes, Google Podcasts, Podbean, or via RSS. * Support this podcast by becoming a Strong Towns member today.
We have two special guests today: Strong Towns staff members Christa Theilen and Seairra Shepherd. Christa works as Strong Towns’ office assistant in our Brainerd, Minnesota, office and Seairra is a writer and multimedia creator based in central Illinois.
But besides serving at Strong Towns, they both also work part time at local small-scale farms. Christa’s is a vegetable farm and Seairra’s, an animal farm. We invited them on the show to talk about their experiences in this vital industry: growing the food we all eat and need to survive, and growing it close to home so it doesn’t require costly shipping or rely on global supply chains to get to our kitchens.
This life isn’t easy. Christa and Seairra both talk about the round-the-clock, 365-day nature of farm work, but also how much they love it and how rewarding it is to be outside, getting your hands dirty and literally seeing the fruits of your labor. They discuss the growing interest they’ve witnessed in local food in their regions and the ways their farms have gotten connected with people in the surrounding towns.
This isn’t the first conversation we’ve had with a local farmer on The Bottom-Up Revolution. But we think Christa and Seairra offer a unique perspective as workers on rural farms in the modern age.
Additional Show Notes * Brambling Rows Farm (Brainerd, MN) * Trillium Dell Farm (Knoxville, IL) * Previous podcast episodes about local food: “Beth Hoffman: Getting Real About the Cost—and Value—of Farming,” “Alfred Melbourne: Growing Food, Growing Resilience,” and “Alex Hagler: An Entrepreneur Creating Opportunities for Other Entrepreneur.” * Read articles by Seairra Shepherd. * Send your story ideas to rachel@strongtowns.org. * Subscribe to The Bottom-Up Revolution on iTunes, Google Podcasts, Podbean, or via RSS. * Support this podcast by becoming a Strong Towns member today.
A few years back, we published an op-ed from a Strong Towns reader who was fighting a proposed highway project in San Jose, California, near his child’s school—mere yards away, to be exact.
The highway expansion would make a key crossing—where hundreds of children and parents walked to the school building every day—extremely dangerous. It would also bring noise and pollution into kids’ classrooms, strip recreational land away from the school, and, as with every highway expansion project, cost taxpayers millions of dollars to implement. The justification for the project from the DOT was basically: We planned for this a few decades ago and we finally got the funding, so let’s build it.
Today’s guest is the author of that initial op-ed and a leading community activist in the fight against the project. Robin Roemer got in touch with us a little while ago to say that, after a four-year battle, he and his neighbors had finally succeeded in getting the city council to vote unanimously against the project. You’re about to hear his story of persistence, of bringing neighbors together to show that they have power over the future of their community and they don’t have to accept a harmful project being handed down from on high.
Roemer has helpful advice for any community organizing effort, too: give people the facts and voice to help them make decisions for themselves, use peoples’ energy wisely, pace yourself for long-term efforts, and, also, you don’t have to participate in government processes that are rigged against you. He’s got a great story about not showing up for a city council meeting but instead, arranging a separate meeting for the community that would actually allow them to attend and voice their concerns. We’ll let him tell the rest…
Additional Show Notes * “A Literal Bridge From the Future to the Past,” by Robin Roemer (Strong Towns, October 2018). * “After a fierce fight, San Jose abandons ‘extremely dangerous’ overpass project,” by Maggie Angst (The Mercury News, February 2022). * California Walks website. * Send your story ideas to rachel@strongtowns.org. * Subscribe to The Bottom-Up Revolution on iTunes, Google Podcasts, Podbean, or via RSS. * Support this podcast by becoming a Strong Towns member today.
Welcome to a special Strongest Town contest episode, featuring a competitor in the Final Four round of our competition: Jasper, Indiana. Our guest is the Director of Community Development and Planning, Darla Blazey. You can learn more about the contest and vote in this match-up against Yellow Springs, Ohio, by visiting strongtowns.org/strongesttown.
Welcome to a special Strongest Town contest episode, featuring a competitor in the Final Four round of our competition: Yellow Springs, Ohio. Our guest is the village council president, Brain Housh. You can learn more about the contest and vote in this match-up against Jasper, Indiana, by visiting strongtowns.org/strongesttown.
Welcome to a special Strongest Town contest episode, featuring a competitor in the Final Four round of our competition: Norwood, Ohio. Our guest is a resident and board member of a local community development corporation, Alisha Loch. You can learn more about the contest and vote in this match-up against Durango, Colorado, by visiting strongtowns.org/strongesttown.
Welcome to a special Strongest Town contest episode, featuring a competitor in the Final Four round of our competition: Durango, Colorado. Our guest is Durango city planner, Bryce Bierman. You can learn more about the contest and vote in this match-up against Norwood, Ohio, by visiting strongtowns.org/strongesttown.
Today’s guest on The Bottom-Up Revolution podcast is an expert in universal design: an approach to building spaces in a way that benefits both people living with disabilities and people who aren’t.
After an accident several decades ago, Rosemarie Rossetti began using a wheelchair and she and her husband quickly realized the home they lived in would no longer accommodate her needs. After searching for a more accessible place to live and coming up short, they decided to build their own universally designed home and use it as a “living laboratory” to show others what is possible in home construction.
Whether you live with a disability or not, know that many of your neighbors and fellow residents do and, as we age, it’s likely that we may also one day desire homes that accommodate mobility challenges or other needs. What would it mean to be able to stay in our current houses or apartments rather than having to move to a facility? This is the promise of universal design, among other things, and it doesn’t have to cost a lot to implement, either.
Rosemarie Rossetti is a speaker, author, and leader in this field. We hope you enjoy this conversation about universal design.
Additional Show Notes * Rosemarie Rossetti’s website * Universal Design Living Laboratory website * Check out the Universal Design Toolkit * Send your story ideas to rachel@strongtowns.org. * Support this podcast by becoming a Strong Towns member today.
Today, we're featuring updates from four guests who were on the show in the last couple of years.
We’ll first hear from Marilyn Burns, who’s helping lead an effort to create a community laundry co-op in the Woodhill neighborhood of Cleveland, Ohio.
We’ll also hear from Alex Rodriguez, a Strong Towns member who’s been involved in an ongoing process to help revitalize his rural town of Lexington, New York, through arts, housing, and small business.
Next, we’ll hear from Sheleita Miller, a Strong Towns member who runs a community radio program in Gary, Indiana, and has been helping business owners during the pandemic.
And finally, we’ll close with a brief update from our summer intern last year, Sarah Davis, on her new urban planning job.
Additional Show Notes * Listen to past episodes featuring these guests: Marilyn Burns (May 2021), Alex Rodriguez (March 2021), Sheleita Miller (December 2020), Sarah Davis (September 2021) * Check out the Woodhill Community Coop on Instagram. * Learn more about the Lexington Arts and Science project. * Visit the ”Heart to Heart with Sheleita Miller” Facebook page. * Read about Toole Design. * Join the Strong Towns Facebook group. * Send your story ideas to rachel@strongtowns.org. * Support this podcast by becoming a Strong Towns member today.
Shelley Denison is a Strong Towns advocate and city planner in Sandy, Oregon, a town that’s going through some challenges that should be very familiar to you: concerns about traffic and congestion, questions about what it means to invite more housing into your city, and more.
As a city planner, Denison navigates these issues with a thoughtful and open mind. She’s been invested in clarifying, for instance, what allowing missing middle housing would actually mean for her community (more housing options, and not developers bulldozing your neighborhood, as some residents fear).
Denison sees city planning as fundamentally about relationship with residents, and she’s dedicated to what she calls “communicative planning,” that genuinely takes into account the needs and concerns of those who live in her town. In this interview, you’ll hear Denison’s nuanced take on the YIMBY/NIMBY debate, her experience hosting a housing-related podcast, and her dedication to fighting cynicism in the planning field.
Additional Show Notes * Grab your ticket to the 2022 Local-Motive Tour today! * Check out Shelley Denison’s podcast, At Home in Oregon. * Join the Strong Towns Facebook group. * Send your story ideas to rachel@strongtowns.org. * Support this podcast by becoming a Strong Towns member today.
The Asheville Bench Project is a very grassroots, incremental, small-bet approach to making Asheville a little more livable, a little more people-friendly.
Today’s guest is choosing to remain anonymous (find out why in the episode). He was watching his neighbors stand out in the hot sun, the rain, the cold, waiting for their buses at utterly neglected patches of sidewalk, with cars whizzing past, and not even a place to sit while they waited. So he took matters into his own hands and started building benches and installing them at bus stops.
He didn’t ask permission or go through a permitting process. He just saw a problem and started addressing it. His effort, which is only a couple months old, has already grown into a project with multiple volunteers, positive feedback from bus riders, and some local businesses starting to get involved.
For the founder of the Asheville Bench Project, this effort is about more than simply providing a place for a weary rider to sit. It’s also about drawing attention to how the city has neglected to do this work itself. Eleven percent of households in Asheville don’t have a car. Is it too much to ask that a key source of transportation, especially for those people without cars, be modestly humane and accommodating? Our guest today wants his local leaders to start thinking about that how much they prioritize car travel and how little they consider the often much more cost-effective and resilient forms of transportation like biking, walking, and transit.
Overall, our guest’s message is simple but so important: If you see something wrong in your city, you have the power to fix it. And you should step up and do just that.
Additional Show Notes * Grab your ticket to the 2022 Local-Motive Tour today! * Check out the Asheville Bench Project on Instagram. * Send your story ideas to rachel@strongtowns.org. * Support this podcast by becoming a Strong Towns member today.
The Marlborough Community Land Trust in Kansas City has been stepping up to help connect more neighbors, especially low-income neighbors, with opportunities for homeownership and to ensure that those opportunities continue in perpetuity for future families, too. Community Land Trusts are a model for stabilizing neighborhoods while at the same time allowing low- and middle-income people the chance to build household wealth.
This episode features Rebecca McQuillen, Executive Director of the Marlborough Community Land trust, and Rodger Kube, president of the Land Trust’s board. You’ll hear them talk about how they got started, including the creative ways they’ve pursued funding and built positive partnerships to accomplish their goals.
You’ll also hear a really thorough description of how a land trust works and why it’s been a successful approach in many neighborhoods like theirs. Rebecca and Rodger get candid about the challenges of this work, especially in the current, hotly competitive housing market. And they tell some moving stories of how the chance to pursue that American dream of homeownership has changed lives in the Marlborough neighborhood.
P.S. If you listen to this episode, you’ll also get to enjoy our new podcast music, created by Strong Towns Content Manager, Jay Stange.
Additional Show Notes * Grab your ticket to the 2022 Local-Motive Tour today. * Nominate your town for the Strongest Town contest. Just a couple days left to submit your nomination! * Visit the Marlborough Community Land Trust website. * Send your story ideas to rachel@strongtowns.org. * Support this podcast by becoming a Strong Towns member today.
What would you do in your community if you knew you couldn’t fail? That was the question guiding Rabbi Donna Berman as she looked at a crumbling historic synagogue building in Hartford, Connecticut. It was home to a small nonprofit on the verge of closing, but Rabbi Donna saw a future there and she knew that things could only improve from their current state.
Hired on as executive director of the Charter Oak Cultural Center, she and a single volunteer board member started a small newsletter and some simple events to start getting people through the doors of the building. Through a process of building trust with neighbors, slowly raising the money to incrementally fix up the space and finding out what the neighborhood needed most, the Cultural Center has grown into a space that serves hundreds of youths with arts programs, offers resources and education for homeless residents, and operates as a space for the whole community.
In this conversation on The Bottom-Up Revolution podcast, hosted by Rachel Quednau, you’ll hear about the step-by-step approach that Rabbi Donna and her colleagues had to renovating the building and creating community programs—and how those things worked in tandem. You’ll also hear about how they’ve adapted to neighborhood needs over time, especially during COVID. Rabbi Donna also touches a bit on the Jewish concept of tikkun olam, repairing the world, and how that guides her work.
Additional Show Notes
- Grab your ticket to the 2022 Local-Motive Tour today!
- Nominate your town for the Strongest Town contest.
- Visit the Charter Oak Cultural Center website.
- Read and listen to more stories about the intersection between religious communities and Strong Towns issues.
- Send your story ideas to rachel@strongtowns.org.
- Support this podcast by becoming a Strong Towns member today.
