The Strong Towns Podcast

Street trees, benches, slower speeds, and beautiful proportions are often treated as extras, added only after the “real” engineering work is done. Victor Dover argues that this gets the whole assignment wrong. In this episode, he talks about the second edition of Street Design: The Secret to Great Cities and Towns and why great streets have to be designed as places, not just routes. Dover makes the case that beauty belongs in the brief from the beginning, because when a street is designed only for traffic flow, that is all it can ever really become: a place for traffic.

Additional Show Notes

Victor Dover (LinkedIn)

Street Design (Book)

Dover, Kohl, & Partners (Site)

Chuck Marohn (Substack)

 

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

Pedestrian deaths have climbed sharply since 2009, yet transportation agencies often point to small, recent dips as proof that things are getting better. Beth Osborne, president and CEO of Smart Growth America, returns to the Strong Towns Podcast to talk about the latest Dangerous by Design report and the choices that keep making American roads so deadly. She and Chuck dig into why state-owned roads are especially dangerous, how street design shapes driver behavior, and why blaming pedestrians or waiting for automated vehicles keeps the focus away from the roads themselves. The big question is this: when will we stop treating roadway deaths as the cost of getting around and start changing the roads that make them predictable?

Additional Show Notes

Beth Osborne (LinkedIn)

Smart Growth America (Site)

Dangerous by Design 2026 Report (PDF)

The Deadly Rise of Giant Trucks and S.U.V.s (Article)

Chuck Marohn (Substack)

 

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

Strong Towns has always warned cities about the danger of fragile growth. Now, Chuck is applying that same lesson to the movement he helped build. In this episode, Chuck explains why Strong Towns can no longer depend on everything landing on his desk, and introduces the organization’s new Executive Director. His guest shares how he found Strong Towns as a Sandpoint city council member, his organizing work in Idaho and at the League of Conservation Voters, and why he finally decided he had to be inside the organization, not just on the board. Together, they talk about culture, management, local conversations, and the kind of leadership Strong Towns needs for its next phase.

Additional Show Notes

John Reuter (LinkedIn)

Strong Towns Team (Site)

Chuck Marohn (Substack)

 

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

Lars Doucet digs into a problem that shows up in expensive cities, sprawling suburbs, and even countries Americans often point to as models: land. Monopoly, he argues, became frustrating by design because it captured something real about how land markets work. The episode connects that lesson to housing costs, land value tax, Henry George, Norway, Texas, sprawl, and the uncomfortable question every city eventually faces: who gets the value created by a place?

Additional Show Notes

Lars Doucet (LinkedIn)

Land Economics (Site)

Land is a Big Deal (Site)

Enacting Land Value Return in your hometown (Substack)

Chuck Marohn (Substack)

 

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

Beth Osborne has watched the same story play out five times: a new federal transportation bill arrives with big language about goals and accountability, states adopt the right words, and nothing changes. Osborne, who led Transportation for America and worked inside USDOT, has been through five federal transportation reauthorizations, watched reform language get adopted and neutralized every single time, and arrived at a conclusion that would have surprised her younger self. Recorded at the Strong Towns National Gathering in Fayetteville, Arkansas, this conversation with Chuck Marohn digs into the gap between what the federal transportation program claims to do and what it actually delivers — on safety, on repair, on congestion, on emissions — and whether there's any version of federal involvement worth keeping.

Additional Show Notes

Beth Osborne (LinkedIn)

Transportation for America (Site)

Mission Accomplished Report (Site)

The Highway Expansion Lightning Lane (Substack)

Chuck Marohn (Substack)

 

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