To Improve Your Community, Use the Strong Towns Approach

Whether you're running for office or attending community meetings, you don't want to miss these tips

As people like you start filing for elections big and small, we’re calling attention to policies that make communities thrive. Our friends at Strong Towns put together the following guide on how to make our communities walkable, connected, and financially sustainable. We couldn’t agree more with what they have to say. If you recognize some good ideas in the words below, then we encourage you to tell your own town or city council members. If there’s a local election near you in 2026, then we encourage you to file and run! You’ll have CITYBUILDER behind you, building better communities together.

1. Focus on your downtown and an ecosystem of neighborhoods. A strong and prosperous place is a healthy ecosystem. Traditional neighborhoods around a core commercial center form the most adaptable, productive, and strong form of development. These places need to thicken up and become vital again. That’s where our iterative and incremental efforts should begin.

2. Focus on neighborhood compatibili…