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Charles L Marohn Jr
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Thoughts on Building Strong Towns, Volume 1 Kindle Edition

by Charles Marohn (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 49 ratings
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Following World War II, the United States embarked on the great social and financial experiment of suburbanization. While it created tremendous growth, opportunity and prosperity for a generation that had just lived through economic depression and war, the way cities and regions were being built – spread out across the landscape – would ultimately be extremely expensive to sustain, far greater than the relative wealth the approach would generate. The harsh legacy of this reality is what nearly every U.S city faces today. A new approach to creating and sustaining prosperity is necessary.

Charles Marohn is the author of the Strong Towns Blog and founder of the Strong Towns movement. As a civil engineer, land use planner, economic thinker and author, he brings a fresh perspective to the way America's cities have been built and financed. His work has been widely distributed and examined by decision-makers at all levels of society.

Thoughts on Building Strong Towns is a collection of Marohn's thought-provoking essays from 2011, reworked and edited with some additional material and notes added by the author. There are 34 essays in all including: The Growth Ponzi Scheme, The Infrastructure Cult, Do we really care about children?, Complete Roads and The Diverging Diamond.
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  1. Print length
    176 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Sticky notes
    On Kindle Scribe
  4. Publication date
    August 4, 2012
  5. File size
    2415 KB
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Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Charles Marohn is a father, husband and an imaginer of great things. He is the founder of the Strong Towns movement and currently serves as Executive Director of Strong Towns, a 501(c)3 non-profit organization. He is an engineer, planner, author, columnist, podcaster and public speaker. Marohn has a Bachelor's degree in Civil Engineering from the University of Minnesota's Institute of Technology. He is a licensed engineer in the state of Minnesota. He also has received a Master's of Urban and Regional Planning from the University of Minnesota's Humphrey Institute. He holds certification from the American Institute of Certified Planners. Marohn is a member of the Congress for the New Urbanism and is active in their NextGen affiliation. He is also a member of the American Planning Association and the National Society of Professional Engineers.

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B008UJ3AN2
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ August 4, 2012
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 2415 KB
  • Simultaneous device usage ‏ : ‎ Unlimited
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 176 pages
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 49 ratings

About the author

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Charles L Marohn Jr

Charles L Marohn Jr

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My passion is working with cities and towns on issues of economic development, land use and engineering - particularly those places that are seeking answers as to why the standard solutions have failed to create prosperity for them

America's approach to growth has transformed cities rich in history, ingenuity and character into places that are financially fragile and socially frayed. I want to restore the greatness of our cities and towns by reconnecting these places with their historical development pattern. We need to bring back the basic principles of financial resiliency and the importance of community in the measure of prosperity.

I live in my hometown of Brainerd, Minnesota, with my wife, two daughters and two Samoyed dogs. I love playing music, reading and the cheering for the Minnesota Twins.

Customer reviews

4.5 out of 5 stars
4.5 out of 5
49 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

JWR
5.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating engineering & economic take on Post-war urban development
Reviewed in the United States on December 23, 2012
Verified Purchase
This book is a must read for anyone interested in urban development but weary of the impracticality and lack of economic rigor of so much current urban development talk. City planning practitioners and developers, along with anyone active in their local neighborhood assocation would all be served well by the lessons in this book. I discovered Marohn's Strong Towns initiative through some New Urbanism focused blogs that I enjoy, yet are not always practical in terms of diagnoses and solutions for problems with development. Marohn is eminentely practical. In this book, he dives to the core of the problems and perverse incentives built into the infrastruction and development policy of American towns and cities. As a resident of Atlanta, GA, a car-based city if there ever was one, I found this book so exciting because it put into words so many of the problems I've seen yet not fully defined.
2 people found this helpful
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Tracy Davis
5.0 out of 5 stars You need to read this. Really.
Reviewed in the United States on August 23, 2012
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Timely and relevant, Thoughts on Building Strong Towns should be required reading for every local official and concerned citizen. Civil engineer and certified urban planner Chuck Marohn presents a clear, compelling case for what went wrong with the built environment in America, and how our growth pattern has compromised the financial stability and resilience of communities of all sizes.

Chuck offers a reasoned challenge to the conventional wisdom on issues like transportation, infrastructure spending, and economic development, taking stabs at a few sacred cows along the way; but he's never mean-spirited, always thoughtful, and provides an alternative to the established practices being followed by municipalities today.

If you're concerned about your community and want to make a difference, read this book.
10 people found this helpful
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Ryan B
4.0 out of 5 stars Still Reads Like a series of internet articles
Reviewed in the United States on January 8, 2013
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It was enlightening to see how the mechanisms for placemaking are often self serving. Lots of good points and references in the appendix. Most unfortunate is the often circular nature of the writing, due to it being a mashup of articles written by the author on the author's website. It felt a bit like watching a tv-series where the previous episode's storyline is rehashed every episode. Nonetheless quite an eye opening book.
2 people found this helpful
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Phillip Soares
5.0 out of 5 stars The young civil engineer's manifesto!
Reviewed in the United States on March 21, 2015
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As a professional engineer and traffic engineer this is a must read for those who want to make your city better. If you are an engineer, read this book then go and start working with your planning staff to help make a strong, financially resilient community.
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jenilee4843
5.0 out of 5 stars refreshing perspective for conservative planners
Reviewed in the United States on March 24, 2013
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this book is a collection of blog posts, so beware, it reads like a blog. that said, i have really enjoyed this refreshing perspective from a conservative mind on how to accomplish strong towns. well done.
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Marshall
3.0 out of 5 stars Good content; a little off the mark
Reviewed in the United States on April 22, 2013
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This book is written in blog format - it doesn't bother me, but it may to some. I point this out because it was written over time, so the author addresses issues chronologically which makes it a bit unfocused. The book starts out interesting, with the author applying his engineering background to a topic that's so specific I can't imagine anyone just "coming across" it. So thus far, the target audience gets what they expect. About 35-40% in though, he strays from discussing urban planning and gets into the financial state of the U.S. and other countries, monetary policy, etc. While I accept that this is peripherally related to the subject of the book, the lack of firsthand experience or education regarding financial matters means I'm paying to read this guy's musings. So now I'm not getting quite what I had in mind when I bought the book.

The only other shortcoming I've noticed is something very common among infrastructure-related media; complaints. Lots and lots and lots of complaining without any practical discussion of solutions. Entire sections of the book dedicated to examples of how and why our urban sprawl is leaching resources to sustain itself. But that point is made early on (and pretty well established in common culture anyways) and doesn't need to be constantly reinforced.

I enjoyed his use of diagrams to make his points (pretty pictures!) which are well thought out and intriguing, such as the paradox that unlimited mobility has created so many inefficiencies that travel is slower. If you're interested in the subject, I would recommend this book.
8 people found this helpful
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Andrew
5.0 out of 5 stars Great reference book
Reviewed in the United States on September 10, 2013
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Highly relevant to many of the issues facing American cities today. Unlike a normal book, this book is split into many small self-contained articles, but this makes it very easy to use as a reference.
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Dennis Deery
5.0 out of 5 stars Lots of great things to consider
Reviewed in the United States on October 17, 2012
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This book takes a contrary look at how we build infrastructure in this country. It's a great collection of essays from a viewpoint that I wish was considered more in our public discourse.
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