50-Year Mortgages, Crowdfunding Development, and Village-Scale Planning | Ask ST Anything – Nov 26

In this Reader Mailbag edition of Ask Strong Towns Anything, Strong Towns members brought a wide range of questions spanning housing costs, zoning reform, local capital formation, street design, and the reality of building in water-limited regions. The conversation moved fast, but the theme was constant: communities can build financial resilience by embracing incremental change, not large, risky bets.

Members shared local examples from Utah, Texas, Indiana, Rhode Island, Arizona, and beyond, giving this session an unusually rich, on-the-ground feel. Whether you’re working on housing reform, pushing for multi-use paths, or trying to understand what a 50-year mortgage means for your community, this recap will help you explore the issues more deeply.

Articles + Guides from Strong Towns

• The 50-Year Mortgage Was Always Coming
  Why ultra-long mortgages are a predictable outcome of a broken development pattern and what they mean for local resilience.
  https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2025-11-12-the-50-year-mortgage-was-always-coming

• The 30-Year Mortgage Was Bad. The 40-Year Will Be Even Worse.
  A foundational explanation of why stretching mortgage terms undermines long-term affordability.
  https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2024-9-23-the-30-year-mortgage-was-bad-the-40-year-mortgage-will-be-even-worse

• How We Subsidize Spread-Out Places via Utilities
  Explains how low-density zoning forces neighboring jurisdictions to subsidize expensive service extensions.
  https://archive.strongtowns.org/journal/2016/10/25/how-we-subsidize-spread-out-places-via-utilities

• What Does Your Next #BlackFridayParking Look Like?
  A look at the Strong Towns + Parking Reform Network annual parking campaign.
  https://archive.strongtowns.org/journal/2024/11/29/what-does-your-next-blackfridayparking-look-like

Incremental Development & Financing Tools

• Small Change
  A platform that lets regular people invest in local real estate projects with low minimums.
  https://www.smallchange.co/

• RI Community Investment Fund
  A nonprofit crowdfunding tool supporting small-scale developers in Rhode Island.
  https://ricommunityinvestment.com/

• Incremental Development Alliance
  Resources and training for becoming a small-scale developer.
  https://www.incrementaldevelopment.org/

Zoning Reform & Codes

• Adaptive Code (Free Range City)
  A vision for zoning that matches human-scaled development patterns.
  https://www.freerange.city/p/adaptive-code

• Form Based Codes Institute
  Understand how form-based codes differ from conventional zoning.
  https://formbasedcodes.org/definition/

• How Form-Based Codes Differ from Euclidian Zoning (PDF)
  A concise visual comparison of zoning approaches.
  https://hardwickvt.gov/wp-content/uploads/simple-file-list/Planning-Commission/2022-0713-HPC-Meeting/Form-Based-Code.pdf

Planning Examples & Community Design

• Agricultural Urbanism Takes Shape
  How communities are integrating food production into urban form.
  https://www.cnu.org/publicsquare/2020/12/23/agricultural-urbanism-takes-shape

• Community-Rooted Farming and Food
  Lessons from places reconnecting food systems and neighborhood design.
  https://www.cnu.org/publicsquare/2023/09/28/community-rooted-farming-and-food

• Redevelopment Institute (SF Bay Area)
  Brownfield planning resources relevant to infill and redevelopment.
  https://www.redevelopmentinstitute.org/

• EPA Brownfields (Region 9)
  Federal tools and support for local brownfield remediation.
  https://www.epa.gov/brownfields/r9