I live in a car-dependent suburb in Iowa. It seems like there's some Strong Towns work being done in Des Moines, but I want to see change happen in the area where I live. I've reached out to a person in Des Moines via email, but I still have no idea what I'm doing. I don't use Facebook and I'm not a social person.

If want to help make change happen, what should I be doing?

So something that seems to go hand-in-hand with stroads are strip malls. They get sold in on this idea that they'll be a shopping "hub" where someone will come in for a haircut at the barber shop and then stop over to get ice cream after and visit the local gaming shop.

In reality this doesn't seem to happen. People drive to the strip mall, do the thing they were there for and then drive away. There might be a little bit of extra shopping in the area because of it, but it doesn't seem enough to justify the problems.

The biggest thing is that since these are scattered across stroads, which are already dangerous thoroughfares through town with never-ending speeding traffic, you end up with constant pulling in and out at every entrance along the stroad as people try to get in and out of various strip malls and other businesses.

If you could somehow fix other issues, would strip malls on their own be a problem? Would there be a way to design a strip mall that could provide some value (like making them accessible off a side road instead of on the main stroad?) or will they always create too much traffic and a need for people to drive from site to site?

Eventually these strip malls seem to grow into full shopping centers where the parking lot itself seems to have mini-stroads inside it just to navigate the area, but I'm mostly referring to the small basic strip malls that are 4 to 12 small retail outlets lined up in a row with a bit of parking out front.

So could you improve strip malls or should they just be bulldozed?

My mom owns this land that is just outside city limits: https://imgur.com/a/gq7pe5P

It's a small, rural town. We have a housing shortage. I'm looking to plan some development for the land, and I'd like to avoid the typical SFH subdivisions, though I think we'll have to do at least a bit of that to raise funds for "better" projects.

I'm personally leaning toward something like 4-5 story mixed-use buildings. Retail on the ground floor with apartments on top. It's only a town of 11,000 people though so probably couldn't support a ton of that. However this section of town is pretty far from commercial hubs, so a bit of retail space could be good for the neighborhood.

Another idea I had would be a microhouse community. Several creative and uniquely designed microhouses with some shared outdoor space and amenities.

Also open to ideas of something like a public park or monument if it might provide some public value while also helping me get more value out of residential development.

While we would need to make money, I'd like to use the opportunity to do something that would provide smart long-term value to the town. I'm also a little concerned about car dependency issues. We're a small town, so traffic isn't really an issue but we're still very car dependent, and the next town over has been growing very fast and is around 60,000 people, but it has gotten very congested in parts and most new construction is being done on stroads that are entirely unwalkable. We don't have public transit, so I don't think anything I could do in this particular space would really tackle the car-dependency issue we have, but if I can do something that would alleviate it and help this spot become a nice self-contained neighborhood in 40 or 50 years, that would be nice.

Reducing Gridlock, Saving You Time Act, 2024 (Bill 212)

This bill, if passed (which is looking very likely), will amend the Highway Traffic Act so that:

• The construction of any cycling infrastructure that requires the removal or conversation of a road lane will require provincial approval. So basically if a protected bike lane slows down car traffic by a paltry 30 seconds, the province can step in and block construction. In practice, they probably won't even take city data into consideration before issuing their verdict.
• The recently-installed separated and protected cycling paths on Yonge Street, Bloor Street (photographs here - they are beautiful), and University Avenue will be ripped up and converted back into car lanes.

Ontario, Canada residents - submit your comment to the provincial government at this website. Today is the LAST DAY to do so.

• Creating an account just requires an email address.
• When submitting your comment, be sure to add this letter from the Ontario Traffic Council and this statement from the Ontario Society of Professional Engineers, both of whom oppose this legislation.
• Add any other documentation, papers, or traffic studies you see fit.

In addition, this bill also hides some pretty nefarious stuff:

• Limits landowners' ability to challenge the possession dates in expropriation cases. Basically, the province c could say you've gotta move out of your house next week to make room for a highway, and you have no ability to request a delay.
• If a provincial inspector damages property owned by a municipality, this bill essentially says tough luck, the city isn't entitled to compensation.
• Exempts Highway 413 from Ontario’s Environmental Assessment Act and certain provisions of the Planning Act.

“Road Diet” is a horrible term. It immediately invokes the feeling of scarcity, discomfort, and resistance.

Road optimize or maximum or enhancement would be a much easier sell to the general public, and the politicians who represent them. Simple numbers of capacity are hard to argue with. A lane of cars parked cars moves zero people. A car lane can only move 2000 people during rush hour, a bike lane can move 14,000 in that time, and a dedicated bus lane can move 20,000. Increasing something by 10x isn’t called a “diet” in any other context.

city budget snapshot: https://i.imgur.com/teVIZIO.png

video about the jackson: https://youtu.be/bQE_zNs5HOU?si=dnq4GGm0O3P34lSO

"In 2020, Wyoming’s governor even commented that small towns may have to be  abandoned if the cost of maintaining them grows."

We all know that for the same home, if renters are owners, maintenance and repair costs will go down, crime rate will go down, and monthly payment will go down. Then why governments are subsidizing rental?

City of Houston allows minimum lot size of 1600 sqft (25 per gross acre) or 1250 sqft under certain conditions (35 per gross acre). More smaller size homes are being build in the city. What other cities are going this way?

An example here

https://www.zillow.com/homes/504-Schweikhardt-St-.num.B-Houston,-TX-77020_rb/339419373_zpid/

4 story single family home, 1,736 sqft floor area on a 1,750 sqft lot

Now that Project 2025's transportation and housing policies will be enacted, we will be fighting against not only state level policies but federal policies that are hostile to safe streets for all and denser housing types.

I watched "Safety Last!", a silent-movie-era icon, and couldn't help but calculate out the rent these fellows were paying for their well-furnished, walkable-neighborhood room. Each would pay $278 per month in 2024 dollars!

https://preview.redd.it/fhvucg7zijxd1.png?width=1119&format=png&auto=webp&s=3cc343fdcb02030b68da96bac9e8ad750c4b1056

Hey! I was watching one of chuck's videos and he talked about how he started a contest that gave $100 to 20 people to make improvements in the neighborhood. Over the course of 4 rounds, the winner would receive $5000 for their neighborhood project of choice. Does anyone know where I can find more details about how they ran that contest?

It seems like there's no right answer for this one. On paper, this sounds great. Costa-Hawkins is bad and this repeals it and allows cities to set their own rent controls. However, the opposition claims that cities will set their rents unreasonably low to prevent new housing from being built.

The argument seems tenuous because it requires the assumption that cities will set low rents to stifle growth, but on the other hand I can totally see that happening.

The prop is authored by the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, whose president is a known slumlord that generally is not an "affordable housing" type.

Anyone have advice on which way to vote for this one? The current system sucks - is this a fix or just another future problem?