De’Nita Wright comes from a family of activists, and has been involved with bringing neighbors together for cooperative organizing around affordable housing and food access in her hometown of Louisville, Kentucky. She’s the featured guest on today’s episode of The Bottom-Up Revolution podcast, hosted by Rachel Quednau.
Wright is the founder of the Coalition of West Louisville Neighborhood Associations and also serves on the board of the Louisville Association for Community Economics. Both efforts are focused on connecting neighbors with one another to build broad-based support for goals like a new community grocery store, or efforts to preserve home ownership in the neighborhood. Wright has watched band-aid government programs try and fail to help her community, and sees outside money making its way into her neighborhood in a negative way.
She’s a strong believer in the power of co-ops as a long-term solution to economic challenges. For Wright, cooperative organizations are the way of the future, ensuring that residents have a say in what takes place in their neighborhood, and have the collective power to make it happen.
Additional Show Notes * Grab your ticket to the 2022 Local-Motive Tour today! * Nominate your town for the Strongest Town contest. * Visit the Louisville Association for Community Economics website. * Send your story ideas to rachel@strongtowns.org. * Support this podcast by becoming a Strong Towns member today.
Gracen Johnson, a founding member and long-time contributor to Strong Towns, recently had that now-common experience of moving mid-pandemic—to Ottawa in Canada. Yet she’s found small but powerful ways to get to know neighbors and be a positive part of her neighborhood. Having a dog to walk regularly helps. So does observing what’s going on around her and finding ways to plug into that, rather than showing up with her own agenda. If you’ve heard of our "4-Step Process for Public Investment" at Strong Towns, this is exactly what Gracen is talking about.
Gracen has lived in rural and urban areas, but she says she’s not a city person or a small town person—rather, she’s “a neighborhood person.” In this episode, you’ll hear a lot from Gracen about how to connect with your neighbors and, as she says, “give more than you take” with those around you. Near the end of the interview, we also have an interesting conversation about top-down versus bottom-up advocacy, because the reason Gracen moved to Toronto was to work for a quasi-federal government housing agency. It’s certainly a valuable discussion.
Additional Show Notes * Grab your ticket to the 2022 Local-Motive Tour today! * Nominate your town for the Strongest Town contest. * Read Strong Towns articles by Gracen. * Read Gracen’s "Places I Don’t Want to Sit" photo essay. * Why are street trees important? Read "The Magic of Tree-Lined Streets," by Sarah Kobos. * Watch the Curbside Chat video series Gracen created for Strong Towns * Check out the popular Not Just Bikes channel on YouTube. * Send your story ideas to rachel@strongtowns.org. * Support this podcast by becoming a Strong Towns member today.
If you wanted to decrease crime in your neighborhood, what would you do? Say there’s a park where people tend to hang out selling and doing drugs, getting into trouble, and making the rest of the neighbrohood feel unsafe… Would you set up more police patrols? Install brighter lighting? Maybe cut down the bushes that protect the park from public view? These are all typical tactics that cities use.
But today’s guest on The Bottom-Up Revolution podcast tried something very different: He and the organizations he leads —the Lykins Neighborhood Association and Neighborhood Legal Support of Kansas City—have been combatting crime in a Kansas City neighborhood through activity and development.
Gregg Lombardi is a practicing lawyer and has been using legal strategies to help a neighborhood procure abandoned homes and rehab them. His organization serves as a facilitator, convener, and liaison for development, helping bring together the financial resources to make these projects happen and, most importantly, giving primary focus to listening to what residents want to see in their neighborhood. They’re also spurring neighborhood activities—like soccer practice and local events in that now formerly dangerous park.
When we see disinvested neighborhoods, we shouldn’t just throw up our hands and conclude they’re on a downward trajectory that can’t be stopped. Lombardi says: “There are a lot of problems in neighborhoods that are solvable.” The work happening in the Lykins Neighborhood of Kansas City is already serving as a pilot project for development and revitalization in other neighborhoods, too.
In this interview, hosted by Rachel Quednau, you’ll see the incremental, “small bets” approach that Lombardi and the neighbors involved in the project are employing. You’ll also learn about how so many challenges and opportunities in our neighborhoods are interconnected: public space, housing, safety, local businesses, and more.
Additional Show Notes * Grab your ticket to the 2022 Local-Motive Tour today! * Visit the Lykins Neighborhood Association website. * Send your story ideas to rachel@strongtowns.org. * Support this podcast by becoming a Strong Towns member today.
Andrea Marr has had a fascinating career trajectory. She’s a nuclear engineer, she’s served in the U.S. Navy in the Persian Gulf, volunteered on a solar panel project in Nicaragua and now leads the city of Costa Mesa, California, as the mayor pro tem. She’s also a Strong Towns member.
What’s the connection between these different roles and experiences? For Marr, it’s about wanting to serve something beyond herself.
In her current position as city councilor and mayor pro tem, she’s dedicated herself over the last few years to helping shift the culture around biking and walking in her region. For a car-dominated place like southern California, it’s not easy, but Marr is a big believer in the power of incremental progress. She’s also been working on economic development efforts and helping the city improve after some dysfunctional leadership.
Andrea Marr is yet another badass Strong Towns advocate in local government and an engineer pushing for change. We’re excited for you to hear her story on this week’s episode of The Bottom-Up Revolution podcast, hosted by Rachel Quednau.
Additional Show Notes * Grab your ticket to the 2022 Local-Motive Tour today! * Check out some of our new columns: Neighborhood Stories (by Karla Theilen), Community Building (by John Pattison), and the High Value fiction serial (by Hamilton Ludwig). * Listen to recent Bottom-Up Revolution episodes featuring Strong Towns advocates in local government, including Ashley Salvador, Mason Thompson, and Rob Green. * Join the discussion about this episode in the Strong Towns Facebook Community group. * Send your story ideas to rachel@strongtowns.org. * Subscribe to The Bottom-Up Revolution on iTunes, Google Podcasts, Podbean, or via RSS. * Support this podcast by becoming a Strong Towns member today.
Welcome to the first episode of the The Bottom-Up Revolution podcast in 2022. It’s great to be back with you, and we’ve got an exciting episode to kick off the new year.
Billy Altom is the executive director of APRIL, which stands for Association of Programs for Rural Independent Living. It’s a national nonprofit consisting of over 260 members from centers for independent living for people with disabilities, specifically located in rural areas. Altom has been involved in disability advocacy on a number of levels, including testifying for state and federal legislatures, working for multiple independent living organizations and now leading APRIL. He’s also a musician.
In this conversation, he talks about the importance of peer support—of seeing someone who looks like you and knows what you’re experiencing, whether that’s encountering a fellow wheelchair user on the bus or meeting another deaf person at school. This is particularly essential in rural areas where the population of people with disabilities can be fairly small and services can be quite sparse. Altom knows from personal experience the power of simply connecting with someone who also has a disability. He talks about rural transportation and housing challenges in particular, as well as the impact of COVID, both positive and negative for people with different abilities.
Throughout the interview, you’ll learn that he holds a deep commitment to engaging the people who are impacted by his work and ensures that his organization is always rooted in community needs—something we’re always advocating for at Strong Towns. Altom is such an engaging and dynamic speaker; we know you’re going to appreciate hearing his story and will learn something from his perspective.
Click here to view a transcript for this show.
Additional Show Notes * Visit the APRIL website. * Grab your ticket to the 2022 Local-Motive Tour today! * Join the discussion about this episode in the Strong Towns Facebook Community group. * Send your story ideas to rachel@strongtowns.org. * Support this podcast by becoming a Strong Towns member today.
Kirk Seyfert got his start in a church basement. As he describes it, he was just a guy who cared about biking and transportation access, and started noticing a need in his community of Salem, Oregon. Seyfert heard about some neighbors who were walking miles to their third shift jobs because they didn’t own cars and the city bus service shut down during evenings and weekends. He thought that access to bikes might make a difference for these guys, and he was right.
That spark of an idea has since grown into a nonprofit called the Northwest Hub that reclaims and refurbishes bikes for low-income people, teaches bike maintenance classes, provides job training for young people, and more. It’s a great example of an organization that has adapted over time based on community needs.
In this conversation, you’ll hear from Seyfert about how his program got started, the issues they’ve been working on, and how you might implement something similar in your city. We have a saying at Strong Towns that small improvements in bike infrastructure and access are some of the most high-return investments you can make in your city. You’ll see how true that is in this story.
Additional Show Notes * Visit the Northwest Hub website. * Join the discussion about this episode in the Strong Towns Facebook Community group. * Send your story ideas to rachel@strongtowns.org. * Subscribe to The Bottom-Up Revolution on iTunes, Google Podcasts, Podbean, or via RSS. * Support this podcast by becoming a Strong Towns member today.
In her new book, Bet the Farm: The Dollars and Sense of Growing Food in America, Beth Hoffman tells the story of how she and her husband moved onto Iowa land owned by her father-in-law and began raising cattle, goats, and growing various crops. But unlike many farming stories, this is not a romanticized tale of waking at dawn to gather eggs in your apron pocket and cooking a beautiful breakfast with homemade jam and bread, then heading out to the fields to weed your lush vegetable patch…
Alright, we’re exaggerating a little bit. But that’s kind of the vibe you get from food memoirs these days. And Bet the Farm is not that. Hoffman is brutally honest about the hardships she and her husband face in their farming venture—and that’s with land available and a good chunk of start-up money. She talks in depth about how much harder things are for farmers who don’t have these resources.
In this interview on the Bottom-Up Revolution podcast (and in Hoffman’s book, if you read it), you’re going to notice a lot of parallels between the challenges of farming and the challenges of small towns in America, and you’ll also hear Hoffman talk about why farms and towns need each other to survive.
Additional Show Notes * Order Bet the Farm: The Dollars and Sense of Growing Food in America and use code STRONG25 for 25% off your purchase today. * Visit the Whippoorwill Creek Farm website * Connect with Beth Hoffman on Twitter (@BethFoodAg). * Join the discussion about this episode in the Strong Towns Facebook Community group. * Send your story ideas to rachel@strongtowns.org. * Subscribe to The Bottom-Up Revolution on iTunes, Google Podcasts, Podbean, or via RSS. * Support this podcast by becoming a Strong Towns member today.
All week, we’ve been celebrating the thousands of amazing Strong Towns members who make up this movement. They are safe streets advocates in Hawaii and mayors in Pennsylvania and small business owners in Georgia. And if those references sound familiar, it’s because every one of those stories was featured on the podcast this year. If you’ve ever listened to the show and thought, “Wow I wish I could do what Mary or Chris or Haile is doing in my city,” you can! It just takes stepping up and committing to this movement by becoming a member of Strong Towns.
This movement is made up of all sorts of people and there’s a place for you here. Become a member today.
This week’s guest is Edmonton, Alberta-based city councilor, Ashley Salvador. Before her recent election, Ashley ran an organization called YEGarden Suites. (YEG is the abbreviation for Edmonton, and a garden suite is another term for an accessory dwelling unit.) Ashley has been a huge proponent of making this sort of housing more legally and practically easy to build. She and her cofounder teach classes, provide resources, and advocate to decisionmakers, all in pursuit of increased housing options and affordability through what she calls “gentle density.”
Her leadership on this and other local issues eventually led her to step up and run for local office. Ashley’s campaign brought together over 100 volunteers in a very grassroots effort, and now she’s a brand new city councilor.
In this interview, Ashley talks about the positive, Strong Towns changes happening in Edmonton, how she got where she is today, and her advice for others who hope to be local leaders, too.
Additional Show Notes * YEGarden Suites website * “Will Edmonton Be the First Major Canadian City to Eliminate Parking Minimums?” (Strong Towns article by Ashley Salvador) * “How to Get Rid of Parking Minimums” (Strong Towns webcast featuring Ashley Salvador) * Follow Ashley Salvador on Twitter. * Join the discussion about this episode in the Strong Towns Facebook Community group. * Send us your own voicemail about the small (or big) thing you’re doing to make your town stronger. Just record a voice memo on your phone and email it to rachel@strongtowns.org. * Subscribe to The Bottom-Up Revolution on iTunes, Google Podcasts, Podbean, or via RSS. * Support this podcast by becoming a Strong Towns member today.
Mason Thompson is a Strong Towns member and city councilor in Bothell, WA. But he’s not someone who’s been dreaming of running for office since he was a kid or anything. For him, it all started because he wanted some bike trails in the local park. That led him to the park board, and eventually, to an elected official inviting him to think about running for office. Mason is someone who has said "yes" to his community; he’s been a lifelong resident of Bothell, and he’s dedicated to making it a better place for everyone.
