Strong Townsâ critique of Americaâs car-centric sprawl sounds appealing. But its proposed solutions rely on a conservative politics that prioritizes âwealth creationâ over just and equitable urban planning.
I think that titleâs unfair, and that the approaches advocated by Strong Towns are probably closer to small-government Georgism, or Georgist municipalism.
The fact that the folks behind it identify as conservative is indeed a reason to, well, stay sharp and skeptical, but I think their flavor of conservatism is actually in direct conflict with most Americans who identify as such. Sort of like these folks actually believe whatâs commonly used as distracting rhetoric.
Then again, Iâm probably outside the main demographic of this community, Iâm critical of big centralized power, and Iâm a fan of both urbanism and land value taxation, so I get it if you judge that Iâve been had here.
Whatâs hilarious is conservatives absolutely hate Strongtowns too, and pretty much all their policy goals are the opposite of the goal of ST. Even though Chuck Morohn is deeply conservative, he canât really face that truth.
Iâd never read Strong Towns directly, though Iâve read tangential books like Walkable Cities by Jeff Speck. In those contexts I had interpreted the financial aspects as a good way to pitch the idea to Liberal folk and any governmental restructuring I must have glossed over. This article makes me wonder if I should review and reassess those takes and adjust how I share information on the topic.
A good read!
Yeah, but at least it sets up a condition in which better urbanist principles can be later used. You can get a Strong Towns conservative to agree to making walkable neighborhoods with denser development to set up the density needed for later mass transit projects.
It isnât a solution, but a push in the right direction.
Very good article. I found my way to them through Not Just Bikes and resonated with many of their ideas - removing stroads, undoing car culture, even localism in the broad sense. This lifted the veil from my eyes.
They donât actually mean Strong Town in the sense of strong communities, they mean local capital having more freedom to extract wealth more productively. Guess a broken clock and all that. Since it does happen to be true that denser building will results in more uses of the same land, and that means less car culture, etc.
Still I think the word for them is useful - they are popularizing some important ideas. But we canât forget who theyâre trying to empower in the end.
