The Strong Towns Podcast

Sinclair Black and Heyden Walker, architects with Austin-based Black and Vernooy, talk about great streets, Austin and the potential to bury and cap an interstate. Their new ebook is available at ProjectGreatStreets.com. 

CNU President and CEO Lynn Richards talking about accelerating the pace of change, #IamCNU and ways the Congress for the New Urbanism is leading a movement for building great places.

Jarrett Walker of Jarrett Walker + Associates and James Llamas of Traffic Engineers, Inc. talk about the reimagined Houston transit network, the hard choices that brought it about and how the city's bus network now provides more service to more people with the same budget.

Jeff Tumlin of Nelson/Nygaard talks about the nuances of the Trinity Toll Road, the cognitive dissonance of parking and using performance metrics to make good local decisions.

John Simmerman of Active Towns talks about his move to Austin, the Active Living tour and efforts to slow cars.

Hazel Borys of Placemakers talking about living in a northern city, the spread of form based codes and being a reluctant, but necessary, free range parent.

Steve Mouzon talking about the Original Green, his new book, Cuba and a rescue project in Bahamas.

Dan Parolek is Principal at Opticos Design in Berkley, CA. Opticos is the force behind www.missingmiddle.com, a website devoted to reintroducing the housing and building types that were ubquitous in the human scaled development era, and nearly extinct for the last 60 years. The website shows pictures and diagrams of duplexes, quadplexes, bungalow courts, courtyard housing and more.

Andrew Burleson and Chuck Marohn manage to waste 90 minutes talking about nothing of any real importance. There are some book recommendations, discussion on Hardcore History, a Meriwether Lewis biography and some reflection on the purpose of CNU.

Cynthia Nikitin of Project for Public Spaces on the Citizen's Institute on Rural Design, the unique challenges of small towns and the importants of arts in creative placemaking.

Johnny Sanphillippo of Granola Shotgun talks about why old urbanism is better and easier, why "Go West" is being replaced by "Go East" and the upside of failure. Johnny is a long time supporter of Strong Towns and a regular contributor to the blog.

Jason Roberts of The Better Block talking about his home town of Dallas, traveling and sharing the message around the world. the implications of the Law of the Indies and how to bring about better buildings.

Jen Krouse, Strong Towns contributor, talking about her move from North Adams to Memphis, working within the mayor's office, Bass Pro, big bets, the Cheat Sheet for an Agile Nation and her startup efforts.

Mike Lydon and Anthony Garcia from Street Plans Collaborative talking about their new book, Tactical Urbanism as well as their work in San Francisco, Miami and Ponderay.

Kristin Green and Kevin Shepherd from the Dallas-based engineering and planning firm Verdunity talk about doing fiscally-based comprehensive plans, green infrastructure and the CNU Legacy Charettes.

The council president of Chuck's hometown of Brainerd, MN, Gary Scheeler, stops in the studio to talk about the future of the city. The conversation gets heated in the way you would expect with two passionate Minnesotans. 

Our friend and Strong Towns member Steven Shultis from Springfield, Massachusetts, joins Chuck this week to talk about his experience as a parent of children in an urban school system. Get more on this subject from Steve's site at Rational Urbanism.

Chuck does a solo podcast this week in an attempt to tie together a bunch of loose ends.

This week New Testament scholar, historian and author John Dominic Crossan returns to the podcast to talk about his latest book, How to Read the Bible and Still be a Christian: Struggling with Divine Violence from Genesis through Revelation.

The American West is a unique and fascinating place. This week Chuck is joined by Sam Western, author, poet and correspondent for the Economist, to talk about the American West.