That means really listening to residents and their concerns, and seeking out the voices that aren’t often present in public decision-making. It also means running a nonpartisan campaign, where Mason focused on land use and transportation issues as an entry point that he knew everyone could get behind. Everyone cares about the way their environment feels and looks and how they get around, he says, and that was a good way to start a conversation with his fellow Bothellites.
In this episode, Mason shares his journey to running for office, the family motto that he invites everyone to utilize, and also a fun tangent about the awesome power of electric bikes.
Additional Show Notes * Listen to a previous Bottom-Up Revolution episode featuring Cary Westerbeck, fellow Bothell resident, Strong Towns member and founder of Bo-POP. * Visit the Bo-POP (Bothellites for People-Oriented Places) website. * Join the discussion about this episode in the Strong Towns Facebook Community group. * Send us your own voicemail about the small (or big) thing you’re doing to make your town stronger. Just record a voice memo on your phone and email it to rachel@strongtowns.org. * Support this podcast by becoming a Strong Towns member today.
Tim Wright is a long-time Strong Towns member and cofounder of a Strong Towns local group called ReForm Shreveport, based in Shreveport, Louisiana. Tim is an engineer who joined with some of his friends and neighbors to create this group out of a desire to make the best of the community’s assets, focus on the potential of Shreveport, and help young people like himself see that it’s a great place to live and stay.
ReForm Shreveport has been very focused on action. They’ve cleaned up parks, piloted bike lanes, and even created an interactive map after a major storm threatened Shreveport’s water supply for thousands of residents. Tim and his colleagues are responding to the needs of their city and partnering with government and other local groups to get things done. That’s been particularly important in a somewhat economically divided city—something all too common in towns across America.
In this episode of The Bottom-Up Revolution podcast, hosted by Rachel Quednau, we talk a lot about ReForm Shreveport, though toward the end we also chat about Tim’s new experience of home ownership with his wife, and why they chose to convert part of their house into an AirBnb.
Additional Show Notes * ReForm Shreveport website * Get information about starting a Strong Towns Local Conversation group where you live! * Read Daniel Herriges’ new series on incremental development. * Join the discussion about this episode in the Strong Towns Facebook Community group. * Read an article by LeVette Fuller and watch her and Tim on a webcast about Shreveport. * Send us your own voicemail about the small (or big) thing you’re doing to make your town stronger. Just record a voice memo on your phone and email it to rachel@strongtowns.org. * Subscribe to The Bottom-Up Revolution on iTunes, Google Podcasts, Podbean, or via RSS. * Support this podcast by becoming a Strong Towns member today.
Rebecca Undem lives in the small community of Oakes, North Dakota, and does a lot of work helping her town grow stronger, and helping her fellow rural residents become community leaders. But we know her advice and insights will speak to you no matter if you live in a town of 2,000 or two million.
In this conversation hosted by Rachel Quednau, Undem talks about the choice to stay in or return to your hometown; the connections, family, and traditions you get to experience when you make that sort of life for yourself; and how that doesn’t mean losing out on career opportunities. In particular, Undem has been helping her region think through the ways that the rise of remote work can allow people to commit to their towns for the long haul. She believes remote employment and Main Street can actually grow together and benefit one another, and she’s led some creative initiatives to help people see those opportunities through her organization, Growing Small Towns. Undem also hosts a podcast under the same name.
Additional Show Notes * Growing Small Towns website and podcast * Rebecca Undem’s website * Visit our employment page to learn about our current job openings. * Join the discussion about this episode in the Strong Towns Facebook Community group. * Send us your own voicemail about the small (or big) thing you’re doing to make your town stronger. Just record a voice memo on your phone and email it to rachel@strongtowns.org. * Support this podcast by becoming a Strong Towns member today.
On this week’s episode of The Bottom-Up Revolution podcast, we’re featuring a Strong Towns member and mayor of Cedar Falls, Iowa. In this interview with Rachel Quednau, Rob Green shares his journey from Coast Guard officer to neighborhood association president to mayor.
He’s passionate about government transparency and accessibility—so much so that he held office hours in the local grocery store to meet with constituents.
This discussion gets into the nitty gritty of updating some zoning codes and figuring out government staffing in a midsize college town. Mayor Green also shares how he first got plugged into Strong Towns, his advice for people feeling disconnected from local decision-making, and why you should always carry a notebook.
Additional Show Notes * “Thank You from a Speculator” (land value tax video) * Strong Towns: A Bottom-Up Revolution to Rebuild American Prosperity (the first Strong Towns book) * Mayor Green’s Facebook page * Visit our employment page to learn about our current job openings. * Join the discussion about this episode in the Strong Towns Facebook Community group. * Send us your own voicemail about the small (or big) thing you’re doing to make your town stronger. Just record a voice memo on your phone and email it to rachel@strongtowns.org. * Subscribe to The Bottom-Up Revolution on iTunes, Google Podcasts, Podbean, or via RSS. * Support this podcast by becoming a Strong Towns member today.
This week’s episode is a very special one because it features our summer intern, Sarah Davis, who just wrapped up her internship last week. She was a shared intern between Strong Towns and our friends at the data analytics firm, Urban3. (We heard from Cate Ryba, COO at Urban3, just a few weeks ago on this show.)
Sarah was with us throughout the summer writing important stories that use the Strong Towns approach to development and finance, and make excellent use of Urban3’s extensive research and data visualizations.
In this conversation hosted by Rachel Quednau, Sarah talks about her experience being a young planner fresh out of college, her experience as a lifelong Kansas Citian, and her hopes for the planning profession as she enters her career. Take a listen and make sure to check out her articles when you’re done.
Additional Show Notes * Read Sarah’s articles * Strong Towns series on Kansas City * Follow Sarah on Twitter and LinkedIn * Join the discussion about this episode in the Strong Towns Facebook Community group. * Send us your own voicemail about the small (or big) thing you’re doing to make your town stronger. Just record a voice memo on your phone and email it to rachel@strongtowns.org. * Support this podcast by becoming a Strong Towns member today.
This week’s guest on The Bottom-Up Revolution podcast hails from Utah and he’s here to talk about a cool tactical urbanism program that is helping make streets safer with an incremental, resident-driven approach in Park City.
Tactical urbanism is an approach to public space that involves making what we at Strong Towns like to call “small bets”: small, temporary projects that require little to no money to execute, which allow people to test out a new design in a public space. It might be a crosswalk created with temporary paint or a bus stop enhanced with lightweight, moveable lawn furniture. The goal is to trial a concept and, if it works well, perhaps implement it more permanently down the line—striping that crosswalk in permanent paint, or installing a full-size bench at the bus stop.
Austin Taylor is helping lead tactical urbanism efforts in Park City, Utah, where he’s employed as a transportation planner. The program in Park City lets residents decide on and propose projects, then provides city funding and city help with the permitting process to execute them. The city even collects data on the impact of those projects.
And, as you’ll hear from Austin, that data shows success in slowing down cars and making people feel safer through street design changes—something we’ve been advocating for at Strong Towns for years. Austin’s also a dedicated advocate for safer streets, leading the Bike Walk Provo organization, and he’s been featured at Strong Towns in the past. He’s a long time Strong Towns advocate!
Additional Show Notes * Bike Walk Provo website * People-First Streets program * Check out the many resources and key articles we’ve got about tactical urbanism over at the Action Lab. * Hear Austin on our old podcast, It’s the Little Things, and read an article by Austin about tactical urbanism on Strong Towns. * Join the discussion about this episode in the Strong Towns Facebook Community group. * Send us your own voicemail about the small (or big) thing you’re doing to make your town stronger. Just record a voice memo on your phone and email it to rachel@strongtowns.org. * Support this podcast by becoming a Strong Towns member today.
Making his debut on The Bottom-Up Revolution podcast, hosted by Rachel Quednau, this week’s guest is Chuck Marohn. He’s on the show talking about his new book, Confessions of a Recovering Engineer: Transportation for a Strong Town, which just came out yesterday.
In this conversation, Chuck talks about what got him motivated to write this book and why productive, resilient transportation is such an essential piece of a strong town. He shares some personal stories about transportation challenges in his hometown of Brainerd, Minnesota, which will probably resonate with almost everyone listening because they’re sadly common.
Chuck also shares his hopes for how this book could educate and inspire people to make the transportation in their communities better. And finally, he offers his advice for getting started learning about the transportation challenges in your city. Step one: Get out and walk. Step two: Observe how your neighbors are walking and traveling through your city, and where they might face dangers or obstacles.
You can find Confessions of a Recovering Engineer at your local bookstore or anywhere else books are sold.
Additional Show Notes * Learn more about our newest book and order it here. * Join the discussion about this episode in the Strong Towns Facebook Community group. * Send us your own voicemail about the small (or big) thing you’re doing to make your town stronger. Just record a voice memo on your phone and email it to rachel@strongtowns.org. * Support this podcast by becoming a Strong Towns member today.
Cate Ryba is Chief Operating Officer and Planner at Urban3, a data analytics firm that Strong Towns has been partnering with for years. In this conversation, Cate talks about the important work of Urban3, which helps cities understand their municipal finances and take charge of their financial future through powerful visualizations.
But the episode also features a conversation on Cate’s previous role as the youngest city councilor in her hometown of Spartanburg, South Carolina, her experience organizing community events and downtown revitalization efforts, and even how she helped create a new dog park in her city.
Cate is dedicated to connecting people within communities who might not otherwise meet each other. She also believes in what she calls “the power of fun” — a belief which led her to start an annual beer and donuts run for charity, which grew to several hundred participants over the course of a few years. That’s just one example of the many cool projects Cate has led throughout her life. She encourages people to find the things they care about, connect with others who share their passions and join in those efforts to build stronger towns.
Additional Show Notes * Urban3 website * Get your ticket to the Confessions Book Launch Party. * Join a discussion about this episode in the Strong Towns Facebook Group. * Preorder Confessions of a Recovering Engineer by Charles Marohn before September 8 to get access to our special “30 Days of Confessions” video series. * Send us your own voicemail about the small (or big) thing you’re doing to make your town stronger. Just record a voice memo on your phone and email it to rachel@strongtowns.org. * Support this podcast by becoming a Strong Towns member today.
Tiffany Owens is a Strong Towns member, guest contributor and member of the Strong Towns advisory board. She currently lives in Waco, Texas, but before that, she was going to school in New York City where she recently graduated from The Kings College.
In this conversation on The Bottom-Up Revolution podcast hosted by Rachel Quednau, Tiffany talks about the trade-off between big-city excitement, and possibilities for connection and community that can sometimes come more easily in a smaller place.
Tiffany is deeply committed to understanding urban places and helping others to help shape their communities into stronger towns. She does this through her blog and Instagram account, Cities Decoded. And she’s also recently joined up with her local neighborhood association, so she shares the joys and challenges of neighborhood organizing. At the end of the day, Tiffany really wants to help people open their eyes, put down their phones and truly see their cities, to give real attention to the places and people around them
The interview concludes with a discussion about the power of religious communities and other sources of what Tiffany calls “associative culture”—something that’s becoming increasingly rare in this day and age. What is lost when we give up these places of connection?
Additional Show Notes * Cities Decoded website and Instagram. * Read Strong Towns articles by Tiffany. * Preorder Confessions of a Recovering Engineer by Charles Marohn before September 8 to get access to our special “30 Days of Confessions” video series. (And catch a sneak peak of the series here.) * Send us your own voicemail about the small (or big) thing you’re doing to make your town stronger. Just record a voice memo on your phone and email it to rachel@strongtowns.org. * Subscribe to The Bottom-Up Revolution on iTunes, Google Podcasts, Podbean, or via RSS. * Support this podcast by becoming a Strong Towns member today.
Today’s story is about alleys, specifically, how much potential and possibility they hold. While they’re typically just used as a place to park your car or stick your trash cans, alleys are also a space where kids can safely play, where flowers can grow, and, perhaps, where new homes can be built.
That’s how Thomas Dougherty sees it. Dougherty grew up on a farm in Ohio, where he developed an early appreciation for, as he says, “getting his hands dirty,” and being a builder. Later in life he had the chance to visit the Netherlands, where he got a taste of traditional urban neighborhoods and design, and a real feeling of “home,” even though he was far away from his community of origin.
