Chuck on Data Centers, YIMBYs and E-Bikes
Strong Towns members filled the Commons with questions, and Chuck sat down to answer as many as he could. Should cities require data centers to pay for their own eventual cleanup? Has Strong Towns been too wary of the YIMBY movement? Are e-bikes headed toward a backlash before cities have figured o…
When Did Letting Kids Play Outside Become a Crime?
A six-year-old rides his scooter to a playground a quarter mile from home. Two days later, Child Protective Services is at his family’s door. His case is one of several in a recent New York Times article asking whether letting children play outside alone has effectively become a crime. Chuck Marohn…
Chuck’s Engineering Lawsuit Finally Has a Ruling
After six years of legal fights, we finally have a federal court ruling in Chuck’s dispute with Minnesota’s engineering licensing board. Chuck and Strong Towns executive director John Reuter go back to the complaint that started the case, why Chuck’s temporarily lapsed license became the opening fo…
Is Homeownership Still Part of the American Dream?
If housing feels impossibly expensive, one answer is that a smaller home, a less in-demand place, or a slower climb may simply be part of starting out and working your way up. But what if getting the house that has long stood at the center of the American Dream also pulls you farther from the jobs,…
What Comes After Cities Kill Parking Mandates?
Parking reform used to feel like a niche fight. Now North Carolina has eliminated most parking mandates statewide, cities are following one another’s lead, and Tony Jordan says he sometimes finds out about reforms only after they happen. The Parking Reform Network co-founder explains what comes ne…
When Fixing Property Taxes Just Adds Another Tax
A New York condo sold for $238 million, but the city assessed it at just $15.5 million. Mayor Zohran Mamdani has framed his new pied-à-terre tax as a way to “tax the rich,” but a recent article by Ken Girardin, “The Sheer Absurdity of New York’s Pied-à-Terre Tax,” argues that the bigger problem sit…
Massachusetts Is Putting Starter Homes on the Ballot
Massachusetts voters are being asked a surprisingly simple housing question: Should a single-family home be legal on a 5,000-square-foot lot with public sewer and water? Chuck talks with Andrew Mikula, a Boston policy researcher who spearheaded the volunteer effort behind Question 7, the ballot mea…
How Do We Design for Drivers?
Drivers are usually treated as the obstacle when cities try to build better places for walking, biking and transit. Houssam Elokda of Happy Cities and Nick Falbo of Mobycon argue that this framing misses something important: people-centered places still have to work for the people arriving by car. …
The Growth Ponzi Scheme | Charles Marohn
America’s development pattern looks like growth, but often doesn’t pay for itself. Urban planner and civil engineer Chuck Marohn of Strong Towns explains the growth Ponzi scheme, why places like Buffalo and Jackson, Mississippi have more infrastructure than wealth, and why he favors thickening neig…
The surprising truth behind why American roads are so dangerous
About this episode
What if the reason American streets keep getting built wrong isn’t that engineers are careless, but that a whole profession is missing from the room?
In this episode Seth Zeren talks with Steffen Berr, a civil engineer trained in California who moved to the Netherlands to learn a…
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