As part of the Strong Towns "ground game" (I know it's a true representation, but I hate the political metaphor) as a local conversation leader, I have found the urban/rural (including suburban) attitude polarization really hard to communicate these ideas in. It is almost impossible to make rational arguments about urbanism (the S.T. type that transcend left/right politics) as I am constantly labeled an "out of touch elitist SOB" (this was a real quote) and once we are there, all communication of ideas stops no matter what is written. We need a subtle shift in the messaging that can get past this wall. No idea what that might be, I'm just not that smart. Help!
For me anyway Strong Towns is what did that for me. I would find myself reading their stuff and being like, "Wait, this is that leftist elite stuff but it makes perfect sense now." I feel like I was primed to reject urbanism but had no real personal opinion on it. I charitably assume most skeptics out there are the same, but maybe some understand it and reject it. The thing about ST is it doesn't use any of the popular words that tell you which snap judgment to make. But eventually that language may need updates or innovations.
All true for sure, but the 45 degree shift in the political axis from traditional left/right to populist/elitist has thrown a wrench in the fiscally conservative ST arguments. Being labeled an "elitist" is a full stop on the conversation and seems to trump (no pun intended) all other arguments.
One small clarification: Strong Towns has a budget larger than CNU and growing (while CNU revenue is flat), and actually more staff and twice as many members. Honestly as a long-time strong towns guy, it can be hard to keep up with their growth!
This is very true. I'm not a public policy wonk - I am a manufacturing engineer. I grew up loving cars. What made me an urbanist was that realization you talk about but sorta via high cost of housing and YIMBYism. Creating an ivory tower of Urbanism that looks down on uninitiateds wouldn't have convinced me to become one. It's good to have a playbook of things to do that can make a place more urbanist, and test and discuss those things. But like you said, you've got to reach the dummies like me. Clearly I was reached, and I think it was by your substack in large part. So good work! Haha
As a CNU veteran, I would say you are 100% correct, and this is a big reason why CNU is what it is, and why other aligned movements have eclipsed it in stature and energy.
So well said! You don't get to the point of implementing these changes without the public's buy-in. Average people need to understand how design affects their life and how the way we build now does not need to be how we continue to build.
At this point, CNU is no longer a movement and that's fine. I would not attend CNU because it's expensive and their content does not inspire me as it once did. I changed and so did they. That's fine. Given that orthodox planners' most resilient armor is "Trust the experts; we're the experts!", CNU serves an important purpose as an organization with interdisciplinary expertise. This, in turn, is an important point of advocacy for the urbanist movement. We need experts who can expose the pseudo-technical arguments of orthodox planners. But the movement needs many non-experts as well. CNU is not a good organization for non-experts.
I agree. There's so much that's interesting and worth writing about, but at least as far as I can tell, not a great deal of interest on the part of publishers to pay for it. And that's why I've been trying content marketing and copywriting and am nopw looking for full-time jobs doing anything.
I attended CNU in 2003 (on a press pass) and was part of the New England Chapter and helped with CNU in Providence, RI----all as a journalist and marketer.
The folks who got it off the ground were middle-aged guys, Baby Boomer dudes (Calthorpe, et al). But there's only so much appetite and need for a pep rally. Ultimately, you need tools, and those might be dry and boring to journalists. CNU was great as an event that drew architects, planners, and regulators: Those are three siloes that needed to talk to each other. It's OK if everyone gets the schtick now and has moved on.
Strong Towns has long been targeted to the public citizen audience, not professionals.
Also, I sense that the whole conference scene has changed---like there is less enthusiasm for the big conferences unless you know you will pick up tools, credentials, how to meet legal requirements, or contacts (such as at GreenBuild).
Yep, if it wasn't for Strong Towns and your writing - both years ago- I may never have encountered these ideas before. Whatever high-falutin conversations are going on in board rooms or conference centers, your average person isn't part of them. But these ideas play *so much* into everything related to family formation and flourishing, and I think a lot of people just don't have the language for why so much feels difficult, as you say. We can't know what to change if we don't have a common vernacular for what we're feeling.
I felt the same thing at TRB, the big transportation planning/engineering conference. At least in 2023, you could build entire tracks about concrete or scheduling software but there was nothing about comms or outreach.
This post 1000%. How ideas are communicated is in fact vastly more important than their actual content, as a general rule. NU has essentially gone nowhere in terms of practical achievements (beyond the oft-maligned historic districts, and the occasional newfangled pedestrian street) because only a few uber-elites even know it exists as a concept.
What one today calls New Urbanism (I call it human-scale building as that's really the underlying basic theme, and intrinsically sounds like a good thing) needs to be reduced to a catchprase that local politicians can run on, or at least incorporate into their platforms. "Good schools, bike lanes, and New Urbanism" sounds weird.
Ah, gotcha, thanks for the clarification! (Sensitive subject. My spouse is a landscape architect and, well, let's just say it's not a widely respected or understood profession, despite the pedigree, and thus unlike, alas, "architect".)
I spent my professional life in communications and it's as a communicator that I engage in the issues you talk about in Cincinnati, where I live. I would have been one more nonprofessional urbanist in the room at both ST and CNU (and an older one at that) had I not fractured my ankle the week before.
Communications is often an afterthought in any major initiative, and yet in my experience it plays a significant role in the initiative's ultimate success or failure. And especially with major changes, it's almost impossible to overcommunicate -- something driven home to me last Friday as I listened to the city planning commission respond to resident feedback on a new zoning initiative, Connected Communities, the city plans to enact. (https://experience.arcgis.com/experience/341c80f53c764e0abd4199aeeb18b2de)
As part of the Strong Towns "ground game" (I know it's a true representation, but I hate the political metaphor) as a local conversation leader, I have found the urban/rural (including suburban) attitude polarization really hard to communicate these ideas in. It is almost impossible to make rational arguments about urbanism (the S.T. type that transcend left/right politics) as I am constantly labeled an "out of touch elitist SOB" (this was a real quote) and once we are there, all communication of ideas stops no matter what is written. We need a subtle shift in the messaging that can get past this wall. No idea what that might be, I'm just not that smart. Help!
