Upzoned

Shopping malls are dying off left and right with the rise of ecommerce. Consequently, mall owners wanting to get out of the retail game are starting to sell their buildings to Amazon, whereupon they are converted to fulfillment centers. For critics of Amazon, this shark-like snapping up of competition is a source of concern. But could it, perhaps, also be viewed as a stepping-stone (even if not a pleasant one) on the path to fighting the influence of big box stores? Could Amazon actually be helping

When people go to a wedding, it's implicitly understood that the bride should wear the fanciest dress, and everyone else's outfits should act as compliments to it. But what if guests started showing up wearing Lady Gaga's meat suit, in an effort to compete with the bride for attention? One could say that's what's happened with our cities: rather than having a focal point (say, a church or theater in the center of town) with surrounding buildings acting as compliments to it, the modern movement in

Who actually owns the house that’s been sold down your street? There’s a good chance it’s someone who has no plans to ever live there. A recent article from The Wall Street Journal outlines how nowadays, one in five homes are bought not by prospective residents, but by large-scale institutional investors looking for single-family homes to flip. In bulk. Housing is both a pillar of the economy and something that’s marketed as an investment vehicle, and because of that, we have a policy apparatus

In an increasingly divided Washington, D.C., there has been one point on which Republicans and Democrats have been able to agree: that the path to prosperity for America will be paved—literally, paved—by spending trillions of dollars on infrastructure. This consensus is so unquestioned—and even unquestionable—that we at Strong Towns have said for years that it amounts to a kind of “Infrastructure Cult.” As Chuck Marohn wrote in the Strong Towns book, the “collective belief in the power of

In a recent article in The American Conservative, Jordan McGillis, a policy analyst specializing in energy, climate, and urbanism, describes how politicians are doubling down on cars...but this time on cars “with a different energy system under the hood.” As an example, he points to a recent bill introduced by Rep. Peter Welch, a Vermont congressman who sits on the House Committee on Energy and Commerce. According to Rep. Welch, the Electric CARS Act encourages people to buy electric vehicles

Are you a Strong Towns member? If so, don’t miss the announcement inside the podcast for a fun, free event with games, a live recording of Upzoned, and, apparently, chocolate milk and Diet Mountain Dew. Last May, we devoted an episode of the Upzoned podcast to talk about the decision of Sidewalk Labs (a subsidiary of Google’s parent company, Alphabet) to pull out of Toronto’s Quayside development. The project, first announced in 2017, had intended to transform 12 acres of industrial land on

New York City is at a crossroads. So say Carlo Ratti and Saskia Sassen in a recent Bloomberg CityLab article, “The Case for a Duty to the City.” Many wealthy residents are fleeing New York City for the suburbs. Perhaps a third of the small businesses that closed down last year won’t be returning. And, according to a recent survey, executives report plans to reduce office space by 30%. Ratti, the director of the Senseable City Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Sassen, a Professor