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PODCAST

Upzoned

Sometimes, a hot new story will cross our desks that we need to talk about right away. That"s where Upzoned comes in. Join Multistudio"s Abby Newsham, Strong Towns President Chuck Marohn, and other guests to talk in depth about one big story from the week in the Strong Towns conversation, right when you want it: now.

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All Episodes

23:30

Historic Bridge Battle: Will 1 Town Profit While the...

Upzoned ·

2025/10/29

Two towns, two states, and two historic bridges that nobody wants to pay for. Brattleboro, Vermont, wants to reactivate two historic bridges with a pedestrian greenway. Hinsdale, New Hampshire, worries about increased crime and being saddled with the majority of maintenance costs while getting fewer returns. Abby and Norm discuss this dilemma, comparing it to similar bridge projects and identifying possible next steps for activating this underutilized infrastructure.ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES "Can Two

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37:39

When a Town's Biggest Taxpayer Becomes Its Biggest...

Upzoned ·

2025/10/22

What do you do with 720,000 square feet of dead mall? Towns across America are struggling to find the answer as their malls shut down, leaving budget craters and infrastructure nightmares in their wake. Abby is joined by Carlee Alm-LaBar, Strong Towns' chief of staff and a former city staffer, to explore whether the answer is a grand redevelopment plan — or thinking radically smaller.ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES “A Town's Single Largest Taxpayer Is Also Its Biggest Headache” by Jim Zarroli, The New York

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47:21

2 Towns, 2 Responses to the Housing Crisis. Which...

Upzoned ·

2025/10/15

Littleton, Colorado, wants to ban everything other than single-family homes. The neighboring town of Lakewood wants to allow more housing variety. Norm and Abby dive into what's driving these radically different responses to the housing crisis and what happens when cities try to exempt themselves from change.ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES “Two Denver Suburbs Take Different Paths as Residents Face Housing Crunch: We Can Manage It, but Just Barely.” by John Aguilar, The Denver Post (October 2025). Abby

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60:44

Public Transit Will Collapse in a Year. Should We...

Upzoned ·

2025/10/08

By the end of 2026, many U.S. cities could see large parts of their public transit systems crumble under a lack of federal funding and a development pattern that was never designed to support it. In this episode, Chuck Marohn and Abby Newsham explore why transit can’t survive as a charity and how localized funding and smarter land use could create systems that actually work.ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES On October 24, Chuck will join the author of today's article, Jarrett Walker, for a member-exclusive

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47:14

LA Just Avoided 1600 Layoffs. Is That a Good Thing?

Upzoned ·

2025/10/01

The city of Los Angeles recently announced that it saved 1,600 jobs that were at risk of being cut to balance its $1 billion budget deficit. But did it actually fix anything, or is it just shuffling money around to hide the problem? What role do unions play? And what should cities actually do when facing a major budget deficit?Strong Towns Chief Technical Advisor Edward Erfurt dives into these questions with guest host Norm Van Eeden Petersman in this episode of Upzoned. ADDITIONAL SHOW

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29:49

Tulsa Offers Remote Workers $10K To Move. Is It...

Upzoned ·

2025/09/24

The Tulsa Remote program pays remote workers $10,000 to relocate to Tulsa for a year. A study found that, for every dollar spent, Tulsa sees $4.31 in economic benefits, including increased local spending, tax revenue, and job creation. Abby is joined by John Pattinson, Strong Towns’ community builder, discuss whether this kind of program is a smart way to boost the local economy.ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES “The Economic Benefits of Paying Workers to Move” by Rthvika Suvarna and Fola Akinnibi, Bloomberg

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46:30

Housing Supply Is About to Exceed Demand. Now What?

Upzoned ·

2025/09/17

As baby boomers downsize, relocate, or pass away, millions of homes are projected to rejoin the housing market by 2030, potentially exceeding housing demand by 1 million homes. In today's episode, Chuck and Abby discuss how generational shifts affect the housing market, what an excess of supply could mean for cities' financial stability, and how a simple "build, build, build" mindset could cause serious problems down the line.ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES “Forget YIMBY. The housing shortage could

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40:26

Can a Tax on House Flipping Stop Canada's Housing...

Upzoned ·

2025/09/10

For years, investors and speculators shaped Canada's housing market. But now, people who actually live in those homes are beginning to have more influence. Today, Abby is joined by Norm Van Eeden Petersman, Strong Towns' director of membership and a Canadian, to discuss how this shift happened, how it'll affect Canada's housing market, and the implications for the rest of North America.ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES “End-users, rather than investors, expected to drive Vancouver housing market higher” by

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56:00

How Mortgage Fraud Makes the Housing Market More...

Upzoned ·

2025/09/03

Several high-profile members of the government have been accused of committing mortgage fraud recently, including Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook. Today, Chuck and Abby explore how mortgage fraud distorts the housing market, why it happens so frequently — and why no one in the financial system is interested in stopping it.ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES “Ken Paxton Claimed Three Houses as His Primary Residence, Records Show” by Pooja Salhotra, The New York Times

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40:12

Are Sponge Cities the Flood Control Fix We Need?