For me anyway Strong Towns is what did that for me. I would find myself reading their stuff and being like, "Wait, this is that leftist elite stuff but it makes perfect sense now." I feel like I was primed to reject urbanism but had no real personal opinion on it. I charitably assume most skeptics out there are the same, but maybe some understand it and reject it. The thing about ST is it doesn't use any of the popular words that tell you which snap judgment to make. But eventually that language may need updates or innovations.
All true for sure, but the 45 degree shift in the political axis from traditional left/right to populist/elitist has thrown a wrench in the fiscally conservative ST arguments. Being labeled an "elitist" is a full stop on the conversation and seems to trump (no pun intended) all other arguments.
Hi Addison, good to meet you at CNU!
One small clarification: Strong Towns has a budget larger than CNU and growing (while CNU revenue is flat), and actually more staff and twice as many members. Honestly as a long-time strong towns guy, it can be hard to keep up with their growth!
Wow, I would not have guessed that
I hear you Seth, sometimes I feel like I'm being spun off a merry go round!
This is very true. I'm not a public policy wonk - I am a manufacturing engineer. I grew up loving cars. What made me an urbanist was that realization you talk about but sorta via high cost of housing and YIMBYism. Creating an ivory tower of Urbanism that looks down on uninitiateds wouldn't have convinced me to become one. It's good to have a playbook of things to do that can make a place more urbanist, and test and discuss those things. But like you said, you've got to reach the dummies like me. Clearly I was reached, and I think it was by your substack in large part. So good work! Haha
As a CNU veteran, I would say you are 100% correct, and this is a big reason why CNU is what it is, and why other aligned movements have eclipsed it in stature and energy.
BTW, nice to meet you in person!
So well said! You don't get to the point of implementing these changes without the public's buy-in. Average people need to understand how design affects their life and how the way we build now does not need to be how we continue to build.
At this point, CNU is no longer a movement and that's fine. I would not attend CNU because it's expensive and their content does not inspire me as it once did. I changed and so did they. That's fine. Given that orthodox planners' most resilient armor is "Trust the experts; we're the experts!", CNU serves an important purpose as an organization with interdisciplinary expertise. This, in turn, is an important point of advocacy for the urbanist movement. We need experts who can expose the pseudo-technical arguments of orthodox planners. But the movement needs many non-experts as well. CNU is not a good organization for non-experts.
I agree. There's so much that's interesting and worth writing about, but at least as far as I can tell, not a great deal of interest on the part of publishers to pay for it. And that's why I've been trying content marketing and copywriting and am nopw looking for full-time jobs doing anything.
I attended CNU in 2003 (on a press pass) and was part of the New England Chapter and helped with CNU in Providence, RI----all as a journalist and marketer.
The folks who got it off the ground were middle-aged guys, Baby Boomer dudes (Calthorpe, et al). But there's only so much appetite and need for a pep rally. Ultimately, you need tools, and those might be dry and boring to journalists. CNU was great as an event that drew architects, planners, and regulators: Those are three siloes that needed to talk to each other. It's OK if everyone gets the schtick now and has moved on.
Strong Towns has long been targeted to the public citizen audience, not professionals.
Also, I sense that the whole conference scene has changed---like there is less enthusiasm for the big conferences unless you know you will pick up tools, credentials, how to meet legal requirements, or contacts (such as at GreenBuild).
Yep, if it wasn't for Strong Towns and your writing - both years ago- I may never have encountered these ideas before. Whatever high-falutin conversations are going on in board rooms or conference centers, your average person isn't part of them. But these ideas play *so much* into everything related to family formation and flourishing, and I think a lot of people just don't have the language for why so much feels difficult, as you say. We can't know what to change if we don't have a common vernacular for what we're feeling.
I felt the same thing at TRB, the big transportation planning/engineering conference. At least in 2023, you could build entire tracks about concrete or scheduling software but there was nothing about comms or outreach.
This post 1000%. How ideas are communicated is in fact vastly more important than their actual content, as a general rule. NU has essentially gone nowhere in terms of practical achievements (beyond the oft-maligned historic districts, and the occasional newfangled pedestrian street) because only a few uber-elites even know it exists as a concept.
What one today calls New Urbanism (I call it human-scale building as that's really the underlying basic theme, and intrinsically sounds like a good thing) needs to be reduced to a catchprase that local politicians can run on, or at least incorporate into their platforms. "Good schools, bike lanes, and New Urbanism" sounds weird.
Why is landscape architect in quotes?
Because it's very specific (I didn't mean to imply it isn't real)
Ah, gotcha, thanks for the clarification! (Sensitive subject. My spouse is a landscape architect and, well, let's just say it's not a widely respected or understood profession, despite the pedigree, and thus unlike, alas, "architect".)
I spent my professional life in communications and it's as a communicator that I engage in the issues you talk about in Cincinnati, where I live. I would have been one more nonprofessional urbanist in the room at both ST and CNU (and an older one at that) had I not fractured my ankle the week before.
Communications is often an afterthought in any major initiative, and yet in my experience it plays a significant role in the initiative's ultimate success or failure. And especially with major changes, it's almost impossible to overcommunicate -- something driven home to me last Friday as I listened to the city planning commission respond to resident feedback on a new zoning initiative, Connected Communities, the city plans to enact. (https://experience.arcgis.com/experience/341c80f53c764e0abd4199aeeb18b2de)