Dougherty recently finished a masters in architecture and the focus of his thesis was how to turn alleyways into productive space, especially for accessory-dwelling units or ADUs. He sees tremendous potential in the “human-scale” of alleys—their narrow lanes, their intimate proximity to peoples’ homes and the innate safety that comes from a cozy, enclosed space. This week on the Strong Towns website, we’ve been running a multipart series by Dougherty outlining the history of alleys and their potential future as places for more life and housing. We’re glad to share this interview featuring Dougherty on The Bottom-Up Revolution podcast (hosted by Rachel Quednau) with you today.
Additional Show Notes * Read the American Alley series: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4. * “From Our House to ‘Godshuis,’” by Thomas Dougherty and Dr. Randall Smith, Strong Towns (September 2020). * Preorder Confessions of a Recovering Engineer by Charles Marohn before September 8 to get access to our special “30 Days of Confessions” video series. (And catch a sneak peak of the series here.) * Send us your own voicemail about the small (or big) thing you’re doing to make your town stronger. Just record a voice memo on your phone and email it to rachel@strongtowns.org. * Subscribe to The Bottom-Up Revolution on iTunes, Google Podcasts, Podbean, or via RSS. * Support this podcast by becoming a Strong Towns member today.
Lockport, Illinois—a suburb of Chicago—won our annual Strongest Town Contest this year, and we’re doing a special week of content right now to celebrate their win and explore some challenges the city is facing.
One genuinely fun and compelling story that we heard about from Lockport involves rubber duckies. Huge, people-sized rubber ducky statues, actually. During the pandemic in 2020, leaders and residents in Lockport were watching local businesses struggle to stay open as activity downtown dwindled. At the same time, a popular annual arts event was cancelled, and there was a desire to fill that gap with something else.
Wendy Streit, chairwoman of Lockport’s Summer Arts Committee, had an idea. What if the city partnered businesses that were doing well (like big box stores and other large businesses) with local shops and restaurants that were struggling? A comfortable business would sponsor an artistic, locally-made rubber ducky statue outside a struggling downtown businesses, and help shine a spotlight on that place and put a smile on Lockport residents’ and visitors’ faces. Streit also brought in a local business “passport” concept she’d seen in a neighboring city: patrons could collect stamps and win small prizes for visiting a certain number of businesses and duck statues.
The project has been a huge success, with businesses seeing increased activity and downtown coming back to life. In this interview on The Bottom-Up Revolution podcast hosted by Rachel Quednau, Streit talks about the many partners she worked with to make this happen and demonstrates what a creative approach can do to help businesses succeed in tough times.
Additional Show Notes * Lockport Ducks website * Send us your own voicemail about the small (or big) thing you’re doing to make your town stronger. Just record a voice memo on your phone and email it to rachel@strongtowns.org. * Support this podcast by becoming a Strong Towns member today.
The story featured in today’s episode of The Bottom-Up Revolution podcast is truly the definition of the Strong Towns movement in action. It starts with a Strong Towns member recognizing a problem in her community and then working tirelessly, persistently over a period of years to solve it.
Mary Moriarty Jones is a native Hawaiian who lives in Honolulu. Her background is in civil engineering and real estate development, but she’s also a mom to five kids, and that’s really where this story starts. Jones was trying to walk her children to school on a perilously dangerous street, and that frustration with the street led her to stand up in city council meetings, lobby the city, and eventually, upon finding out the road was privately owned (a common occurrence in Hawaii), Jones actually bought the road herself.
Then she made the changes she had been begging the city to make: planting street trees, lowering the speed limit, protecting the sidewalk area from cars, and charging for parking—putting the money raised from parking fees toward the upkeep of the road.
Mary Jones is a dedicated Strong Towns advocate if ever there was one. So get ready to learn and be inspired by this interview.
Additional Show Notes * A couple of articles about Mary Jones’ quest for safer streets, from Civil Beat: “This Diamond Head Mom Found An Unusual Way To Fight City Hall” and “Diamond Head Mom Who Took Over Road Riles Neighbors By Charging For Parking” * Send us your own voicemail about the small (or big) thing you’re doing to make your town stronger. Just record a voice memo on your phone and email it to rachel@strongtowns.org. * Support this podcast by becoming a Strong Towns member today.
“Incremental development” is a term you might’ve heard if you’ve been following Strong Towns for a little while. This concept refers to small-scale projects like updating downtown commercial spaces or renovating duplexes; the main thing is that these projects are led by individuals or teams of local residents, not huge companies.
So, encouraging and allowing incremental development is one of the single biggest things a city can do if it wants to become a strong town. Not only does this increase housing and small business options, it also puts power back into the hands of residents, allowing them to build wealth for their families and shape the future of their neighborhoods.
Today’s guest on The Bottom-Up Revolution podcast is Jenifer Acosta, a community revitalizer and incremental developer working in the Tri-Cities region of Michigan, near the shores of Lake Huron. Her focus is on adaptive reuse projects—taking historic structures like old bank and newspaper buildings and turning them into updated housing and commercial spaces. She finds that sweet spot between preserving history while also modernizing and allowing these old buildings to take on new life so they can last another hundred years, even as the needs of a community change.
Acosta is particularly driven by a desire to create more rental and multifamily housing opportunities in a region that is mostly dominated by single family homes. She is also on the faculty of the Incremental Development Alliance, where she helps train other small-scale developers across the continent.
In this interview with Rachel Quednau, Acosta talks especially about her experience being a woman in a male-dominated industry—how she has found fellow female developers, built a support system, and persevered even when people in the industry didn’t always welcome her.
Additional Show Notes * Jenifer Acosta’s website * Incremental Development Alliance website * New Academy Course: Urban Design Principles for a Strong Town * Send us your own voicemail about the small (or big) thing you’re doing to make your town stronger. Just record a voice memo on your phone and email it to rachel@strongtowns.org. * Support this podcast by becoming a Strong Towns member today.
Lauren Fisher grew up in Alaska—both in the city and in a very remote, fly-in only region. Today she lives in rural Wisconsin on a burgeoning homestead with her husband. She has a dog, a cat, several rabbits and chickens, and will hopefully have goats or a cow very soon.
Lauren is dedicated to building up household resilience, which, for her family, means trying to develop more and more food options that they can raise, grow, forage, and hunt themselves. But she’ll also be the first to tell you that these sorts of efforts have to start small. She doesn’t own acres and acres of land, but instead, she’s found creative ways to practice producing local food and build up her efforts gradually. In addition, she and her husband have cultivated many important skills for self-sufficiency like sewing, building, and electrical work—and they’re always seeking to learn more.
But for Lauren, these sorts of skills are not just about sustaining her own family, they’re also about being part of a larger community. In this conversation on The Bottom-Up Revolution podcast with Rachel Quednau, Lauren talks about how she’s gotten to know her neighbors after moving to the area a few years ago, and how they support each other through both the good times and the tough times.
She offers advice for those—yes, even introverts—who want to better connect and make friends with their neighbors. Lauren’s focus is on abundance and sharing, on finding the bounty of talent and goodness in yourself and those around you, and strengthening a community with those building blocks.
Additional Show Notes * “#DotheMath on Chicken Regulations,” by Lauren Fisher * “5 Places to Meet New People to Join the Strong Towns Conversation,” by Lauren Fisher * “Creating Housing Opportunities in a Strong Town” - our newest Strong Towns Academy course * Sign up for Strong Towns email. * Send us your own voicemail about the small (or big) thing you’re doing to make your town stronger. Just record a voice memo on your phone and email it to rachel@strongtowns.org. * Support this podcast by becoming a Strong Towns member today.
When you’ve got a friend or family member visiting you from out of town, where do you take that person? After you’ve said your hellos and they’ve dropped off their bags, where is the fun place you head to show them what your community is all about? Is it, by chance, a brewery, or the farmers market stand with the homemade cheese and sausage, or maybe it’s a cute jewelry shop on main street that makes all their own stuff…
There’s something about a locally-crafted food or good that just instills in us a pride for our place. It’s about saying: “This is my community and here’s what we’re capable of making.”
Ilana Preuss is an urban planner and founder of a company called Recast City, which helps build communities where small-scale manufacturing businesses can thrive. She’s also the author of a new book called Recast Your City: How to Save Your Downtown with Small-Scale Manufacturing and today she joins Rachel Quednau on The Bottom-Up Revolution podcast to talk about her work and why small-scale manufacturing can and should be the beating heart of your city.
Preuss shares how small-scale manufacturing can reinvigorate downtowns, build local pride and create meaningful opportunities for entrepreneurs to start businesses and scale up. She also outlines the steps that local leaders can take to make space for this manufacturing renaissance to occur and shares examples of this work in action across the country. It’s about building on the energy and manufacturing already present in your community, and harnessing that to make your town stronger.
Additional Show Notes * Recast City website * Get the book: Recast Your City: How to Save Your Downtown with Small-Scale Manufacturing. Use code STRONG25 for 25% off anything from islandpress.org. * Send us your own voicemail about the small (or big) thing you’re doing to make your town stronger. Just record a voice memo on your phone and email it to rachel@strongtowns.org. * Support this podcast by becoming a Strong Towns member today.
Michael Kelley is the Director of Policy at BikeWalkKC, an advocacy organization based in Kansas City, Missouri. Their mission is to “redefine our streets as places for people to build a culture of active living.”
Michael sees biking and walking as tools that enable people to get where they need to go in a safe, affordable, independent manner. These active transportation options can improve economic resilience, health, and a sense of community in any town, and Michael is working towards that in Kansas City. He brings to the organization his background in addressing housing issues, helping businesses thrive, and supporting the arts, all of which now inform his interdisciplinary role of creating a more bike- and walk-friendly Kansas City.
Before we get into this episode of The Bottom-Up Revolution podcast, hosted by Rachel Quednau, a quick reminder that if transportation issues matter to you, you definitely want to preorder Charles Marohn’s forthcoming book, Confessions of a Recovering Engineer: Transportation for a Strong Town. Transportation in America is getting worse and costing more. We have to do better, and this book shows you how. We’ve got a bunch of special offers for those who preorder, including class discounts, an exclusive online Q&A event, and immediate access to chapter one of the book. Visit confessions.engineer to preorder your copy today.
Additional Show Notes * BikeWalkKC website * Submit your question—any question—about building Strong Towns via our Action Lab, and it might be answered by Charles Marohn and featured in an upcoming episode of the Strong Towns Podcast. * Pre-order our new book: Confessions of a Recovering Engineer: Transportation for a Strong Town * Send us your own voicemail about the small (or big) thing you’re doing to make your town stronger. Just record a voice memo on your phone and email it to rachel@strongtowns.org. * Support this podcast by becoming a Strong Towns member today.
Nick Meyer started Volume One magazine when he was fresh out of college as a way to help show his fellow citizens of Eau Claire, Wisconsin, the life and vitality happening all around them. Now, 20 years later, the publication has grown tremendously, and expanded into a retail space, cohost, and creator of many local events, and an all-around supporter of the Eau Claire community.
Eau Claire, like so many places across America, has experienced a decline in economic activity and local pride after important industries wound down operations and left the community in decades past. Volume One was born out of what Nick describes simply as a desire to “see cool things happen here,” and that spark has proven significant in helping to uplift the whole city.
In this conversation on The Bottom-Up Revolution podcast, hosted by Rachel Quednau, Nick talks about the powerful feedback loop that happens when you shine a spotlight on what’s going on in your town. This theme resonates across so many guests we’ve had on the show and featured in articles on the Strong Towns website: when people step up and start to care about their place and take action to make it better, others follow suit, and the bottom-up revolution begins.
Additional Show Notes * Volume One magazine * Outbroken - A Pandemic’s Effect on Wisconsin’s Food and Farms, a short film by Volume One * Breaking Out of the Resource Trap: An Economic Plan for Resource-Based Communities (free e-book from Strong Towns) * Send us your own voicemail about the small (or big) thing you’re doing to make your town stronger. Just record a voice memo on your phone and email it to rachel@strongtowns.org. * Support this podcast by becoming a Strong Towns member today.
Strong Towns member Haile McCollum is a successful small business owner, creative, and leader in her town of Thomasville, Georgia. In this episode of The Bottom-Up Revolution podcast, host Rachel Quednau talks with Haile about her ongoing dedication to her town through a number of activities and positions, especially local boards.
