There are a lot of different ways your group can take action together. The list below includes a sampling drawn from the work of existing local Strong Towns groups. When we have created articles, podcasts, and videos about these Local Conversations, we have included a link:
Learning Activities
- Go through the free Strong Towns 101 course (separately or by watching all together). Discuss as a group.
- Watch one or more of the Not Just Bikes + Strong Towns videos, using the discussion guides as a way to facilitate conversation.
- Watch the Curbside Chat video series. It’s a few years old now but it still holds up. Discuss.
- Host a book club on one of the Strong Towns books, one of our free ebooks, one of the books Chuck Marohn recommends in The Essential Reading List for the Strong Towns Thinker, or another book on Strong Towns themes. This book club can be just for your members or you can open it up to the broader public.
- Watch a Strong Towns Local Motive session as a group. (There are 30 topics to choose from, with more being added every year.) Contact John to let us know the one you want to watch. We’ll get it to you for free.
- Read a Strong Towns article together that is relevant to what is happening in your town or city. If not an article, listen to a podcast episode, watch a webcast or Office Hours recording, or a Strong Towns YouTube video. Discuss.
- As a group, attend a Strong Towns event near you.
- Invite a local leader to attend your group meeting. This might be an elected official, city or county staff person, a member of a nonprofit in your area doing relevant work, or some other local leader you want to learn from. Respectfully ask them about the work they do. In that meeting, or in a later meeting, brainstorm ways your group can be of service to your guest’s work.
- Attend a city council meeting together. Talk later: what issues did you hear being discussed that touch on the Strong Towns conversation?
- Do you have people in your group who love research, local history, and PowerPoint? Have someone do a presentation on the history of your town’s development. Before and after photos contrasting the traditional development pattern can be an impactful part of the presentation. One Local Conversation did a public presentation on the history of its town’s subdivisions, which garnered some local media attention as well.
- Consider creating your own short series of presentations on key Strong Towns ideas, like the Strong Towns approach, the 6 principles for building a Strong Town, or other key concepts. You can start your research in this section of the Action Lab.
- Peruse the Action Lab. Find a resource you can turn into a learning activity and discussion.
Movement Building Activities
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As a group, write and submit a letter to the editor of your local paper, on a conversation that is happening in your community right now. (Example: Strong Towns Baltimore)
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Organize a letter writing campaign. (Examples: Strong Towns Grand Rapids and Alabama Urbanists)
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Use a video conferencing platform — like Zoom, Microsoft Teams, etc. — to host open discussions on issues facing your community, pivoting the conversation towards a Strong Towns approach to building stronger and resilient places. (Example: Strong Towns Langley)
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Get one or more of your members as a guest on a TV or radio program, a podcast, or as a guest writer on a local blog or publication. (Example: Bloomington Revivalists)
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Get your group on an outward-facing social platform, such as Facebook or Instagram (Example: So many, many of whom you can find here)
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If your group has the interest and energy, you can create your own blog, podcast, or YouTube channel. (Examples: Allendale Strong, Strong Towns Nanaimo, and many others)
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Create a newsletter that will go out to people on your email list. (Example: Strong Towns Santa Barbara)
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Create a website. (Example: Fortify Richmond)
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Host a public screening of a documentary. (Example: Vermonters for People-Oriented Places)
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Do a talk or presentation for a local club, a kindred spirit organization, neighborhood association, etc. (Example: Deltans for People-Oriented Places)
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Do one of the learning activities — host a book club, watch a video, etc. — but open it up to the public.
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Have one or more of your members speak up at a city council meeting or planning commission meeting.
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Meet in person with city officials, small business owners, or other local leaders to talk about what your Local Conversation is all about. Be on the lookout for ways your group can help the person you’re visiting be successful in something they’re working on.
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Organize an in-person or virtual event featuring a Strong Towns staff member or even a member of your group with a talent for public speaking and communicating Strong Towns ideas.
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Create and distribute collateral that summarizes who your group is and what you’re about.
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Set up an information table at a local event.
Organizing Activities
- Do a tactical urbanism project — for example, build bus benches, make an intersection safer, create a crosswalk, and more.
- Host a Q&A event for candidates for local office. Use these 10 questions as a guide. (Example: Strong Towns Steubenville)
- Organize a trash pickup event. (Example: Bloomington Revivalists)
- Clean up a local park. (Example: ReForm Shreveport)
- Create a bike valet program for a local event. (Example: Strong Towns Grand Rapids)
- Organize a community bike ride. (Example: Many of them)
- Create your own version of the Billion Bollards Club. (Example: Strong Towns PDX)
- Do something fun and useful with your city’s excess parking. (Example: Stronger Denton)
- Host a Citizen Taco event. (Example: Strong Towns Sioux Falls)
- Host a neighborhood walk. (Example: Charlotte Urbanists)
- Help one or more Local Conversation leaders get elected to local office or appointed to local commissions. (Example: Bothellites for People-Oriented Places)
- Build up your city’s tree canopy by planting more street trees. (Example: Charlotte Rising)
- Create a campaign around an issue facing your community right now. (Example: Strong Towns Happy Valley)
- Look at the 40+ How-To Guides we have created or collected. Find one that is right for your group and do it!
- Create or support public art.
- Get mobilized for Black Friday Parking.
- Nominate your town or city for the Strongest Town Contest.
- Host your own Crash Analysis Studio.
- Go on a group walk in your neighborhood and run through the Strong Towns 4-Step Process
- Step 1: Humbly observe where people around you are struggling.
- Step 2: Identify the next smallest thing you can do to address that struggle.
- Step 3: Do that thing. Do it right now.
- Step 4: Repeat the process, again and again.
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