Outreach Recap: Strengthening Legacy Cities with Strong Towns Founder Charles Marohn
On March 12th, 2021, CURA welcomed Charles Marohn, the founder of Strong Towns and the author of Strong Towns: A Bottom-Up Revolution to Rebuild American Prosperity. He argues that the way we build our cities now squanders precious resources that should be used to make our communities more prosperous. In essence, we are trading short-term growth for long-term liabilities and it's slowly bankrupting us. Strong Towns makes a strong case for a more rational view of development and infrastructure, from federal highway policy down to a single stretch of sidewalk. Mr. Marohn is #10 on Planetizen’s list of the top 100 most influential urbanists of all time, just after Le Corbusier (#9) and before Richard Florida (#11).
The key take away from this event is the dominant development pattern in the United States is fragile and ultimately unsustainable. Planners and leaders need to understand that cities are complex adaptive systems and need to promote development patterns that allow for for change and adaptation. Fortunately this is how cities were built for most of human history, so we can look to "spooky wisdom" of development prior to World War II as a source of inspiration.
If you missed his presentation, don't worry! You can watch the recording on our Youtube channel by clicking the link below.
