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Charles Marohn reposted thisCharles Marohn reposted thisCan a city grow its way into decline? Kansas City offers a sobering case study. Between 1946 and 2018, its road network expanded by 169%. Its population grew by just 13%, according to Strong Towns and Urban3. More roads to maintain. More infrastructure per resident. A much larger physical footprint without a comparable increase in people. Meanwhile, highways cut through established neighborhoods, parking replaced buildings, and investment shifted outward. Redlining compounded the damage by restricting access to capital in communities already facing disadvantage. The problem was bigger than sprawl. The city was adding obligations while damaging parts of the economic and social fabric that helped support them. These figures alone do not prove insolvency. But they expose a question that development announcements rarely answer: will the additional activity generate enough enduring public revenue to cover the obligations being created? That question matters for Knowledge Towns, too. Before drawing a vision of what a place could become, we need to understand what happened to its people, businesses, land and infrastructure—and who absorbed the losses. A place can become more expensive to sustain even when its population barely changes. Understanding that mismatch is where the diagnosis begins. Source: Strong Towns / Urban3, Kansas City: The American Story of Growing into Decline (2020) https://lnkd.in/gMad99WQ
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Charles Marohn shared thisFiltering has never stood on its own as a housing affordability strategy. When the discussion reaches people at the bottom of the housing market, the formula becomes: Filtering + something else = affordability. Build enough market-rate housing, advocates say, and the benefits will ripple down through a chain of moves. For the households that chain never reaches, provide vouchers, tax credits, public housing or some other subsidy. That formulation concedes more than its proponents generally acknowledge. Filtering may make housing less expensive than it otherwise would have been. It does not reliably produce homes that people with modest incomes can afford. I don’t think it is incidental that filtering is most enthusiastically defended by professionals who are far more likely to benefit near the beginning of the chain than to be left waiting at the end. Households near the top receive actual new homes, more choices and lower rents than they might otherwise have paid. Households at the bottom receive a statistical assurance that their limited options are not quite as bad as they might have been. If those options remain unaffordable, they are directed toward a subsidy that may or may not be available. This is not an argument against building more housing. We need more housing. But a housing affordability strategy should intentionally produce entry-level homes, not merely expensive homes accompanied by a promise that something will eventually filter down.
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Charles Marohn shared thisI'm very excited to be heading back to the Hudson Valley, and I believe it is at the most beautiful time of year to be there. Could be wrong, but that's what I've heard.Charles Marohn shared thisWhat if we rethought the way we approach housing? Join Hudson Valley Pattern for Progress on October 27 for our Annual Housing Conference, featuring Charles Marohn, founder and president of Strong Towns. Chuck will challenge us to think differently about housing, land use, infrastructure, and the steps communities can take to become more resilient, equitable, and financially strong. The morning will bring together municipal leaders, housing professionals, developers, planners, nonprofit partners, and other regional stakeholders for practical conversations about the future of housing in the Hudson Valley. 📅 October 27, 2026 ⏰ 8:30 a.m.–1:30 p.m. 📍 DoubleTree by Hilton, Poughkeepsie 🎟️ Municipal and nonprofit admission: $60 🎟️ Standard admission: $70 Register today: https://lnkd.in/gzwE7DYi #HudsonValley #Housing #LandUse #CommunityDevelopment #StrongTowns
