The Strong Towns Podcast

A trip to Italy left Chuck surprised by how ordinary Catholic life felt in a country filled with churches. A later visit to Hasidic Brooklyn stayed with him for a different reason: families living under intense physical constraints, yet ordering their lives around faith and community. Those memories frame this talk at a Catholic church in Minnesota, where Chuck turns from faraway examples to a more personal question: what would it mean for a parish to care not only for the sanctuary, but for the blocks around it?

Additional Show Notes

Chuck Marohn (Substack)

 

This podcast is made possible by Strong Towns members. Thank you! Join fellow members discussing this episode in The Commons.

Rep. Jake Auchincloss returns to the Strong Towns podcast with a case for localism that takes it seriously without treating it as a cure-all. He explains why localism deserves a bigger role in national politics, not as a slogan, but as a way to rebuild trust and solve problems closer to the ground. That idea gets tested against some of the hardest problems facing cities today: transportation systems that reward expansion over maintenance, a housing market that has lost its entry-level rung, and federal policies that often struggle to match local realities. The conversation closes with a warning about digital life and a defense of face-to-face community.

Additional Show Notes

Jake Auchincloss (LinkedIn, Substack, Site)

"Digital Dopamine is Consuming America. It's Time to Fight for IRL.", (Article)

Chuck Marohn (Substack)

 

This podcast is made possible by Strong Towns members. Thank you! Join fellow members discussing this episode in The Commons.

Is a city “dynamic” just because its charts point up and to the right? Chuck uses a week in the UK to question that assumption. In Manchester, a swelling population of 20‑somethings looks like success, until you notice how many smaller places have been drained to supply that energy. In one of those towns, residents speak of decline, crime, and the loss of their pub, even as few can name a moment they truly felt unsafe. Across focus groups, government programs, and carefully planned districts, he traces the same pattern and asks: when growth is easy to measure, what deeper dynamism are we missing?

Additional Show Notes

Chuck Marohn (Substack)

 

This podcast is made possible by Strong Towns members. Thank you! Join fellow members discussing this episode in The Commons.

When planner Patrick Kennedy started asking why prime land near downtown Dallas was filled with parking lots and boarded‑up buildings, the trail led straight to an elevated freeway: I‑345. He explains how making a hard economic case for removal—showing that taking the highway out could deliver the highest return on investment with minimal traffic impacts—grew into the Atlas of Inner City Highway Impacts, a data‑driven look at 142 U.S. cities. Kennedy details how inner‑city highways consume acres of valuable land, depress nearby property values, and either clog up all day in thriving metros or cut through struggling ones at full speed, while federal funding formulas and induced demand keep pushing us toward more lanes.

Additional Show Notes

Patrick Kennedy (LinkedIn)

The Human Ecosystem (Site)

Atlas of Inner-City Highway Impacts (PDF)

"Adding Up What Urban Highways Really Cost", by Benjamin Schneider (Article)

Chuck Marohn (Substack)

 

This podcast is made possible by Strong Towns members. Thank you! Join fellow members discussing this episode in The Commons.

Speaking to planners in New Zealand, Chuck Marohn connects the country’s adopted infrastructure plan with a global pattern of cities that have grown themselves into insolvency. He traces the shift from incremental, pre‑Depression neighborhoods to postwar sprawl and explores what it looks like for planners to stop chasing the next expansion and start making better use of what’s already built.

Additional Show Notes

Te Waihanga (Site)

Te Waihanga National Infrastructure Plan (Site)

Chuck Marohn (Substack)

 

This podcast is made possible by Strong Towns members. Thank you!