Illinois is short roughly 130,000 homes today and needs about 240,000 more by 2030. The state can’t change mortgage rates or material costs, so Governor JB Pritzker of Illinois is targeting something else: the rules that make homes hard to build. He walks through the Build Initiative, a set of bills to legalize more ADUs and small multifamily buildings, relax some parking and stairway requirements, standardize impact fees, and put limits on permit delays. He also talks about local pushback, bipartisan support, and why these modest changes could mean more housing choices without the sense that neighborhoods are being upended.

• Governor JB Pritzker (LinkedIn)
• Chuck Marohn (Substack)

This podcast is made possible by Strong Towns members. Thank you! Join fellow members discussing this episode in The Commons.

A trip to Italy left Chuck surprised by how ordinary Catholic life felt in a country filled with churches. A later visit to Hasidic Brooklyn stayed with him for a different reason: families living under intense physical constraints, yet ordering their lives around faith and community. Those memories frame this talk at a Catholic church in Minnesota, where Chuck turns from faraway examples to a more personal question: what would it mean for a parish to care not only for the sanctuary, but for the blocks around it?

• Chuck Marohn (Substack)

This podcast is made possible by Strong Towns members. Thank you! Join fellow members discussing this episode in The Commons.

Congressman Jake Auchincloss joins the the Strong Towns podcast with a case for localism that takes it seriously without treating it as a cure-all. He explains why localism deserves a bigger role in national politics, not as a slogan, but as a way to rebuild trust and solve problems closer to the ground. That idea gets tested against some of the hardest problems facing cities today: transportation systems that reward expansion over maintenance, a housing market that has lost its entry-level rung, and federal policies that often struggle to match local realities. The conversation closes with a warning about digital life and a defense of face-to-face community.

• Jake Auchincloss (LinkedIn, Substack, Site)
• "Digital Dopamine is Consuming America. It's Time to Fight for IRL.", (Article)
• Chuck Marohn (Substack)

This podcast is made possible by Strong Towns members. Thank you! Join fellow members discussing this episode in The Commons.

Is a city “dynamic” just because its charts point up and to the right? Chuck uses a week in the UK to question that assumption. In Manchester, a swelling population of 20‑somethings looks like success, until you notice how many smaller places have been drained to supply that energy. In one of those towns, residents speak of decline, crime, and the loss of their pub, even as few can name a moment they truly felt unsafe. Across focus groups, government programs, and carefully planned districts, he traces the same pattern and asks: when growth is easy to measure, what deeper dynamism are we missing?

• Chuck Marohn (Substack)

This podcast is made possible by Strong Towns members. Thank you! Join fellow members discussing this episode in The Commons.

When planner Patrick Kennedy started asking why prime land near downtown Dallas was filled with parking lots and boarded‑up buildings, the trail led straight to an elevated freeway: I‑345. He explains how making a hard economic case for removal—showing that taking the highway out could deliver the highest return on investment with minimal traffic impacts—grew into the Atlas of Inner City Highway Impacts, a data‑driven look at 142 U.S. cities. Kennedy details how inner‑city highways consume acres of valuable land, depress nearby property values, and either clog up all day in thriving metros or cut through struggling ones at full speed, while federal funding formulas and induced demand keep pushing us toward more lanes.

• Patrick Kennedy (LinkedIn)
• The Human Ecosystem (Site)
• Atlas of Inner-City Highway Impacts (PDF)
• "Adding Up What Urban Highways Really Cost", by Benjamin Schneider (Article)
• Chuck Marohn (Substack)

This podcast is made possible by Strong Towns members. Thank you! Join fellow members discussing this episode in The Commons.

Speaking to planners in New Zealand, Chuck Marohn connects the country’s adopted infrastructure plan with a global pattern of cities that have grown themselves into insolvency. He traces the shift from incremental, pre‑Depression neighborhoods to postwar sprawl and explores what it looks like for planners to stop chasing the next expansion and start making better use of what’s already built.

• Te Waihanga (Site)
• Te Waihanga National Infrastructure Plan (Site)
• Chuck Marohn (Substack)

This podcast is made possible by Strong Towns members. Thank you!

Good arguments fail when they ignore how people feel. Chuck Marohn and Joshua Bandoch talk through using empathy, ethical persuasion, and values-based stories with everyone from public works directors to concerned residents. Their examples reveal why understanding fears and incentives often matters more than another chart or study.

• Joshua Bandoch (LinkedIn)
• How to Get What You Want (Book)
• How to be more persuasive (Tedx Talk)
• Joshua Bandoch (Site)
• Chuck Marohn (Substack)

This podcast is made possible by Strong Towns members. Thank you!

Chuck and Kevin Klinkenberg explore why progress comes from people who stop waiting for permission and start doing things locally. They look at incremental developers, neighborhood groups, and the limits of top-down systems in cities like Kansas City. Along the way, they wrestle with incentives, housing, and how much order a city actually needs.

• Kevin Klinkenberg (LinkedIn)
• The Messy City Podcast (Spotify)
• The Messy City (Substack)
• The Messy City (Site)
• Chuck Marohn (Substack)

This podcast is made possible by Strong Towns members. Thank you!

Chuck Marohn and Tony Dutzik unpack the messy history of the gas tax, cross‑subsidies between states, and the moral story drivers were told about “user fees.” They revisit highway revolts, the rise of federal transit funding, and the long slide into Highway Trust Fund bailouts. Their conversation lays out stark choices for the next chapter of national transportation policy.

• Tony Dutzik (LinkedIn)
• Call "Time Out" on Highway Boondoggles (Article)
• Frontier Group (Site)
• What Comes After the Interstate Era? | New Report  (Youtube)
• Read the Mission Accomplished White Paper.
• Chuck Marohn (Substack)

This podcast is made possible by Strong Towns members. Thank you!

In this moderated panel at the REACH Ideas + Action Summit, Chuck Marohn and California Forever’s Jim Wunderman tackle California’s housing crisis from two very different angles: maturing existing neighborhoods and building a brand‑new city. Together they wrestle with whether local reforms, new towns, or both can deliver real affordability in places like Santa Barbara and beyond.

• California Forever (Site)
• REACH (LinkedIn)
• Jim Wunderman (LinkedIn)
• Jocelyn Brennan (LinkedIn)
• Chuck Marohn (Substack)

This podcast is made possible by Strong Towns members. Thank you!

New Zealand’s infrastructure commission added up every sector’s project wish‑list—and found a bill voters could never realistically pay. In this conversation, Geoff Cooper and Chuck Marohn unpack the national plan that starts by centering maintenance and renewals, then shows how that shifts the debate over big new projects, growth on the fringe, and the pressure on public budgets.

• Geoff Cooper (LinkedIn)
• Te Waihanga (Site)
• Te Waihanga National Infrastructure Plan (Site)
• Chuck Marohn (Substack)

This podcast is made possible by Strong Towns members. Thank you!