We hear about Haile’s design firm, Fontaine Maury, which has, among other things, helped local businesses to sharpen their brand identity and make their mark in the community. Haile also helped start a local arts festival, and she’s on the boards of several organizations in Thomasville, including the hospital, a school board, the planning and zoning commission, and a local bank.
Don’t worry, we also get into how she juggles all of these volunteer duties, her small business, and her family. It’s all about priorities (plus maybe cutting television out of your life).
Finally, Haile talks about how all of her work is guided by Strong Towns principles of bottom-up action, incremental improvement, and financial resilience. Settle in and get inspired by this dedicated, active Strong Towns member, Haile McCollum.
Additional Show Notes * Fontaine Maury * Haile McCollum on Instagram and Twitter * The Due South Festival * Send us your own voicemail about the small (or big) thing you’re doing to make your town stronger. Just record a voice memo on your phone and email it to rachel@strongtowns.org * Join our new course, “Aligning Transportation with a Strong Towns Approach” and, for a limited time only, get 20% off your purchase with discount code “NoStroads.” We’re also offering 20% off our whole 8-course bundle with code “LearnEverything.” * Support this podcast by becoming a Strong Towns member today.
Strong Towns member John Simmerman cares deeply about community health and wellbeing, and founded the organization Active Towns to help cities think about and create more opportunities for physical activity within neighborhoods.
But he wasn’t always an activist. For much of his career, John was in charge of developing wellness programs and fitness centers for large corporations. He brings that insight and experience into his Active Towns work today, creating podcasts, articles, and videos—plus speaking around the world about making cities more walkable, bikeable, and generally active.
At Strong Towns, our focus is on building financial resilience in communities across North America, and many of the practices which build this financial health also result in healthier people: things like sidewalks that allow people to enjoyably and safely walk to a store or restaurant, beautiful parks that provide a place for people to be outside and also raise property values around them, bike paths that attract visitors and provide an easy route to work for residents…and so on.
John uses the term “activity assets” to describe all of these things and anything else that helps someone be physically active in their place. Listen to this episode of our Bottom-Up Revolution podcast, hosted by Rachel Quednau, and then keep an eye out for the activity assets in your own community. What does your town have going for it? And where could it do better? John Simmerman inspires valuable thought on how to build more active towns.
Additional Show Notes * Active Towns website and podcast * Active Towns on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter * Send us your own voicemail about the small (or big) thing you’re doing to make your town stronger. Just record a voice memo on your phone and email it to rachel@strongtowns.org. * Subscribe to The Bottom-Up Revolution on iTunes, Google Podcasts, Podbean, or via RSS. * Join our new course, “Aligning Transportation with a Strong Towns Approach” and, for a limited time only, get 20% off your purchase with discount code “NoStroads.” We’re also offering 20% off our whole 8-course bundle with code “LearnEverything.” * Support this podcast by becoming a Strong Towns member today.
It’s a special week for us at Strong Towns. It’s our Member Week, where we honor and celebrate the incredible people who are members of this movement all across the country. You’ve heard several of their stories on this podcast in the past, and there will be many more to come.
If this movement for bottom-up change and financial resilience has got you inspired to start taking action in your own community, it’s time to make your participation official by becoming a sustaining member of Strong Towns today. Visit strongtowns.org/membership to do so.
Today’s podcast episode features two fantastic advocates who are part of this movement. Nathan Chung is a Strong Towns member and master’s student of regional planning at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. He’s also been part of a really cool effort in his town called the Amherst Mobile Market, which is bringing healthy, fresh, local food to sell in neighborhoods that don’t have much access to it. Nathan is exploring other mobile market efforts around the world, aiming to expand this model elsewhere.
In this conversation, Nathan and podcast host Rachel Quednau are joined by Ryan Karb, founder and farmer at Many Hands Farm Corps. He’s been part of this mobile market program, as well, and is dedicated to creating a resilient local food system in his community.
In this conversation, Ryan and Nathan talk about how the Amherst Mobile Market program got started, the impact it’s made, and the way they’ve rooted all of their efforts in what their neighbors ask for and need.
Additional Show Notes * Amherst Mobile Market * Many Hands Farm Corps * Nathan Chung’s website * Other examples of mobile markets: Go Fresh Mobile Market in Springfield, Heiko in Germany, and Tokushimaru in Japan * Send us your own voicemail about the small (or big) thing you’re doing to make your town stronger. Just record a voice memo on your phone and email it to rachel@strongtowns.org. * Join our new course, “Aligning Transportation with a Strong Towns Approach” and, for a limited time only, get 20% off your purchase with discount code “NoStroads.” We’re also offering 20% off our whole 8-course bundle with code “LearnEverything.” * Support this podcast by becoming a Strong Towns member today.
In today’s episode of The Bottom-Up Revolution podcast, we’re talking with Sophia Hosain, who’s helping to lead a community composting initiative headed up by the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, a long-time friend and partner of the Strong Towns movement.
Right about now, some of you are probably very excited to hear more, while others are thinking, “What the heck does compost have to do with building strong towns?” As Sophia explains in this conversation with Strong Towns Program Director Rachel Quednau, community composting programs do a lot to make our communities more economically resilient. First, they allow our neighborhoods and cities to be more self-reliant, taking the garbage we generate and—instead of pouring it into a landfill that occupies precious space and decreases the value and livability of everything around it, and costs money to maintain—we’re taking our food scraps and turning them into soil, which can then help us grow more food.
Almost every town in America is far from a goal of being able to sustain itself on locally grown food. A community composting network like the one Sophia leads in Baltimore helps neighborhoods to develop rich soil in which to grow healthy food. This process takes waste produced by the community and turns it into something productive that benefits the community. Everyone wins.
As Sophia will also share, the programs she’s worked with have helped generate job training, opportunities, and entrepreneurship, plus strengthen neighborly connections and a sense of ownership within neighborhoods.
Listen with an open mind to this conversation about community composting.
Additional Show Notes * Institute for Local Self-Reliance (ILSR) * ILSR’s Composting for Community program * Community Composter Coalition, where you can find information about composting in your area * Neighborhood Soil Rebuilders Composter Training Program * Sign up for “Breaking Out of the Resource Trap: An Economic Plan for Resource-Based Communities” - June 8 webinar and ebook release * Send us your own voicemail about the small (or big) thing you’re doing to make your town stronger. Just record a voice memo on your phone and email it to rachel@strongtowns.org. * Join our new course, “Aligning Transportation with a Strong Towns Approach” and, for a limited time only, get 20% off your purchase with discount code “NoStroads.” We’re also offering 20% off our whole 8-course bundle with code “LearnEverything.” * Support this podcast by becoming a Strong Towns member today.
If you heard that a new coffee shop was opening in a lower-income neighborhood, what would be your reaction? In most bigger cities and plenty of smaller ones, the coffee shop is a universal symbol for gentrification. It means that this neighborhood has been designated as the new trendy hotspot and rents are about to go up.
At Strong Towns, we’ve been having an ongoing conversation about the meaning of the term “gentrification” and the complex story behind this concept that is so often oversimplified in public discourse and media. It’s not as clean-cut as “poor people live here and now they’re getting kicked out and that’s bad.” Empty storefronts getting filled, streets getting fixed up and property values increasing are all good things—especially when we consider the alternative, which is those storefronts remaining vacant, those streets staying neglected, and the people who live there experiencing continued disinvestment and devaluation of their neighborhood.
The problem comes when the people who live in a given community are excluded from the improvement and new investment that’s happening there. If we can help neighborhoods incrementally revitalize—if we can make space and opportunity for residents to start businesses, fix up homes and storefronts, and make their community a more prosperous place—then we’re accomplishing something different. This is what Incremental Development Alliance co-founder, Monte Anderson calls “gentlefication.”
This week’s Bottom-Up Revolution podcast episode features Coté Soerens, who opened a coffee shop in a lower-income immigrant neighborhood in Seattle. She’s participating in that positive reinvestment and revitalization, rooted in and for the community. Resistencia Coffee was founded a few years ago with the intention of being a neighborhood “third space”—a place to hang out and spend time with neighbors outside of the home or workplace.
The coffee shop came into being through the efforts of so many community members, from investors who helped with start-up capital to contractors who helped build out the space, and many others. In this conversation with Strong Towns Program Director Rachel Quednau, you’ll hear about Coté’s dedication to helping her community grow and thrive, while also operating a financially sustainable business. You’ll learn about the essential need for listening to and collaborating with neighbors to make an effort like this successful. And you’ll also hear about the unique ways Coté has adapted her business and space during COVID.
Additional Show Notes * Resistencia website * Strong Towns articles on gentrification * Urban Fresh Food Collective * Send us your own voicemail about the small (or big) thing you’re doing to make your town stronger. Just record a voice memo on your phone and email it to rachel@strongtowns.org. * Subscribe to The Bottom-Up Revolution on iTunes, Google Podcasts, Podbean, or via RSS. * Join our new course, “Aligning Transportation with a Strong Towns Approach” and, for a limited time only, get 20% off your purchase with discount code “NoStroads.” We’re also offering 20% off our whole 8-course bundle with code “LearnEverything.” * Support this podcast by becoming a Strong Towns member today.
A few months ago, we came across an article about a fascinating and unique program where lower-income kids in Birmingham, Alabama, were learning home renovation and building skills as part of their high school education. This wasn’t just about learning construction skills, though, it was also about lifting up and revitalizing the neighborhood where they lived. The school program is called Build UP and this episode of the Bottom-Up Revolution podcast features an interview with Jeanyll Morris, Build UP’s chief academic officer.
In conversation with Strong Towns Program Director Rachel Quednau, Ms. Morris talks about how Build UP came to be, how these missions of education and neighborhood revitalization are entwined, and how the program has already made a positive impact on so many kids and families.
Ms. Morris’s own background in addressing educational needs and rebuilding schools in the south after Hurricane Katrina—and all the resilience she gained as part of that experience—has prepared her for what she does now. She explains that different school types (charter, private and public) bring various possibilities and drawbacks when trying to approach education with a new and creative model like Build UP’s. She also describes how step-by-step, home-by-home rebuilding can help a neighborhood grow more economically strong and stay that way for many years to come.
Listen to this episode if you’re eager to hear about a creative approach to education that sees children as an integral part of their communities—rather than just little machines to be programmed and sent off to college or careers. We guarantee you’ll be inspired by Ms. Morris’s passion and dedication to everyone she works with.
Additional Show Notes * Build UP website * “This Alabama school wants to turn its students into future homeowners, and build careers in the process,” by Francesca Giuliani-Hoffman (CNN.com, March 29, 2021) * Send us your own voicemail about the small (or big) thing you’re doing to make your town stronger. Just record a voice memo on your phone and email it to rachel@strongtowns.org. * Subscribe to The Bottom-Up Revolution on iTunes, Google Podcasts, Podbean, or via RSS. * Join our new course, “Aligning Transportation with a Strong Towns Approach” and, for a limited time only, get 20% off your purchase with discount code “NoStroads.” We’re also offering 20% off our whole 8-course bundle with code “LearnEverything.” * Support this podcast by becoming a Strong Towns member today.
You might be familiar with food co-ops or housing co-ops. But how about a laundry co-op? A group of community members in the Woodhill neighborhood of Cleveland are starting just that. Marilyn Burns and Leah Ross are part of a group of residents who, through surveys and outreach, learned that a majority of their neighbors do not have access to a nearby washer or dryer. This may seem like a small thing, but it’s such a fundamental and basic component of human dignity. Being able to show up at school or a job with clean clothes—especially during this time of COVID when everyone is more attuned to hygiene concerns—should be something everyone’s able to do.
Accordingly, Burns and Ross are collaborating with neighbors to get a cooperative laundromat started. In this interview, hosted by Strong Towns Program Director Rachel Quednau, Burns and Ross get into what it’s like to start a neighborhood-based effort like this one. They talk about all the important steps along the way, including gathering people together, doing your research, finding funding, and building support for the effort—always rooted in a dedication to listening to neighbors’ needs rather than dictating an outcome. It’s community engagement in the truest sense, from the bottom-up.
Additional Show Notes * Woodhill Community Co-op on Instagram * Send us your own voicemail about the small (or big) thing you’re doing to make your town stronger. Just record a voice memo on your phone and email it to rachel@strongtowns.org. * Subscribe to The Bottom-Up Revolution on iTunes, Google Podcasts, Podbean, or via RSS. * Join our new course, “Aligning Transportation with a Strong Towns Approach” and, for a limited time only, get 20% off your purchase with discount code “NoStroads.” We’re also offering 20% off our whole 8-course bundle with code “LearnEverything.” * Support this podcast by becoming a Strong Towns member today.