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Charles Marohn reposted thisCharles Marohn reposted thisSince launching How to Design for Cars in People-Centred Places, we've been thrilled by the response. The guide has sparked discussion across the planning and transportation community, and we've even seen it highlighted by Charles Marohn of Strong Towns and Jarrett Walker of Jarrett Walker + Associates. The response reinforces something we've heard from many communities: we need new, evidence-based strategies for creating people-centred places while still accommodating cars. If you haven't read the guide yet, you can download it for free: 🔗 https://lnkd.in/e4PjsnsK And if you'd like to dive deeper into the ideas behind the guide, join our free webinar on September 17. 📅 9:00-10:15 a.m. PT / 12:00-1:15 p.m. ET 🎟️ Register here: 🔗 https://lnkd.in/eQhE9iA9 Happy Cities Houssam Elokda Tristan Cleveland, PhD, RPP Emma Avery Matt Pinder, P.Eng. #Mobycon #HappyCities #StreetDesignGuide #PeopleCentredDesignHow to design for cars in people-centred places - Mobycon AcademyHow to design for cars in people-centred places - Mobycon Academy
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Charles Marohn shared thisWe use the word “screening” a lot in planning and development. Screen the parking lot. Screen the mechanical equipment. Screen the building from the neighborhood. Plant some trees and shrubs to soften the edges. But there’s an assumption buried in the idea of screening: we’ve created something we don’t particularly want people to see. Good urban form works differently. Instead of designing the building, parking, traffic circulation and stormwater system first — then landscaping whatever space is left over — we design the space itself. Buildings frame the street. Trees define the sidewalk. Walls, fences, gardens and landscaping reinforce the space people actually occupy. The difference is subtle but profound. Screening asks landscaping to hide the problems created by the design. Good urban form uses landscaping as part of the design. Once you see that distinction, it becomes difficult not to see it everywhere.
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Charles Marohn shared thisObjects in the mirror are closer than they appear.Charles Marohn shared thisActual text chain from my 16 year old son this evening. Charles Marohn #strongtowns
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Charles Marohn shared thisA federal court has ruled that Minnesota’s engineering licensing board violated the First Amendment when it tried to regulate my public advocacy. It took six years to get here, but we won. This ruling matters far beyond me. All the details are below.
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Charles Marohn shared thisThe next book in the Strong Towns collection—titled "Grow Strong"—went to the publisher this week. It’s about economic development and the Strong Towns approach to creating jobs and building a durable local economy. Writing a book is an intellectual marathon. It feels good to cross the finish line and rest for a bit. I’m excited to share this one with you next spring. Stay tuned: Monday we will have a big announcement and details on a positive resolution to my federal court case with Minnesota's engineering licensing board.
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Charles Marohn reposted thisCharles Marohn reposted thisWhen speeding is involved in a crash, it’s tempting to treat the speed itself as the whole explanation. Maybe the driver was reckless, impaired, distracted, or impatient, and sometimes those things are part of what happened. But oftentimes, people are simply using the street the way it was designed to be used. While crash reports can document what happened, but they don't examine why that behavior felt normal on the street in the first place. People tend to drive at the speed a road tells them is comfortable, and a wide, open street with long sightlines and little friction can send that message clearly, even when the posted speed limit says something else. When speeding becomes the normal behavior in a place, the street itself is part of what needs to be studied. Crash Analysis Studio gives communities a way to look at those conditions instead of stopping at blame. Residents, advocates, city staff, and elected officials can study the environment people were responding to and change the cues that make unsafe behavior feel normal. Learn more about Crash Analysis Studio on our website.
