Strong Towns’ Chuck Marohn in DTLA, Pasadena Next Week
One of my livability heroes, Chuck Marohn, is in Los Angeles next week giving a couple of talks. Marohn is the brains behind the organization Strong Towns. Marohn is a planner and engineer who is doing some of the most original, most valuable, most common sense thinking on urbanism and transportation.
I’ve learned a lot from Chuck Marohn’s articles and podcasts. He is insightful and often funny. Among his insights are looking at big roads from a fiscal perspective. I have long argued against conventional traffic engineering priorities from an environmental and safety perspective; Marohn taught me how this ill-considered infrastructure is also a huge fiscal drag on cities.
On Wednesday, February 17, the L.A. chapter of the American Planning Association hosts a Charles Marohn talk entitled “Transportation in the Next American City.” The event takes place at 7 p.m. at the SoCal Gas Tower Conference Area at 555 West 5th Street in downtown L.A. It is free for APA and Strong Towns members and students; tickets are $10 for non-members. Register here.
Here is the blurb from Strong Towns:
For more than six decades, local governments have been accustomed to building new transportation infrastructure, expanding existing systems in addition to constructing completely new facilities. While liabilities have grown, transportation funding has not kept up. Now there is a desperate need for local governments to shift from building to maintaining, from an approach that emphasizes expansion to one where we mature our use of existing investments. In difficult economic times, this is a scary, but necessary, realignment.
Join Strong Towns founder Charles “Chuck” Marohn and explore the relationship between a city or region’s long-range fiscal health and its transportation investment strategy. Specifically, Chuck will make a budgetary case for prioritizing investments such as walkable streets in the central cores. He’ll address how these investments can protect local budgets, control the rise of property taxes, protect long-term affordability, and provide for enduring prosperity.
On Thursday, February 18, the Downtown Pasadena Neighborhood Association hosts Chuck Marohn giving his renowned Curbside Chat. The event takes place at 7 p.m. at Pasadena Presbyterian Church’s Gamble Lounge at 585 East Colorado Boulevard in Pasadena. The event is free, but pre-registration is encouraged.
Strong Towns describes the Curbside Chat as addressing these kinds of questions:
- Why are our cities and towns so short of resources despite decades of robust growth?
- Why do we struggle at the local level just to maintain our basic infrastructure?
- What do we do now that the economy has changed so dramatically?
The answers lie in the way we have developed; the financial productivity of our places. This stunning presentation is a game-changer for communities looking to grow more resilient and obtain true prosperity during changing times.
Don’t miss Chuck Marohn next week! Register today. What are you waiting for?