Strong Towns members Charles and Whitney Coats are a husband and wife duo doing important work to increase housing opportunities in their home state of Texas. After spending two years in the Peace Corps in the Republic of Georgia (where they saw firsthand what it was like to live in a walkable, traditionally-designed neighborhood) to working for Habitat for Humanity today (where they help neighbors who wouldn’t otherwise be able to to access homeownership), Charles and Whitney are passionate about serving others and building strong towns.
They’ve been actively bringing Strong Towns conversations and ideas into their work at Habitat for Humanity and educating their colleagues about this message of financial resilience, built from the bottom up. They even started a podcast to discuss housing issues with fellow Texans.
The Coats are also involved in statewide efforts to reform housing policy. Charles serves on the board of a group called Texans for Housing, which is currently working to promote more flexible zoning laws, eliminating parking minimums and other steps that will enable more Texans to access and afford their own homes.
In this episode of the Bottom-Up Revolution podcast, hosted by Rachel Quednau, Charles and Whitney share their insights on how to speak to people from different political persuasions and geographic backgrounds to find common ground on housing issues, and how to make arguments for Strong Towns principles in a manner that can best be received by the leader or resident being appealed to. For Charles and Whitney, efforts to build stronger towns start with the simple act of loving your place, observing where your neighbors struggle, and then taking the small steps to make life better and more resilient for all.
This week’s Bottom-Up Revolution podcast features Mayor Chris Frye, who’s been leading the city of New Castle, Pennsylvania, since January 2020. Before running for mayor, his background wasn’t in politics but in social work and community service. He’s a husband and father of three—and he’s utterly dedicated to helping his city grow stronger. He’s also New Castle’s first black mayor, and a Republican.
New Castle, as you’ll learn from Mayor Frye, is a city going through the same challenges of economic downturn, disinvestment and neglect that so many cities in the Rust Belt and Midwest have encountered during the last several decades.
However, like our guest last week (De’Amon Harges), Mayor Frye is focused on seeing the assets and gifts in his city, not just the problems. He knows that the work of revitalization is not merely about fixing up old buildings or bringing jobs back, but about changing negative perceptions. He wants residents and outsiders to see New Castle, not as a place of blight, poverty, or crime, but as a beautiful city that can thrive and is thriving.
At the end of our conversation, Mayor Frye shares his thoughts for other leaders whose cities may be in a similar economic situation. One piece of advice? “Stay hopeful, and don’t become complacent.”
This week’s Bottom-Up Revolution podcast guest is De’Amon Harges. Based in Indianapolis, Harges’ work focuses on deep listening and asset-based community development. He’s the executive director of a nonprofit called The Learning Tree, a board member of the Grassroots Grantmakers Association, recent recipient of Wesleyan Investive’s Tom Locke Innovative Leader Award, and a member of the Parish Collective. Perhaps the best way to describe him, though, is by his title, “the roving listener.”
Harges is dedicated to listening to his neighbors, hearing their stories and drawing out their gifts and talents. His work is rooted in the belief that everyone has something to offer their community, and the most meaningful transformation will happen when we focus on those assets and abundance—not on what a person or a neighborhood lacks.
In this conversation, we talk about the power of listening to help build strong towns and make our communities more resilient.
This week’s Bottom-Up Revolution podcast guest is Lisa Leslie, who helped lead an effort to create a cohousing community with 11 families in Silverton, Oregon. Lisa and her husband went from living with two other families (including Strong Towns Content Manager, John Pattison’s family) in a cooperative house, to dreaming of building a full-fledged cohousing community, to seeing that dream come to fruition this past year.
Cohousing is a term that really applies to the way most humans live around the world today and throughout history: it’s living with extended family and friends in close proximity, rather than having individuals and single households all occupying private, separate dwelling places. In Lisa’s case, the cohousing community she helped found, Evans Oaks, is made up of several small homes, clustered together, with lots of shared space and a commitment to doing life together. This isn’t some socialist commune, it’s folks who want to live close to their neighbors, share some duties and expenses, and have a support system around them.
We feature Lisa’s story today because it’s a wonderful example of someone envisioning a strong community and incrementally building it with her neighbors. The lessons she shares today—about patience and dedication and committing to deep engagement with one’s community—bear relevance even beyond a particular living situation. We hope it provides a fresh way to think about how we choose to live, no matter who your household or housemates are.
In this episode, we talk with Jason Hyman, an urban planner, real estate professional and business owner based in Houston, Texas. His firm, Jason T. Hyman, aims to “bridge the generational wealth gap found in minority communities through creative applications of urban planning, community engagement, and responsible development.”
Jason and his colleagues approach housing and development with an incremental mindset, helping build up streets and neighborhoods step by step. They engage in tactical projects of many sizes, helping rehab homes, support affordable housing and invest where it’s needed most.
Listen to the episode to understand the nuanced lens through which Jason views issues of housing access and wealth disparities. He knows that building up families and neighborhoods isn’t a matter of throwing tons of subsidies at the problem nor a matter of hoping the market will solve everything. Rather, he believes nonprofits, governments and for-profit companies can work together to increase prosperity for everyone.
Additional Show Notes * Jason T. Hyman’s business website * Jason Hyman on Twitter * DT3M.com (Do the Things That Matter) * Join us for our upcoming “Late Night with Strong Towns” event on April 8 at 8pm ET! If you’re a Strong Towns member, you should already have received your invite via email. If you’re not a member, we’d love to have you join the movement today, then you’ll receive your invite. (If you’re a member and haven’t seen your invite yet, email alexa@strongtowns.org and she’ll help you out.) * Send us your own voicemail about the small (or big) thing you’re doing to make your town stronger. Just record a voice memo on your phone and email it to rachel@strongtowns.org. * Subscribe to The Bottom-Up Revolution on iTunes, Google Podcasts, Podbean, or via RSS. * Support this show and our many other resources for helping your town grow stronger by becoming a member today.
Welcome to a special Strongest Town contest episode, featuring a competitor in the Final Four round of our competition: Bismarck, ND. Guests include: Daniel Nairn (Senior Planner for the City of Bismarck) and Dawn Kopp (CEO of Bismarck's Downtowners Association).
You can learn more about the contest and vote in this match-up by visiting strongtowns.org/strongesttown
Welcome to a special Strongest Town contest episode, featuring a competitor in the Final Four round of our competition: Bentonville, AR. Guests include: Tyler Overstreet (Planning Services Manager for the City of Bentonville) and Shelli Kerr (Comprehensive Planning Manager for the City of Bentonville). You can learn more about the contest and vote in this match-up by visiting strongtowns.org/strongesttown
Welcome to a special Strongest Town contest episode, featuring a competitor in the Final Four round of our competition: Oxford, MS. Guests include Robyn Tannehill (mayor), Jon Maynard (President and CEO for the Oxford-Lafayette County Economic Development Foundation, and President and CEO of the Oxford-Lafayette County Chamber of Commerce) and Ben Requet (Planning Director.)
You can learn more about the contest and vote in this match-up by visiting strongtowns.org/strongesttown
Welcome to a special Strongest Town contest episode, featuring a competitor in the Final Four round of our competition: Lockport, IL. Our guest is the mayor, Steve Streit. You can learn more about the contest and vote in this match-up by visiting strongtowns.org/strongesttown
Michael Smith is a long-time Strong Towns member who joins this episode of The Bottom-Up Revolution podcast along with his colleague, architect Aaron Holverson. Together they work at Studio GWA, a planning and architecture firm based in Rockford. In this conversation, we discuss a historic revitalization project in a core neighborhood of Rockford, the challenges that come with a project like this, and also why the street and surrounding blocks matter to the success of a place like this. It’s a great lesson in what it takes to bring an old building back to life—certainly not a piece of cake—but also a lesson in what can happen when a community has a place to feel proud of.
Additional Show Notes * Studio GWA website * Join us for our upcoming “Late Night with Strong Towns” event on April 8! If you’re a Strong Towns member, you should already have received your invite via email. If you’re not a member, we’d love to have you join the movement today, then you’ll receive your invite. (If you’re a member and haven’t seen your invite yet, email alexa@strongtowns.org and she’ll help you out.) * Send us your own voicemail about the small (or big) thing you’re doing to make your town stronger. Just record a voice memo on your phone and email it to rachel@strongtowns.org. * Subscribe to The Bottom-Up Revolution on iTunes, Google Podcasts, Podbean, or via RSS. * Support this show and our many other resources for helping your town grow stronger by becoming a member today.
Welcome to another episode of the Bottom-Up Revolution podcast, featuring two inspiring women who serve at the West Virginia Community Development Hub. Amanda Workman Scott is the Director of Community Engagement and Jenny Totten is Community Development Coordinator.
Both grew up in West Virginia, left, and then felt a pull to come back home and serve their communities. Their work is oriented towards bottom-up action, focused on listening to resident stories and helping lift them up as leaders—not tell them what to do or push them down a specific path.
Jenny and Amanda share what drew them to this work, how they do honest and authentic community engagement and then at the end, they cap it off with a ton of great advice for everyone out there who might want to get better at taking incremental, locally-based action to serve neighbors and build stronger towns.
Additional Show Notes * West Virginia Community Development Hub website * Send us your own voicemail about the small (or big) thing you’re doing to make your town stronger. Just record a voice memo on your phone and email it to rachel@strongtowns.org. * Subscribe to The Bottom-Up Revolution on iTunes, Google Podcasts, Podbean, or via RSS. * Support this show and our many other resources for helping your town grow stronger by becoming a member today.
In this episode of the Bottom-Up Revolution podcast, we’ve got another fantastic, inspiring duo: Strong Towns members Alex Rodriguez and Danny Lapin. Together, they’re part of a historic preservation, revitalization, community building, business incubating project in the town of Lexington, NY, called Lexington Arts and Science.
It all starts with Alex beginning to fix up a historic property called Lexington House. That turned into providing pop-up space for local businesses, room for local arts creation and a vision for a renewed community hub in this historic town. Danny, who’s an environmental planner and representative on the Otsego County board near Lexington, got plugged into Alex’s project, and he’s bringing his knowledge of local regulations to help with the process—and hopefully clear some of those regulations away so this project can flourish.
What you’ll hear in this conversation is Alex and Danny’s deep dedication to taking small bets and incrementally strengthening their community. They’re tapping into the history of their place, while also building on the strength and passion of their neighbors here and now.
Whether you’re interested in supporting local business growth, revitalization historic spaces or investing in community development—these are all key aspects of building Strong Towns. And Alex and Danny are approaching this work with a bottom-up mindset, rooted in their place. Like all of our guests on this show, Alex and Danny are people who genuinely care about their town and stepped up to make it stronger.
Additional Show Notes * Lexington Arts and Science website * Lexington Arts and Science on Instagram * Strong Towns: A Bottom-Up Revolution to Rebuild American Prosperity by Charles Marohn * Advice, case studies and tools for ending parking minimums in your town * Send us your own voicemail about the small (or big) thing you’re doing to make your town stronger. Just record a voice memo on your phone and email it to rachel@strongtowns.org. * Subscribe to The Bottom-Up Revolution on iTunes, Google Podcasts, Podbean, or via RSS. * Support this show and our many other resources for helping your town grow stronger by becoming a member today.
In this episode, we’re joined by two Strong Towns advocates, architect Dennis Strait and planner Abby Kinney. Both work at the firm Gould Evans, based in Kansas City, MO. You may know Abby because she hosts one of our other podcasts: Upzoned, where she and Strong Towns founder Charles Marohn, discuss a topic from the week’s news with a Strong Towns lens.
Abby and Dennis have been fighting the good fight in Kansas City for many years now, and they—along with their colleagues and partner organizations like Urban3, the Incremental Development Alliance and, of course, Strong Towns—have helped move Kansas City in a positive direction.
Like many communities, it’s a city that has lost population over the last several decades, and is struggling to regain its financial footing. As Dennis states in our conversation, the problems facing this community—overbuilt and overextended infrastructure, chronic disinvestment in the urban core, redlining and exclusion, fault financial planning—took decades to put in place. So they’re going to take decades to undo. But Abby and Dennis are in it for the long haul.