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Charles Marohn reacted on thisCharles Marohn reacted on thisI started listening to The Strong Towns Podcast with Chuck Marohn about 5 years ago, around the same time I went back to school for an urban planning degree. It was my immense honor to be a guest on The Strong Towns Podcast yesterday, discussing a ballot measure I am spearheading that would make it legal to build homes on small lots in much of Massachusetts. I believe that planning better communities starts with allowing them to evolve over time, especially in places that already have good bones - the infrastructure and amenities that support a village-like built environment. Capping minimum lot size requirements in sewered parts of Massachusetts is a small step that allows existing neighborhoods to better accommodate evolving housing needs for decades to come. Many of the people who benefit from this approach are already part of these communities - think of the senior citizens who want to downsize without leaving their neighborhood, or the teachers and nurses who can better afford to live in the areas they serve. https://lnkd.in/gDarx8JT
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Charles Marohn liked thisFiltering has never stood on its own as a housing affordability strategy. When the discussion reaches people at the bottom of the housing market, the formula becomes: Filtering + something else = affordability. Build enough market-rate housing, advocates say, and the benefits will ripple down through a chain of moves. For the households that chain never reaches, provide vouchers, tax credits, public housing or some other subsidy. That formulation concedes more than its proponents generally acknowledge. Filtering may make housing less expensive than it otherwise would have been. It does not reliably produce homes that people with modest incomes can afford. I don’t think it is incidental that filtering is most enthusiastically defended by professionals who are far more likely to benefit near the beginning of the chain than to be left waiting at the end. Households near the top receive actual new homes, more choices and lower rents than they might otherwise have paid. Households at the bottom receive a statistical assurance that their limited options are not quite as bad as they might have been. If those options remain unaffordable, they are directed toward a subsidy that may or may not be available. This is not an argument against building more housing. We need more housing. But a housing affordability strategy should intentionally produce entry-level homes, not merely expensive homes accompanied by a promise that something will eventually filter down.
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Charles Marohn liked thisSome people hear "affordable housing" and immediately shut down. But maybe we need to rethink what those words mean. Shouldn't the people who live and work in the Mohawk Valley be able to afford to live here? And just how DO we make sure our communities have housing that people can afford? That means housing for the young person who wants to stay in the community where they grew up (and NOT in your basement). The family trying to buy their first home. The employee who needs to live near work. The older adult who wants to downsize but doesn't want to leave their community. Affordable housing isn't one kind of housing, and it isn't one kind of person. It's all of us who are fortunate enough to be able to afford where we live.
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Charles Marohn liked thisThis! "Filtering may make housing less expensive than it otherwise would have been. It does not reliably produce homes that people with modest incomes can afford."
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Charles Marohn reacted on thisCharles Marohn reacted on thisWow, this is one of the best articles I have read on housing affordability and filtering. Highly recommend. Also, I am immediately going to my local bookstore to get Charles Marohn's book!Filtering Is Not a Housing Affordability Strategy | Strong TownsFiltering Is Not a Housing Affordability Strategy | Strong Towns
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Charles Marohn liked thisCharles Marohn liked thisCan a city grow its way into decline? Kansas City offers a sobering case study. Between 1946 and 2018, its road network expanded by 169%. Its population grew by just 13%, according to Strong Towns and Urban3. More roads to maintain. More infrastructure per resident. A much larger physical footprint without a comparable increase in people. Meanwhile, highways cut through established neighborhoods, parking replaced buildings, and investment shifted outward. Redlining compounded the damage by restricting access to capital in communities already facing disadvantage. The problem was bigger than sprawl. The city was adding obligations while damaging parts of the economic and social fabric that helped support them. These figures alone do not prove insolvency. But they expose a question that development announcements rarely answer: will the additional activity generate enough enduring public revenue to cover the obligations being created? That question matters for Knowledge Towns, too. Before drawing a vision of what a place could become, we need to understand what happened to its people, businesses, land and infrastructure—and who absorbed the losses. A place can become more expensive to sustain even when its population barely changes. Understanding that mismatch is where the diagnosis begins. Source: Strong Towns / Urban3, Kansas City: The American Story of Growing into Decline (2020) https://lnkd.in/gMad99WQ
Experience & Education
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Publications
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Escaping the Housing Trap: The Strong Towns Response to the Housing Crisis (National Bestseller)
Wiley & Sons
Housing is an investment. Investment prices must go up. Housing is shelter. When the price of shelter goes up, people experience distress.
This is the housing trap. It’s time to escape. In Escaping the Housing Trap: The Strong Towns Response to the Housing Crisis, renowned urbanists Charles (Chuck) Marohn and Daniel Herriges introduce a first-of-its-kind discussion of the tension between housing as a financial product and housing as shelter. This is the key insight that’s been missing…Housing is an investment. Investment prices must go up. Housing is shelter. When the price of shelter goes up, people experience distress.
