A couple weeks ago, Chuck Marohn shared an image on Facebook that sparked a contentious conversation. It was an illustration of a potential retrofit project, turning a suburban big box site into a slightly denser — but still quite auto-oriented — development. Comments rained in from other Strong Towns advocates, many in agreement, others pushing back. Then the developer who originally posted the image called us and asked to talk. So we invited him onto our podcast.
Bob Barber is a founder partner at Orion Planning+Design, a Mississippi native and the former planning director for the City of Hernando, MS. In this conversation with Chuck Marohn, Barber discusses the challenges and different approaches to pushing for change in smaller, more suburban communities. In his experience, the people who approach change from a positive angle in the communities where he works have a much better chance of building a strong town than the people who begin by putting the community down and pointing out where it has gone wrong.
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Greatest Hits #10: John Dominic Crossan (2013)
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Greatest Hits #8: Gross Negligence (2015)
Greatest Hits #7: Talking Debt and Self-Sufficiency With Mr. Money Mustache (2016)
Ask Strong Towns #7
Greatest Hits #6: Time to End the Routine Traffic Stop (2016)
Greatest Hits #5: Approaching a Divided America With Open Eyes (2017)
Greatest Hits #4: Lots of Small Earthquakes: How a Place Becomes Antifragile (2015)
Ask Strong Towns: Celebrity Edition with Stacy Mitchell
Greatest Hits #3: Is a City More Like a Washing Machine or a Cat? (2015)
Greatest Hits #2: Steven Shultis on "Bad" Urban Schools (2015)
Greatest Hits #1: America Answers Forum on Infrastructure (2015)
2019 Update
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