Through concerted and creative efforts to know their neighbors, listen to resident concerns and educate people on the city’s trajectory, these planning professionals are going against the grain and fighting for the city they love.
Additional Show Notes * Gould Evans website * Strong Towns’ Kansas City series and ebook * Upzoned podcast * Rep. Jake Auchincloss & Rep. Mike Gallagher on the Strong Towns Podcast (plus video and transcript) * Enter the Strongest Town contest today! * 2021 Local-Motive Tour * Send us your own voicemail about the small (or big) thing you’re doing to make your town stronger. Just record a voice memo on your phone and email it to rachel@strongtowns.org. * Subscribe to The Bottom-Up Revolution on iTunes, Google Podcasts, Podbean, or via RSS. * Support this show and our many other resources for helping your town grow stronger by becoming a member today.
Today’s guest is Kelly Rae Kirkpatrick— a Strong Towns reader and advocate based in Rochester, MN who owns her own local business, has been very active in food access issues and was recently elected to the Rochester City Council. She had actually been sworn in just a couple days before we recorded (which is why this conversation was pretty short—she's quite busy!).
In this conversation, Kelly discusses what got her fired up about food and farming, and how she decided to run for office—plus what that was all like during the pandemic year of 2020. And she talks about how the Strong Towns approach inspires her work.
We’ve been honored to feature a couple local elected officials on this show now and it’s always great to hear about how they made that journey from advocate to leader. Just last week, we were also hearing from a farmer and we’ve had on other guests who are involved in food growing and selling. These are such important building blocks for a strong town—access to local food, and dedicated, thoughtful local leaders.
Additional Show Notes * Transition Rochester Facebook page * An article about the ‘Plant a Seed’ initiative * Enter the Strongest Town contest today! * 2021 Local-Motive Tour * Send us your own voicemail about the small (or big) thing you’re doing to make your town stronger. Just record a voice memo on your phone and email it to rachel@strongtowns.org. * Support this show and our many other resources for helping your town grow stronger by becoming a member today.
Today’s episode features Alfred Melbourne, who runs a farm called Three Sisters Gardens in Broderick, California. Melbourne hasn’t always been a farmer. In fact, he spent several years of his adult life in prison. But when he got out in 2016, he connected with an elder who pointed him towards a vacant piece of land in his city.
With hard work and dedication, he turned that garbage-strewn space into a flourishing garden, and has since expanded into multiple other farm sites throughout the Broderick area. Three Sisters Gardens and Melbourne’s process are deeply inspired by his Hunkpapa Lakota heritage. The name “Three Sisters” comes from three crops that are important in indigenous culture and cuisine: corn, beans and squash.
Melbourne sees farming as a chance to bring back the land into productive use; to feed neighbors who don’t have access to affordable, fresh food; and to help guide young people down a supportive path during their youth. His farms employ teens in the community, giving them the mentorship and purpose that he didn’t have when he was young, to hopefully help keep them out of trouble. He says he’s moved from “plotting to planting” and now he gets to help young people make that same shift.
Our Strong Towns Strength Test—a sort of litmus test to determine if your community is on track to being financially resilient—asks the question “If you wanted to eat only locally-produced food for a month, could you?” For most people, the answer is no.
Three Sisters Gardens is working to change that. They’re taking neglected land and using it to grow precious resources—food—to feed the community, and Melbourne is mentoring the next generation of neighbors and farmers in the process. They’re helping move the surrounding neighborhoods toward food resilience, enabling them to support themselves, steward their own resources and build long-term financial stability.
Additional Show Notes * Three Sisters Gardens website * Three Sisters Gardens instagram page, where you’ll find photos and videos * Center for Land-Based Learning * “This Modern Farmer Employs At-Risk Youth to Keep Them Off the Streets” - an article featuring Mr. Melbourne in Modern Farmer * Enter the Strongest Town contest today! * 2021 Local-Motive Tour * Send us your own voicemail about the small (or big) thing you’re doing to make your town stronger. Just record a voice memo on your phone and email it to rachel@strongtowns.org. * Subscribe to The Bottom-Up Revolution on iTunes, Google Podcasts, Podbean, or via RSS. * Support this show and our many other resources for helping your town grow stronger by becoming a member today.
This episode of The Bottom-Up Revolution Podcast features Dan Sally, a guy with his own podcast called You Don’t Have to Yell.
Sally isn’t someone who fits neatly into a Democrat or Republican box and he’s found himself really frustrated with those boxes in the first place. His show brings on guests to talk about electoral reform—how we break out of this two-party system and build a democracy that truly listens to what people want. So much of that work starts at the local level. Since Sally and Bottom-Up Revolution host, Rachel Quednau, both live in Massachusetts, they got the chance to talk a little bit about some local electoral issues in this episode, including a recent ballot measure on ranked choice voting.
We hope as you listen to this show, you’ll start thinking about how your state and local elections could grow to be more just and democratic. Sally gives some great advice for how to get started.
As a side note, we’re blown away that Sally finds time to do his podcast and work a full time job and be a dad to four kids, as well as a foster parent. Plus he’s a former standup comedian! Like many of guests on previous episodes, we see Sally taking a skill and passion of his—public speaking, entertainment, engaging audiences—and turning it towards an important issue he cares about to benefit his community and make his place more resilient.
Additional Show Notes * You Don’t Have to Yell podcast * Listen to Charles Marohn on a recent episode of You Don’t Have to Yell * Fairvote.org * Strong Towns Action Lab * 2021 Local-Motive Tour * Send us your own voicemail about the small (or big) thing you’re doing to make your town stronger. Just record a voice memo on your phone and email it to rachel@strongtowns.org. * Subscribe to The Bottom-Up Revolution on iTunes, Google Podcasts, Podbean, or via RSS. * Support this show and our many other resources for helping your town grow stronger by becoming a member today.
A couple months ago, we came across an article—probably the result of a Google alert—in which a woman running for city council in Menlo Park, CA mentioned Strong Towns in a discussion about the need for incremental housing development. We followed her story and were excited to learn that she won her election. Now we’re pleased to feature her on our latest episode of the Bottom-Up Revolution podcast.
Jen Wolosin, like so many Strong Towns advocates, is someone who humbly observed where people in her city were struggling and then stepped up to try and change the situation. In her case, it was seeing how dangerous a nearby street was for kids trying to bike or walk to school. It was a problem for her own children, but she also recognized how many other children were being impacted too—especially children who couldn’t get a ride from a parent instead.
So Jen investigated. She contacted people, she showed up at meetings, she built a network of fellow advocates, and eventually she founded a group called “Parents for Safe Routes” to make local streets safer. She went on to sit on several local committees and eventually, took that next step to run for city council, and won.
We know you’ll learn a lot from Jen’s story of transforming from someone who saw a problem, to someone who was taking action, and eventually, to someone who would get to make city decisions as an elected official. She’s got tons of advice for you at the end, too, about how you can embark on a journey like hers.
Additional Show Notes * Jen Wolosin’s website * Parents for Safe Routes website * Chattanooga Civics podcast * Strong Towns Action Lab * 2021 Local-Motive Tour * Send us your own voicemail about the small (or big) thing you’re doing to make your town stronger. Just record a voice memo on your phone and email it to rachel@strongtowns.org. * Subscribe to The Bottom-Up Revolution on iTunes, Google Podcasts, Podbean, or via RSS. * Support this show and our many other resources for helping your town grow stronger by becoming a member today.
Jacob Titus is a photographer, filmmaker, and designer and creator, living in South Bend, Indiana. In this conversation, we talk about the publication he started, West.SB, and how he uses photography and writing to tell the stories of his city—its people, its places.
We talk about what happens when you open your eyes to the stories around you. We talk about how art can help people see things differently and even build stronger towns. We talk about the revelations that take place when we look closely at the history of our cities. And yes, we talk a little about Mayor Pete Buttigieg too.
Additional Show Notes * West.SB website * The “More People” series on West.SB * “Lacopo’s Pizzeria” photo essay on West.SB * This Day in South Bend podcast * Jacob Titus’ website * Jacob Titus on Instagram * “Is South Bend a Prosperous College Town or a Struggling Rust Belt City?” by Emily Badger (New York Times) * “For Restaurants in the Pandemic, Immense Challenges...and a Glimmer of Hope” by Rachel Quednau (Strong Towns) * Strong Towns Action Lab * 2021 Local-Motive Tour * Send us your own voicemail about the small (or big) thing you’re doing to make your town stronger. Just record a voice memo on your phone and email it to rachel@strongtowns.org. * Subscribe to The Bottom-Up Revolution on iTunes, Google Podcasts, Podbean, or via RSS. * Support this show and our many other resources for helping your town grow stronger by becoming a member today.
Today’s guest was on an episode of It’s the Little Things, this show’s former iteration, but we brought her back because she’s working on some cool new initiatives. Her name is Latoya Wilson and she’s based in New Jersey.
A Strong Towns member, her efforts are focused on workforce development, particularly in helping young people find vocations in science, technology, engineering and math fields. We see her work being aligned with Strong Towns goals around supporting local businesses and encouraging a thriving local economy. (A brief note: We recorded this last year and we’re just now getting it out so bear with us if we have some 2020 references.)
At the end of the episode, we also hear from a listener about the impact last week’s show with Cary Westerbeck had on him. And we share this week’s big Strong Towns announcement about our new Action Lab—where you can search for resources, read success stories and case studies, and get help with the efforts you’re undertaking to build a strong town where you live.
Additional Show Notes * Strong Towns Action Lab * 2021 Local-Motive Tour * Wilson’s Career Readiness Consultancy * Listen to Latoya on a previous episode of It’s the Little Things (our old podcast) * Send us your own voicemail about the small (or big) thing you’re doing to make your town stronger. Just record a voice memo on your phone and email it to rachel@strongtowns.org. * Subscribe to The Bottom-Up Revolution on iTunes, Google Podcasts, Podbean, or via RSS. * Support this show and our many other resources for helping your town grow stronger by becoming a member today.
Welcome to the first episode of the Bottom-Up Revolution Podcast in 2021—our Strong Towns Year of Action! All year long, we’re going to be sharing resources, ideas and opportunities for you to take action to make your community stronger and more resilient.
We’re kicking off the 2021 season of the podcast with an interview with a long-time Strong Towns member, Cary Westerbeck. Cary is an architect and principle of his own architecture firm, as well as an advocate who founded a Strong Towns local conversation group in his community of Bothell, Washington.
We’ve been wanting to have him on the show for a while now because his story is one that so many people can learn from. There are probably a lot of you out there who’ve thought at one point or another, “I wish I could find other advocates in my neighborhood who care about making our community more resilient, and then work together to get stuff done.” Well, Cary did just that.
In this conversation, you’ll learn how he used existing community platforms to find interested neighbors, gathered people to learn about Strong Towns concepts together, shared resources with one another, and eventually got three of their members elected to the city planning commission—taking action on a whole bunch of local issues along the way.
You might event want to take notes during this one because there’s a lot to take in, and so much of it is things you can get started on right now in your own neighborhood. And we hope you do.
Additional Show Notes * 2021 Local-Motive Tour * Bo-POP website * Westerbeck Architecture website * O-POP website * Incremental Development Alliance * Strong Indy * Strong Towns - Sioux Falls * The High Cost of Free Parking by Donald Shoup * Walkable City by Jeff Speck * Jefferson Beer Supply * Send us your own voicemail about the small (or big) thing you’re doing to make your town stronger. Just record a voice memo on your phone and email it to rachel@strongtowns.org. * Subscribe to The Bottom-Up Revolution on iTunes, Google Podcasts, Podbean, or via RSS. * Support this show and our many other resources for helping your town grow stronger by becoming a member today.
Sheleita Miller is an accountant and citizen activist based in Gary, Indiana. It’s a community that’s been through some serious economic challenges, but it’s also Sheleita’s hometown, and she’s dedicated to making it stronger. In this conversation, she talks about what drew her to the Strong Towns movement, particularly with her background in economics and accounting, and her on-the-ground knowledge of why doing the math and determining the long-term impacts of public investments is so important.
Sheleita also talks about the ways she’s taken initiative to help residents in her town stay in the loop about what’s going on in local government. And she shares how she’s working to address the problems government isn’t always stepping up to solve. Because she’s worked with government in the past, she really understands and empathizes with both sides of these challenges: the government side and the concerned citizen side of things.
Sheleita is a model for bottom-up, revolutionary action and we’re pleased to share this conversation with you.
