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Reviews
Strong Towns: A Bottom-Up Revolution to Rebuild American Prosperity by Charles L. Marohn Jr.
tom_mckeown's review
5.0
Great insight into the evolution of North American cities and the issues they now face. A damning indictment of growth for the sake of growth and money above all else policies. Sensible solutions that are crying out to be implemented; but will they be?
jung's review
hopeful
informative
reflective
medium-paced
2.75
Probably the biggest insight of this book is that often rich suburbs provide less in taxable value per acre than urban areas, even those seemingly financially poor, yet we provide much more in-terms of services and upkeep to the former. A generally engaging dissection of american planning and development through the city-as-adaptable-ecosystem lens. Marohn’s approach of looking at city infrastructure requirements through the small-scale economic interactions between people is pretty compelling, as is the hegelian dialectic lens that he looks at ancient cities with, although i think Marohn beats around the bush of the simple thesis that american suburbia has been economically and culturally disastrous and completely gutted a way of living that has been perfected over thousands of years.
it was cool to understand the development policies put in place that led to urbanized sprawl, as well as the accounting logic used to justify such massive developments. ex. the claim that building a major road will bring X dollars of economic value to a town is generally totally unfounded and is used to justify the development cost. Thinking about the investment we put into american cities did make me view roads, bridges, etc. as liabilities in the future.
The crux of this book- that american cities are financially insolvent due to the infrastructure and maintenance requirements needed is one bay i can get behind; however, Marohn could have used more concrete numbers to explain this. I generally agree that the amount of road and electrical and water infrastructure needed in suburbia exceeds what is extracted through taxation, but Marohn’s doom-and-gloom approach of the impending descaling of our current cities asserts itself as inevitability, while not having the groundwork to prove it (he uses detroit as an example of this economic decline, and claims most american cities will see something similar within 30 yrs.)
Marohn also lost me in the weeds when he started going into modern monetary theory and the federal reserve lol. I don’t think it needed to go that deep to explain why we develop the way we do, and that chapter was basically a wash. Still: relatively informative approach to american city restructuring, and ways in which our current cities fail us.
it was cool to understand the development policies put in place that led to urbanized sprawl, as well as the accounting logic used to justify such massive developments. ex. the claim that building a major road will bring X dollars of economic value to a town is generally totally unfounded and is used to justify the development cost. Thinking about the investment we put into american cities did make me view roads, bridges, etc. as liabilities in the future.
The crux of this book- that american cities are financially insolvent due to the infrastructure and maintenance requirements needed is one bay i can get behind; however, Marohn could have used more concrete numbers to explain this. I generally agree that the amount of road and electrical and water infrastructure needed in suburbia exceeds what is extracted through taxation, but Marohn’s doom-and-gloom approach of the impending descaling of our current cities asserts itself as inevitability, while not having the groundwork to prove it (he uses detroit as an example of this economic decline, and claims most american cities will see something similar within 30 yrs.)
Marohn also lost me in the weeds when he started going into modern monetary theory and the federal reserve lol. I don’t think it needed to go that deep to explain why we develop the way we do, and that chapter was basically a wash. Still: relatively informative approach to american city restructuring, and ways in which our current cities fail us.
kaylab's review against another edition
challenging
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
3.75
jcppira's review
5.0
I would recommend this book to anyone with a modicum of interest in human development patterns, economics, geography, or local politics. Its modest size means it isn't a large commitment for those who might doubt their interest in non-fiction. While I've rated this book a five, I must note up front that I do take some issue with the structure; I just feel the rest is enough to make up for that concern.
On a content basis, this book and the message it delivers is incredibly important. We are facing an infrastructure crisis in the US, but it's not the one that your local pundit (liberal or conservative) has informed you of; it's far more insidious than most political outlets report.
I've been a follower of the Strong Towns movement and writing for years, and am a firm believer in the sensible, if painful, solutions that Chuck, his team, and his advocates espouse. This book distills years worth of writing by the Strong Towns team into its most essential elements. Better yet, it's written in layman's terms, so you don't need to be a professional engineer or politician to understand.
Now, for my structural concern. I applaud Chuck for avoiding a too-common, frustrating trope in short non-fiction pieces: spending the first third of the book repeatedly telling the reader: "As I'll explain in later chapters...". Instead, Chuck hops right into the core narrative any reader needs to carry forward. However, in the final chapters, I felt that a number of the passages were too often reminding me of assertions made in the first half of the novel; assertions I didn't need to be reminded of, because as I said, the book isn't very long! In short, the later chapters all contain important content, but could have done with some trimming.
I'll conclude by posting sharing one of my favorite quotations from the book, and offering to anyone that I will send you a copy of this book if you're interested in giving it a thought.
"The underlying assumption of the American development pattern is an abundance of resources"
On a content basis, this book and the message it delivers is incredibly important. We are facing an infrastructure crisis in the US, but it's not the one that your local pundit (liberal or conservative) has informed you of; it's far more insidious than most political outlets report.
I've been a follower of the Strong Towns movement and writing for years, and am a firm believer in the sensible, if painful, solutions that Chuck, his team, and his advocates espouse. This book distills years worth of writing by the Strong Towns team into its most essential elements. Better yet, it's written in layman's terms, so you don't need to be a professional engineer or politician to understand.
Now, for my structural concern. I applaud Chuck for avoiding a too-common, frustrating trope in short non-fiction pieces: spending the first third of the book repeatedly telling the reader: "As I'll explain in later chapters...". Instead, Chuck hops right into the core narrative any reader needs to carry forward. However, in the final chapters, I felt that a number of the passages were too often reminding me of assertions made in the first half of the novel; assertions I didn't need to be reminded of, because as I said, the book isn't very long! In short, the later chapters all contain important content, but could have done with some trimming.
I'll conclude by posting sharing one of my favorite quotations from the book, and offering to anyone that I will send you a copy of this book if you're interested in giving it a thought.
"The underlying assumption of the American development pattern is an abundance of resources"
mystech's review
informative
slow-paced
4.0
"Strong Towns: A Bottom-Up Revolution to Rebuild American Prosperity" by Charles L. Marohn Jr. is a thought-provoking book that challenges traditional notions of urban development and highlights the flaws in our current approach to building cities and towns. Marohn argues that our current model of development, which prioritizes large-scale projects and investments in infrastructure, is not sustainable in the long term. He advocates for a "bottom-up" approach that emphasizes incremental, small-scale development and investment in existing communities. The author does take a brief, and unnecessary indulgence into false equivalence (attempting to justify right wing extremism) and libertarianism but these are isolated and easily discarded fallacies. These flaws aside , "Strong Towns" is a must-read for anyone interested in urban planning, community development, or the future of our cities and towns. It offers a compelling vision for a more sustainable and resilient future and provides practical advice for how we can get there.
retroviridae's review
informative
medium-paced
5.0
This book does a great job explaining the strong towns ideas.