Wednesday, December 04, 2019
Strong Towns
by Charles L. Marohn, Jr.
I was trying to think of a metaphor to describe the topic of this book. The one that popped in my head was, "Turn the car around, we're going the wrong way." Which is ironic since Mr. Mahron decries car culture in this book. Strong Towns makes the case that America has screwed up. For thousands of years humanity has worked out systems of living together, putting together functional cities, towns, and villages by trial and error. After World War II, the United States, awash with wealth and technology, tried something new and started growing our communities far and wide. The problem has now arisen, however, that the new and shiny needs some maintenance and the money's not there. The new infrastructure is a poor foundation for creating the income needed to maintain a decent life. The solution, according to Mr. Marohn, is not to find more wealth somehow and throw it into further growth. Rather, the direction we should be heading is back to what has worked: smaller, walkable, and more personal communities. Communities that build slowly and small, communities that require people to invest themselves in it. It's an interesting concept. The road to that goal looks like it won't be fun. But it does sound like it might be worth it.
Check it out.
LibraryThing link
I was trying to think of a metaphor to describe the topic of this book. The one that popped in my head was, "Turn the car around, we're going the wrong way." Which is ironic since Mr. Mahron decries car culture in this book. Strong Towns makes the case that America has screwed up. For thousands of years humanity has worked out systems of living together, putting together functional cities, towns, and villages by trial and error. After World War II, the United States, awash with wealth and technology, tried something new and started growing our communities far and wide. The problem has now arisen, however, that the new and shiny needs some maintenance and the money's not there. The new infrastructure is a poor foundation for creating the income needed to maintain a decent life. The solution, according to Mr. Marohn, is not to find more wealth somehow and throw it into further growth. Rather, the direction we should be heading is back to what has worked: smaller, walkable, and more personal communities. Communities that build slowly and small, communities that require people to invest themselves in it. It's an interesting concept. The road to that goal looks like it won't be fun. But it does sound like it might be worth it.
Check it out.
LibraryThing link
Labels: CheckItOut
// posted by John @ 7:52 PM 
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