Additional Show Notes * Sheleita Miller’s website * Heart to Heart w/Sheleita Miller (radio show) * Amrita’s podcast: 413 Ethnography * Send us your own voicemail about the small (or big) thing you’re doing to make your town stronger. Just record a voice memo on your phone and email it to rachel@strongtowns.org. * Support this show and our many other resources for helping your town grow stronger by becoming a member today.
In this episode, we talk with Sara Joy Proppe, an accomplished and interdisciplinary woman with a passion for cities, stories, and the Church. She’s an experienced real estate developer, educator, writer, podcaster, urban planner and the founder of a unique organization called Proximity Project, which empowers churches to connect their mission and their story to their physical place in the neighborhood.
Sara Joy is dedicated to bottom-up, incremental action, good stewardship of land and resources, and neighborhood engagement. What’s so inspiring about the Proximity Project model is that it enriches everyone who gets involved. Churches can benefit by becoming a greater part of their neighborhoods, knowing their neighbors, being devoted to their mission of welcoming—as well as tapping into opportunities for greater financial stability by finding ways to better use their land. And neighborhoods benefit from the resources and community spaces that a church can offer.
Truly, everyone is made better off when our local institutions, neighbors and places are more integrated and acquainted with one another.
This conversation may be of special interest to anyone who’s part of a faith community and wants to see that community become a more full and active presence in their neighborhood, but we think it will really interest anyone who cares about more tightly knitting the fabric of their city.
Additional Show Notes * Proximity Project website * The Redemptive Placemaking Toolkit * The Embedded Church podcast * Walk Tasman Drive website * Send us your own voicemail about the small (or big) thing you’re doing to make your town stronger. Just record a voice memo on your phone and email it to rachel@strongtowns.org. * Subscribe to The Bottom-Up Revolution on iTunes, Google Podcasts, Podbean, or via RSS. * Support this show and our many other resources for helping your town grow stronger by becoming a member today.
In this episode of the Bottom-Up Revolution Podcast, we talk with Sam Nabi, a business owner, urban advocate, and more who lives in Kitchener, Ontario.
Sam talks about a process he worked on to transform a downtown street into a pedestrian-friendly public space. This conversation walks you step-by-step through the journey Sam and his neighbors undertook to make this happen. He highlights the importance of building coalitions and meeting everyone on their terms, understanding their values and concerns in order to work together to strengthen their city. Sam also discusses the need to choose your battles carefully, to test things out before making permanent change, and to ask for feedback from neighbors at every step along the way.
This should be a very educational conversation for anyone who’s looking to make streets more welcoming to people on foot and improve public spaces in their cities. We know that these sorts of steps create more economically productive communities—where local businesses thrive, where people develop civic pride, and where public resources are put to their best use.
Additional Show Notes * Sam Nabi’s website, featuring his writing, music, croissant reviews and lots more interesting projects * Gaukel.ca website, all about this pedestrian street * Send us your own voicemail about the small (or big) thing you’re doing to make your town stronger. Just record a voice memo on your phone and email it to rachel@strongtowns.org. * Subscribe to The Bottom-Up Revolution on iTunes, Google Podcasts, Podbean, or via RSS. * Support this show and our many other resources for helping your town grow stronger by becoming a member today.
It’s Member Week here at Strong Towns, and something our president, Chuck Marohn, shared on Monday is that Strong Towns members are some of the most civically engaged people we know. In a recent survey, over 50% said they’re volunteering in their communities. Nearly half said they had met with an elected official. 16% have actually run for office themselves! And nearly all of our members have shared Strong Towns articles and ideas with their neighbors.
If you’re a member, thank you! We’re floored by all that you do and honored to get to play a small part in moving you to action.
If you’re not a member and you’re looking at that list thinking, “Well, I volunteer in my community, I share Strong Towns articles, I work with my neighbors to improve my city…” Then it’s time you make your commitment official and join this movement. Visit strongtowns.org/membership to join today.
Today’s guest is Krista Fancher, a Strong Towns member who teaches at a unique high school program called the Innovation Diploma at the Mount Vernon School in Atlanta, Georgia. Their approach to learning is very hands-on and encourages entrepreneurship and innovation—exactly the sorts of skills young people need these days to grow into dedicated citizens who make their communities strong.
Bottom-Up Revolution host and Program Director, Rachel Quednau, had the honor of working with some of her students this semester on a project where they explored housing issues and how to adapt existing buildings to create more housing opportunities. Krista is devoted to helping young people learn, grow and thrive. Whether you’ve got kids of your own or have the chance to work with young people as a coach, mentor, or just a doting aunt or uncle—we know you’ll learn from Krista’s perspective and see how important our young people are as we think about building strong towns for the future.
At the end of the episode, we also take a moment to shout-out some of those 16% of Strong Towns members who recently ran for office and many who currently hold elected office.
Additional Show Notes * Mount Vernon School - Innovation Diploma program * Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City by Matthew Desmond * Innovation Diploma Students’ Getting into Good Trouble Podcast * Send us your own voicemail about the small (or big) thing you’re doing to make your town stronger. Just record a voice memo on your phone and email it to rachel@strongtowns.org. * Subscribe to The Bottom-Up Revolution on iTunes, Google Podcasts, Podbean, or via RSS. * Support this show and our many other resources for helping your town grow stronger by becoming a member today.
Chris Harris-Wimsatt went through a lot of hardship in his childhood. He went on to become an Air Force officer, an ROTC educator and worked for several major companies. He’s also a foster and adoptive parent to 20 children.
Through it all, he’s been dedicated to serving others, particularly in response to the ways that he himself has been served. For example, as a young person, he was part of the Boys and Girls Club which was a guiding force in his life, and as an adult, he wanted to give back so he joined the board of the Boys and Girls Club where he lived and later became its CEO.
In this interview, Chris talks about the ways that community supported him during hard times, which is what led him to his current project, creating an indoor market and food hall in his neighborhood in Milwaukee, WI—a space where he hopes neighbors can connect, find community and spend time together.
Chris typifies a strong community-builder who looks at the skills he has and asks how he can put them to work to strengthen his neighborhood from the bottom-up—empowering residents and business owners, transforming an underutilized space into a community gathering place, and all in a manner that is focused at the neighborhood-level.
Additional Show Notes * North Ave Market website * “Community and inclusion behind vision for North Avenue Market” from On Milwaukee * Send us your own voicemail about the small (or big) thing you’re doing to make your town stronger. Just record a voice memo on your phone and email it to rachel@strongtowns.org. * Subscribe to The Bottom-Up Revolution on iTunes, Google Podcasts, Podbean, or via RSS. * Support this show and our many other resources for helping your town grow stronger by becoming a member today.
Chelsea Lawson is a Strong Towns member who’s putting her data-oriented mind to work to make her city and other cities stronger.
Lawson has worked in both local government and private consulting, helping cities like Los Angeles and Miami use data to understand how things are working and how to make them work better.
What we especially appreciate about Chelsea is the way that she’s taken her passion for data analysis and found a ton of creative ways to make her town stronger using those skills. Whether she’s working on a professional project or just walking through her neighborhood, she’s doing the math on what’s going to create the best return on investment and steward local resource well.
In this interview, you’ll learn about how even the trash in your garbage can plays an important role in shaping the future of your city, and how you can tie personal goals with community betterment. Chelsea shows us that doing the math is an essential part of building a strong town.
Additional Show Notes * Social Impact Calculator for public investment and policy decisions * Optimal Self (life game) dashboard and instructions * Clean Streets Santa Monica Community Organizing * Send us your own voicemail about the small (or big) thing you’re doing to make your town stronger. Just record a voice memo on your phone and email it to rachel@strongtowns.org. * Subscribe to The Bottom-Up Revolution on iTunes, Google Podcasts, Podbean, or via RSS. * Support this show and our many other resources for helping your town grow stronger by becoming a member today.
In this week’s episode, we hear from two dedicated Strong Towns advocates who are working with their neighbors to fight a highway project in their city of Erie, Pennsylvania.
Adam Trott is a Strong Towns member, an architect and a long-time Erie resident who’s passionate about seeing his city be financially prosperous for all residents. Roland Slade is a newer Erie resident with media chops and neighborhood know-how—who has no less dedication to seeing his city be a place where everyone can thrive, regardless of which neighborhood they live in.
Together, Adam and Roland are part of a community group called Connect Urban Erie, which is fighting a multimillion dollar road expansion project that would run a massive volume of cars along Erie’s waterfront—an area already dominated by a large highway. Adam, Roland and their neighbors have been tirelessly advocating to instead transform this waterfront roadway into a space where people can safely walk and bike, and enjoy the beautiful asset of Lake Erie.
We know you’ll learn a lot from this conversation about Adam and Roland’s work in Erie. Make sure to stay tuned to the end where they share a ton of fantastic pieces of advice for all of you out there who might be working through similar challenges in your city.
Additional Show Notes * Connect Urban Erie website * Connect Urban Erie instagram (lots of great videos here) * “PennDOT Trying to Solve the Wrong Problem” by Michael Fuhrman (GoErie.com) * “Skip the Highway; Build a Boulevard,” by Lisa Austin and Adam Trott (Erie Reader) * “PennDOT’s bayfront plan fails to prioritize people,” by Maxwell J. Hentosh (GoErie.com) * “Protesting Erie’s Bayfront Expansion,” by Natalee Stinebiser (The Gannon Knight) * Send us your own voicemail about the small (or big) thing you’re doing to make your town stronger. Just record a voice memo on your phone and email it to rachel@strongtowns.org. * Subscribe to The Bottom-Up Revolution on iTunes, Google Podcasts, Podbean, or via RSS. * Support this show and our many other resources for helping your town grow stronger by becoming a member today.
In this week’s episode, we hear from Alexander Hagler, an entrepreneur and urban gardener based in Milwaukee, WI.
Recognizing that his community in the Riverwest and Harambee neighborhoods of Milwaukee was not well served by things like fresh food access and other resources for healthy living, he founded a store called Center Street Wellness, which sells products for mental and physical wellbeing, mostly from local makers. The shop gives him a chance to craft a business around something he cares deeply about, as well as a chance for local, small-scale entrepreneurs to sell their wares in a storefront—something most do not otherwise get to do.
Make sure to stay tuned til the end of the episode, where we also feature a listener voicemail from a Strong Towns advocate sharing his short story of taking action. Send your own voicemail to rachel@strongtowns.org.
Welcome! Here's a little sample of what's in store for our new podcast, The Bottom-Up Revolution. We've taken the focus of our old podcast, It's the Little Things, and adjusted it based on your feedback. This podcast will feature the stories of the Strong Towns movement in action.
Tune in next week for the first full episode and, in the meantime, please send in a listener voicemail sharing some small (or big) way you've taken action to make your town stronger lately. Email voicemails to rachel@strongtowns.org
We'd be deeply grateful for your feedback on this podcast—what sort of episodes you like best, how you access the show, etc.
Fill out our survey at strongtowns.org/survey and you can be entered in a drawing to win a free signed copy of Strong Towns: A Bottom-Up Revolution to Rebuild American Prosperity.
Thanks!
Strong Towns member Karl Fundenberger reflects on the ten years since he joined Topeka’s bike community and shares how the Strong Towns movement has influenced his advocacy.
As we witness the fragility of centralized food systems amid Covid-19, this LA-based nonprofit has demonstrated how local food systems integrated in their communities have responded to meet the needs of their neighbors.
Learn how Strong Towns member and Louisville resident Shawn Reilly and his neighbors used a "vision block" to find the small bets in their neighborhood.
David Gorski—founder at Plan Together Community Map Platform—shares the inspiration behind Plan Together and how you can use it to make your own community stronger.
In response to the coronavirus, have you or someone from your community helped a neighbor or group in need? Share it with the Strong Towns Community: https://community.strongtowns.org/topic/coronavirus.
Fernando Peralta Berrios—president at the Las Familias de Rosemont neighborhood association in Fort Worth, Texas—discusses how he and his neighbors have partnered with the City of Fort Worth to guide public investment in its historically disinvested neighborhood.
Strong Towns member Cindy Long discusses how the Strong Towns Community inspired her to ask her city council the hard questions about the city's financial status.
Jake Hamann—Founder and Executive Director at the Peoria Innovation Alliance—shares how his organization uses education, storytelling, and pop-ups to inspire local entrepreneurs to take action—in main street and beyond.