You need to sign in or sign up before continuing.
Scan barcode
Reviews
Strong Towns: A Bottom-Up Revolution to Rebuild American Prosperity by Charles L. Marohn Jr.
jazzypizzaz's review
3.0
I generally agree with what he envisions as a successful city -- empowered citizens that shape their own environments, tightknit communities, principles of good urbanism, human-centered design, wealth creation > mindless growth, etc. However it's hard to take him seriously when he's not citing anything of intellectual rigor (Jared Diamond as a primary source??), not engaging with cases where his proposals become more complicated or with real counter arguments, going on random digressions, employing overly simplistic unnecessary analogies, and generally not going into any grounded depth.
tinyplanet's review against another edition
challenging
informative
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
3.5
leftcoast's review
hopeful
informative
reflective
medium-paced
4.0
Read as a group over four sessions. The group leader used provided questions to steer the discussion. When combined with a group taking local action, it’s a great read. A little fry at times but that’s the material.
The analysis is very close to a marxist critique but never quite gets there. Palatable to a wide array of folks, which I find quite an achievement.
Overall good read if you are even remotely interested in learning how your North American city works (and doesn’t).
The analysis is very close to a marxist critique but never quite gets there. Palatable to a wide array of folks, which I find quite an achievement.
Overall good read if you are even remotely interested in learning how your North American city works (and doesn’t).
gee_buttersnaps's review
3.0
This is a good introduction for urban planning, but I find it lacking in depth. At many points it just felt dull, however when he gave actual real world examples of his ideas I found it very entertaining (he didn’t give very many unfortunately). I wish he would’ve put some more counter arguments in this book. I do love the ideologies of this book though. Makes perfect sense and is much better for his mental and physical health. Anyone wanting to go more in-depth in this can look at YouTube channel “Not Just Bikes” he has awesome videos on urban planning.
heather_goodreid's review
3.0
I wasn’t sure if this book was going to be another preaching to the choir book, but it was mostly about municipal finance, which I don’t know much about. It was new information for me and I think it was still approachable for people outside of urban planning circles. The author definitely prizes incremental planning over advocacy planning which I didn’t love but his points were made. I still got a bit of whiplash when he chastised governments (I guess state and federal
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?