Upzoned ·

2025/08/27

Join Abby and guest John Pattison as they dive into the benefits and drawbacks of "sponge cities," cities that incorporate natural features like wetlands into their stormwater management infrastructure. Is this method more resilient in the long term? Do the benefits outweigh the massive cost? How does this relate to the incremental, bottom-up approach? They’ll cover all this and more in today’s episode of Upzoned.ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES “‘Sponge City’: Copenhagen Adapts to a Wetter Future” by Paul

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44:33

Why Data Center Electricity Use "Scares Me to the Bone"

Upzoned ·

2025/08/20

Data centers power everything from cloud computing to artificial intelligence, and they use a massive amount of electricity, sometimes even rivaling major cities. Watchdogs claim that tech companies aren’t absorbing the costs of this electricity use, causing rate payers’ electricity bills to spike as they’re forced to subsidize these data centers. Today, Edward and Abby discuss the far-reaching implications of this kind of land use.ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES “As electric bills rise, evidence mounts

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44:30

Why Colorado Is Facing a Senior Housing Crisis

Upzoned ·

2025/08/13

Colorado's population is rapidly aging. Soon, one in five people in the state will be be over 65 years old. Limited housing stock means seniors are stuck in too-large homes that they can’t afford to maintain. In turn, that means there’s fewer large homes for younger families who need them.Today, Abby is joined by Katy Clagett, an incremental developer originally from Colorado who’s working to develop infill housing options for seniors. They discuss what Colorado’s situation means for communities

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43:08

Why LA Is Struggling To Rebuild 6 Months After Wildfires

Upzoned ·

2025/08/06

In January 2025, wildfires swept across Los Angeles with record-breaking destruction. To encourage swift rebuilding, Governor Newsom suspended environmental regulations. But six months later, only a fraction of homeowners have even received permits, let alone started the rebuilding process. Chuck is joined by Edward Erfurt, Strong Towns’ chief technical advisor, to talk about why, as well as the deeper challenges of rebuilding in fire-prone areas.ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES “Why it’s taking LA so long

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50:20

Want To Use This Rural Road? That’ll Be $50K

Upzoned ·

2025/07/30

In Lincoln County, South Dakota, a growing agriculture company is being charged $50,000 annually for wear and tear on township roads caused by the company's trucks and machinery.Abby and Edward discuss the balancing act between infrastructure costs and municipal budgets, especially in rural areas with few taxpayers. They explore the public process behind this kind of decision and offer suggestions on how it could be improved. ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES “Milk facility to pay $50,000 for road use” by

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53:40

Suburbs Broke the American Sunbelt. Now What?

Upzoned ·

2025/07/16

Sunbelt cities like Phoenix, Dallas, and Atlanta have long prided themselves on having affordable and abundant housing. However, they’re now seeing stagnation in housing construction and rapidly rising costs. Today, Abby is joined by Rachel Leonardo, a trained architect and Strong Towns’ video creator, to discuss how rigid single-use zoning has locked cities into expensive fragility. They explore whether these cities can course correct and how they could become more resilient and prosperous in the

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01:01:43

How To Stop Slumlords and Protect Urban Spaces

Upzoned ·

2025/07/02

Today, Abby is joined by Bernice Radle, a small-scale developer and historic building preservationist from Buffalo, New York. They cover two developing stories: First, a new bill was proposed that would give the Buffalo housing court more power to sell or repair buildings taken from absentee or negligent landlords. Second, the Historic Preservation Fund is currently at risk.Bernice and Abby discuss how these changes could affect small-scale developers and historic preservationists. Bernice also

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43:36

A Strong Towns View of the New SpaceX Company Town

Upzoned ·

2025/05/14

Residents of Boca Chica, Texas, have voted to turn their community into a new official city called Starbase. This new municipality is tightly controlled by SpaceX leadership and most residents are SpaceX employees, which has raised concerns about the reemergence of company towns.In this Upzoned episode, Abby is joined by our Chief Technical Advisor Edward Erfurt to discuss the Strong Towns perspective on this story. ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES “Elon Musk’s company town: SpaceX employees vote to create

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55:57

California Universities Face a $17 Billion Growth...

Upzoned ·

2025/05/07

As of the 2023-24 academic year, the University of California faces $9.1 billion in deferred maintenance, while California State University faces $8.3 billion. In today’s episode, Chuck and Abby explore how this problem arose, how it mirrors the challenges cities are facing, and what it'll take to manage this decline.ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES “Inside a $17 billion maintenance backlog plaguing California’s universities” by Victoria Mejicanos, Matthew Reagan and Mercy Sosa, CalMatters (April

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58:37

Will Privatizing Mortgages Fix the Housing Market?

Upzoned ·

2025/04/09

President Trump has proposed the privatization of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, organizations that back the majority of mortgages in the U.S. and have been under a government conservatorship since the 2008 financial crisis. In this Upzoned episode, Chuck and Abby discuss the proposal and how it would affect the housing market.ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES “How Trump plans to get government out of the mortgage business” by Paige Sutherland and Meghna Chakrabarti, WBUR On Point (March 2025). Abby Newsham

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48:57

Can We Take Community Wealth Back From Walmart and...

Upzoned ·

2025/03/19

In this Upzoned episode, Abby is joined by Strong Towns Chief Technical Advisor Edward Erfurt to discuss the emergence of food deserts in the United States. In the 1980s, the U.S. government stopped enforcing price discrimination laws, letting large supermarkets use their size to leverage better prices from suppliers. This led to the closure of many small, independent groceries and helped create today's food deserts.Abby and Edward discuss the shift from grocery stores being neighborhood assets to

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160 results

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