This is the housing trap. It’s time to escape. In Escaping the Housing Trap: The Strong Towns Response to the Housing Crisis, renowned urbanists Charles (Chuck) Marohn and Daniel Herriges introduce a first-of-its-kind discussion of the tension between housing as a financial product and housing as shelter. This is the key insight that’s been missing from the Housing Crisis Conversation; and the insight that can help cities fight back against the crisis from the bottom-up.
This book offers a serious, yet accessible, history of housing policy in the United States and explains how it led us to this point in time: where we face a market that is rigged against people who, only a few decades ago, could have been homeowners or stable, long-term rentals.
Only local change, on a neighborhood or city-wide scale, can begin to restore balance to the housing market.Other authorsSee publication -
Confessions of a Recovering Engineer: Transportation for a Strong Towns
Wiley & Sons
See publicationThe costs of the North American transportation system are too high—and not just in money, but in time, safety, and quality of life. No one should have to live in a community where transportation gets worse while costing more. It’s unwise and unfair to be wasting precious time and resources on something this bad.
In Confessions of a Recovering Engineer, Strong Towns founder and president Charles Marohn pulls back the curtain on the North American transportation system. Drawing on his…The costs of the North American transportation system are too high—and not just in money, but in time, safety, and quality of life. No one should have to live in a community where transportation gets worse while costing more. It’s unwise and unfair to be wasting precious time and resources on something this bad.
In Confessions of a Recovering Engineer, Strong Towns founder and president Charles Marohn pulls back the curtain on the North American transportation system. Drawing on his decades of experience as a professional engineer and planner, he explains why the conventional approach to traffic engineering is making people less safe, bankrupting towns and cities, destroying the fabric of communities, and actually worsening the problems (like congestion) engineers set out to solve.
He also talks about how transportation can be fixed—and why fixing it will involve not just engineers, but local residents and officials who have become effective and empowered advocates, connected with others to make real change.
It is possible to build a transportation system that makes you, your family, and your community safer and more prosperous. This book will show you how. -
Strong Towns: A Bottom-Up Revolution to Rebuild American Prosperity
Wiley & Sons
See publicationStrong Towns: A Bottom-Up Revolution to Build American Prosperity is a book of forward-thinking ideas that breaks with modern wisdom to present a new vision of urban development in the United States. Presenting the foundational ideas of the Strong Towns movement he co-founded, Charles Marohn explains why cities of all sizes continue to struggle to meet their basic needs, and reveals the new paradigm that can solve this longstanding problem.
Inside, you’ll learn why inducing growth and…Strong Towns: A Bottom-Up Revolution to Build American Prosperity is a book of forward-thinking ideas that breaks with modern wisdom to present a new vision of urban development in the United States. Presenting the foundational ideas of the Strong Towns movement he co-founded, Charles Marohn explains why cities of all sizes continue to struggle to meet their basic needs, and reveals the new paradigm that can solve this longstanding problem.
Inside, you’ll learn why inducing growth and development has been the conventional response to urban financial struggles—and why it just doesn’t work. New development and high-risk investing don’t generate enough wealth to support itself, and cities continue to struggle. Read this book to find out how cities large and small can focus on bottom-up investments to minimize risk and maximize their ability to strengthen the community financially and improve citizens’ quality of life.
Develop in-depth knowledge of the underlying logic behind the “traditional” search for never-ending urban growth.
- Learn practical solutions for ameliorating financial struggles through low-risk investment and a grassroots focus
- Gain insights and tools that can stop the vicious cycle of budget shortfalls and unexpected downturns
- Become a part of the Strong Towns revolution by shifting the focus away from top-down growth toward rebuilding American prosperity
- Strong Towns acknowledges that there is a problem with the American approach to growth and shows community leaders a new way forward.
The Strong Towns response is a revolution in how we assemble the places we live.
Honors & Awards
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CNU Fellow
Congress for the New Urbanism
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