The ShortList
- [Article] “Sacramento is at a tipping point. What’s the future of housing, sprawl and racial inequality?” – A Sacramento Bee piece about why Sacramento must stop sprawl and exclusive single-family housing developments and build dense, mixed-use instead to address our housing crisis.
- [Video] Strong Towns: “It’s Time To Rethink How We Measure Cities. We Can’t Afford Not To” – This 13-min video explains how greater density is better for a city’s finances, safety, sustainability, and enjoyability.
- [Article] Mashable: Why the pedestrian dignity movement should be your next accessibility cause – This article explains the social justice urgency of decentering cars and recentering humans and walkability.
- [Podcast] The War on Cars: “The High Cost of Free Parking with Donald Shoup” – This 45-min interview summarizes the problems of free parking and talks about specific actions we can take to make parking spots improve, rather than pollute and harm, our cities.
- [Podcast] Strong Towns: How engineers should think about building wealth in communities – This 50-min interview between Strong Towns founder and Ian Lockwood, a livable transportation engineer, talks about how transportation engineering can be done differently to build better cities.
- [Article] Strong Towns Lingo – A short glossary of often-used phrases in our advocacy and education.
In-Depth Resources
- Strong Towns Action Lab – A great compendium of resources, case studies, articles, and examples of what cities and Strong Towns chapters across the country are doing.
- Strong Towns Crash Analysis Studio – A guided framework to analyze the multiple factors that caused car crashes and identify what can be done to reduce the frequency and trauma of future crashes. Some Sacramento members are beginning to discuss doing something like this for Sacramento!
- Strong Towns Academy – Free and in-depth paid courses to develop skills to advocate and organize locally.
- Mobilizing Your Community to Become a Strong Town – A $75 course to jumpstart learning how to rally your neighbors and start taking action.
- Parking Reform Network – A group dedicated to transforming parking policies, including an interactive map that shows how much land is dedicated to parking. Some Sacramento members are developing our own, in-depth map!
- Not Just Bikes + Strong Towns – Free discussion guides that go with each Not Just Bikes video to help kickstart conversations in your community.
- Tactical Urbanist’s Guide – An practical guide to successful “DIY” urbanism.
Podcasts
- The Strong Towns Podcast
- Upzoned, a Strong Towns podcast
- The Bottom-Up Revolution, a Strong Towns podcast
- Building Local Power from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance
- The War on Cars
- Reinventing Parking from the Parking Reform Network
- Freeway Exit, a 6-episode series from KPBS Radio
- Arrested Mobility
YouTube Channels
Pages That Inspire Us
- Segregation By Design (Instagram, Website)
- Pedestrian Dignity (Instagram)
- Crosswalks Collective LA (Instagram, Website)
- Asheville Bench Project (Instagram)
- Our Streets MPLS (Instagram, Website)
Books
- Strong Towns: A Bottom-Up Revolution for American Prosperity, by Charles Marohn
- Suburban Nation: The Rise of Sprawl and the Decline of the American Dream, by Andres Duany, Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, and Jeff Speck
- Curbing Traffic: The Human Case for Fewer Cars in our Lives, by Chris Bruntlett and Melissa Bruntlett
- Inclusive Transportation: A Manifesto for Repairing Divided Communities, by Veronica Davis
- Right of Way: Race, Class, and the Silent Epidemic of Pedestrian Deaths in America, by Angie Schmitt
- There Are No Accidents: The Deadly Rise of Injury and Disaster–Who Profits and Who Pays the Price, Jessie Singer
- Crash Course: If You Want to Get Away with Murder Buy a Car, by Woodrow Phoenix
- Paved Paradise: How Parking Explains the World, by Henry Grabar
- Zoned in the USA: The Origins and Implications of American Land-Use Regulation, by Sonia Hirt
- The Geography of Nowhere: The Rise and Declineof America’s Man-Made Landscape, by James Howard Kunstler
- Tactical Urbanism: Short-Term Action for Long-Term Change, by Mike Lydon and Anthony Garcia
- Walkable City: How Downtown Can Save America, One Step at a Time, by Jeff Speck
- Cities and the Wealth of Nations: Principles of Economic Life, by Jane Jacobs
- Big-Box Swindle: The True Cost of Mega-Retailers and the Fight for America’s Independent Businesses, by Stacy Mitchell
- Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City, by Matthew Desmond
- Missing Middle Housing: Thinking Big and Building Small to Respond to Today’s Housing Crisis, by Daniel Parolek
- The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America, by Richard Rothstein
Want even more? Check out The Ultimate Strong Towns Reading List.
Strong SacTown Tip: Support local and buy your books from East Village Bookshop in East Sac or Underground Books, a nonprofit Black-owned bookstore in Oak Park!