2468 West Grand Boulevard, in Detroit, Michigan Arguably the most famous mixed-use building in all of America is located at 2468 West Grand Boulevard in Detroit, Michigan. This modest two-story, blue-and-white house is located in the middle of the block, nestled between multiple single-family homes. It is about two blocks from the neighborhood’s original commercial core, along one of Detroit's great boulevards. The ground floor of this building was first opened by a local florist who sold flower arrangements on the first floor and lived on the second floor. In 1959, the property was sold to a ..read more

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 Bridg ..read more

Sitting down to write this week’s column, I felt stuck. Even after looking through a list of topic ideas and reviewing a couple of drafts I had started working on, nothing felt right. As I stared at my screen, cursor blinking expectantly, I just could not muster the enthusiasm to write anything useful or interesting or even angry. So instead, I am going to write about something that I hope is relatable. And that’s the profound sense of sadness and disappointment that we all feel from time to time, in our pursuit of stronger, healthier and more connected cities. It’s different from being grump ..read more

Chances are, your city already has systems in place to address infrastructure concerns. How can you use those systems? There’s a truism that the faster you move through a place, the less you notice its fine details. Cyclists routinely experience the reverse of that. Strong Towns member Danny Williams commutes and runs errands by bike in Sarasota County, Florida, and shares harrowing photos of his experiences on Instagram (@Sarasota_Commutes). The county runs a 311 service that allows citizens to report non-life-threatening maintenance and infrastructure issues. Williams de ..read more

Sarasota County, Florida, where I lived until last year, subsidizes a huge amount of housing. This might be surprising to you for a couple of reasons. First, it’s a place that has experienced dramatically escalating housing costs, including some of the highest rent increases in the nation during the pandemic. Second, it’s a red-leaning county in a red state: not the kind of place that has the political reputation for being all-in on low-income housi- oh, wait, you thought I was talking about low-income housing? No, I’m not. The number of subsidized low-income units in that area is in the hund ..read more

Our local metropolitan planning organization recently sent out an email informing people that May 17 is National Bike To Work Day. I work mostly from home, so the invitation isn’t super relevant to me, but there are some important points I would like to address about this sort of initiative. While I love biking, in the absence of sufficiently safe infrastructure, I find these kinds of annual events annoying and ingratiating. You might think that's harsh, but hear me out. Here are three ways National Bike to Work Day can fail to encourage bikeability: It Ignores The Reasons People Don't Bike F ..read more

Huron Avenue “Port Huron is a prewar city, so it has the bones of a strong town,” Tyler Moldovan told me. “But there’s a city plan from the 1960s that was never fully realized, and it has a death grip on this place.” Moldovan is a lifelong resident of the Michigan city, which boasts 28,000 residents. He's a transit operator for Blue Water Area Transit, a homeowner and, by all appearances, a polymath. When the city announced plans to repave its main commercial thoroughfare, Huron Avenue, Moldovan saw a once-in-a-generation opportunity. The avenue has long lived a double life: It’s home to much ..read more

This article was originally published, in slightly different form, on Strong Towns member Will Gardner’s Substack, StrongHaven. It is shared here with permission. Source: Michaela Zuzula; Unsplash The Thick of It Regular readers of my articles know that I’m a big proponent of thickening the existing neighborhoods in my town (Fairhaven, Massachusetts) and revitalizing our walkable downtown areas. By thickening, I mean allowing neighborhoods to continue growing in the incremental way they used to grow before they were effectively frozen in time by restrictive zoning. Thickening is a low-risk st ..read more

In the past, I have called special assessments corrupting and immoral. I think I was pulling punches. Conducting special assessments for routine maintenance is a predatory practice, the breaking of a social covenant that deeply undermines the credibility of a local government. Places that do it are callous, self-serving, and irresponsible. They demonstrate disdain for the citizens they are supposed to serve. If that wasn’t bad enough, we can now add “hypocrites” to the list of adjectives describing the worst local governments. At Strong Towns, we continually seek to elevate the role of local ..read more

(Source: Hot Dog House FL) Since when did a hot dog need a parking space?  I love a good hot dog. I especially love a good dog after a hard day of working in the yard or spending time on the beach. My mouth waters just thinking of a dog in a soft bun, topped with some creative extras. In my opinion, it is the best meal to grab on the go. One might consider the hot dog as quintessential of an American food as apple pie. I love talking and learning more about the hard-working people who have made businesses out of a trailer or truck offering these meaty delights. Each h ..read more