Several months ago my wife introduced me to the organization Strong Towns. They have a blog and several podcasts. I was intrigued, as their message built upon my interest in authors such as Michael Pollan, Joel Salatin, Nassim Taleb and Mister Money Moustache. To summarize, the purpose of Strong Towns is to help build strong communities from the bottom up, with incremental development patterns that are flexible and adaptive to change.
Last week I had the opportunity to see the founder of Strong Towns, Chuck Marohn, at Luther College in Decorah, IA. He is on a book tour promoting his new book: Strong Towns: A Bottom Up Revolution to Rebuild American Prosperity. I brought my copy and had it signed. For 75 minutes a group of city and community leaders, college faculty, and interested people like me listened to stories, stats, and other interesting information about the direction Chuck sees our cities going, and ways that we might arrest the destructive development patterns that make our cities fragile.
His primary emphasis is that the golden age of development in the United States following WWII was an anomaly whose end is overdue. During that time period, we turned away from traditional development patterns abruptly toward a new model. The traditional development pattern focused on the core of a city or town and worked outward. Development started small. It grew in tandem with and as a direct result of the growing wealth of the community. Buildings started small and tightly packed together. As a business or homeowner gained wealth, they would build up or out as needed. As the overall wealth of the town grew, buildings were erected at the periphery and services followed.
The end of WWII prompted significant changes in the United States. The Atlantic and Pacific Oceans protected us from direct ravages of war. Many European nations transferred what wealth remained across the Atlantic in order to protect it. This made New York the new financial capital of the world. The GI Bill was created for soldiers returning from the war. The automobile became the new mode of transportation and everyone got on board. All of this and more created conditions here that were not seen before or since. This was an opportunity for people with means to move from the central core out to newly created suburbs. This occurred all over the country. As cities provided services across farther distances, less was available to the central core. People with wealth and means are always heard by politicians differently than those without, and so as services and infrastructure grew, the suburbs got the improvements and the city core in many areas were left behind. Houses aged, cars became faster and more efficient, and highways were built farther afield. The wealthy moved even farther out from the city, and the new middle class took their place. Municipalities found themselves with not much more additional income, but with greater liabilities.
This golden age pattern has led to inordinate amounts of debt. Federal, state, local and personal debt in the US is at unsustainable levels. Unfortunately, this new development pattern requires constant growth for the system to have any hint of solvency. Having essentially spent all of our accumulated wealth, the only way that growth can occur now is through debt. Fragility is the result.
The message of Strong Towns is to move from the new (fragile) development pattern back to a pattern that Nassim Taleb would call antifragile. Rather than spreading out as far as our cities can go, we need to double down on the areas that already exist. Rather than enticing another giant box store to build on the outskirts of town, invest in the local business people by encouraging them to grow in sure and small ways.
My town has a healthy and active town square. There are 40 businesses on the square. About half of them are in two story buildings, most of which have apartments on the top floor. There are professionals like doctors, lawyers and accountants, services like banks and restaurants, and retail outlets like the flower shop, hardware store, and the coffee shop where I’m writing this post. The coffee shop is in a building that was once part of the town hospital. That old hospital had been divided into three units, and then two were merged together. Now the coffee shop is separate, and the two other units are being merged. That is the heart and soul of a flexible building pattern that Strong Towns says has stood the test of time. In all of those changes, the city has had to do no more work than maintain the infrastructure that was already there.
Several incremental improvements made to other buildings around the square increase the overall value of the properties. When a city gets most of its revenue from property taxes, increasing revenue without having to increase expenses is a good deal.
Around the corner from where I live, a new four-plex is being built on an empty lot. For a city, and Strong Towns, this is a wonderful thing. Our town has a shortage of all types of housing, including apartments. A new four-plex on an existing street helps our town’s housing situation, and it’s in a great location for someone who may not have a car as it’s only two blocks from downtown, and the new building increases the property tax revenue for the town without any new roads, water lines, or sewer pipes.
It’s true that there are not many locations in town where there is enough space for a new box store, large hotel or mall. That’s okay. By the time you factor in the increased cost to the city in new infrastructure and maintenance, and the fact that most of those enterprises know how to get reduced property tax incentives to build, municipalities are often financially worse off for having them.
Gary Vaynerchuk says that too many people put the past on a pedestal and naysay the future. I try to evaluate my perspective through that lens. In this case, we have two pasts. Strong Towns puts one on a pedestal and the rest of the country venerates the other. What about the future? Listen to the national politicians, economists and media bemoan that every time growth isn’t big enough the sky is falling. It’s not enough just to grow a little, our economy must grow more and more in order to not collapse! The mainstream future is to double down on big bets that will be paid for later. Strong Towns says, instead of putting all of our chips on one bet, let’s make many small bets. That way if one doesn’t do so well, we haven’t lost the farm.
I think that small diversified bets is the way to go. If it’s good for my retirement investments, how can it be bad for cities and towns? Both look to invest long-term with no clear end. The Strong Towns perspective is one that I can buy into. Michael Pollan and Joel Salatin say the same about our food production. The same could be said about our energy infrastructure, and it rings very true about our towns.