What if the street itself did most of the work of slowing cars, instead of another sign or speed trap? Drawing on a new Bloomberg CityLab piece, Carlee Alm‑LaBar is joined by Edward Erfurt and Ann Arbor’s transportation manager, Malisa McCreedy, to talk about what these deaths say about speed, design, and the values baked into our networks. They explore why Vision Zero efforts struggle, how Ann Arbor is embedding safety into every project, and why planners and engineers often hesitate to talk openly about crashes, using Ann Arbor’s crash analysis studio, university partnerships, and quick‑build projects to show how a city can respond more directly to serious crashes.

• "Searching for the ‘Smoking Gun’ in US Pedestrian Deaths" by David Zipper, Bloomberg.com (April 2026)
• Downzone:
  • City of Ann Arbor Hosting Crash Analysis Studio (Site)
  • 2026 APA National Planning Conference (Site)
  • "Great Expectations" by Charles Dickens (Site)
  • Strong Towns National Gathering (Site)
• Carlee Alm-LaBar (LinkedIn)
• Edward Erfurt (LinkedIn)
• Malisa McCreedy (LinkedIn)
• Theme Music by Kemet the Phantom.

This podcast is made possible by Strong Towns members. Join fellow members discussing this episode in The Commons.

What happens when the American Dream stops meaning “doing better than your parents” and starts meaning “just not falling behind”? Norm Van Eeden Petersman sits down with Andrew Burleson and Ryan Puzycki to untangle why stability feels so fragile, even in “booming” cities. They trace how zoning turns housing into a rigged game of musical chairs, how some places face strangling exclusion while others slide into rolling blight, and how missing bottom rungs on the housing ladder and remote work push rising costs — and workers — farther out. They connect these pressures to a new American Dream: finding a stable home that won’t vanish with the next lease.

• "The American Dream Meant Upward Mobility. Now, it Means Stability." by Rachel Barber and Veronica Bravo, USAToday.com (March 2026)
• Norm Van Eeden Petersman (LinkedIn)
• Andrew Burleson (LinkedIn)
• Ryan Puzycki (LinkedIn)
• Articles Mentioned and Downzone:
  • Adaptive Code (Article)
  • Remote Isn't Working (Article)
  • The Hobbit, J. R. R. Tolkien (Audiobook)
  • The Social House Will Not Reopen (Article)
  • Sticky Notes: The Classical Music Podcast (Site)
• Theme Music by Kemet the Phantom.

This podcast is made possible by Strong Towns members. Thank you! Join fellow members discussing this episode in The Commons.

In New York City, a playful bracket about broken hoops and dumping sites turns routine maintenance into a citywide tournament. Carlee Alm-LaBar, Edward Erfurt, and Alexander Lazard explore what that reveals about complaint driven 311 systems, how priorities really get set, and which neighborhoods get left off the board entirely. Their conversation presses on whether mayors can turn one clever contest into lasting trust instead of a one week story.

• "Mayor Mamdani Launches March Madness-style Competition for City Fixes" by Spectrum News Staff, NY1.com (March 2026)
• "Municipal Madness: Mayor Mamdani Performs Winning City Fix, Cleans Up Illegal Dumping in Soundview on Day 100" (Article)
• "Mamdani, Leaning Into ‘Sewer Socialism,’ Gets His Hands Dirty" (Article)
• Downzone:
  • "Mary Colter: Builder Upon the Red Earth" by Virginia L. Grattan (Book)
  • "The Image of the City" by Kevin Lynch (Book)
  • "How Big Things Get Done" by Bent Flyvbjerg and Dan Gardner (Book)
  • Strong Towns National Gathering (Site)
• Carlee Alm-LaBar (LinkedIn)
• Edward Erfurt (LinkedIn)
• Alexander Lazard (LinkedIn)
• Theme Music by Kemet the Phantom.

This podcast is made possible by Strong Towns members. Click here to learn more about membership.

Development cost charges are supposed to make growth pay for itself, but this conversation shows just how far that promise falls short. Norm Van Eeden Petersman, Michel Durand-Wood, and Dan Winer unpack Ontario’s deal to halve development charges, British Columbia’s per‑unit fee structure that punishes small infill, and Winnipeg’s court battle over impact fees. They reveal how these choices ripple into housing prices, municipal deficits, and whether existing neighborhoods ever see the gentle density and local services they’ve been promised.

• "City Councillors Fear 'Devil in the Details' in Federal-Provincial Housing Fund" by Arthur White-Crummery, CBC.ca (March 2026)
• Norm Van Eeden Petersman (LinkedIn)
• Dan Winer (LinkedIn)
• Dear Winnipeg (Site)
• You'll Pay For This! (Book)

• Articles mentioned and Downzone:

  • Readying B.C. to deliver more homes for people in communities (Article)
  • The Party Analogy (Article)
  • The Master and His Emissary, Ian McGilchrist (Book)
  • Murderland, Caroline Fraser (Book)
  • Shrill Season 1 (Prime Video)
  • An Inside Job, Daniel Silva (Book)

• Theme Music by Kemet the Phantom.

This podcast is made possible by Strong Towns members. Click here to learn more about membership.

A Massachusetts town budgeted $600,000 for snow and ended up spending $6 million clearing its streets. Norm Van Eeden Petersman, Daniel Herriges, and Gracen Johnson trace the links between winter operations, stormwater, supply chains, labor, and land use in cities facing serious snow. Starting with Boston’s overrun numbers, they widen the lens to Ottawa’s snow storage sites and Minneapolis’ potholes, asking what happens when seasonal extremes collide with tight city budgets.

• "‘That comes with a price tag’: How snow removal is busting town budgets" by Kate Selig, Bostonglobe.com (March 2026)
• "The Cost of an Extra Foot" by Chuck Marohn
• "Transactions of Decline" by Chuck Marohn
• Downzone:
  • "Cost-Based Social Rental Housing in Europe" (Web PDF)
  • The Ink (Substack)
  • You'll Pay For This! (Site)
  • Criminal Broads (Site)
• Norm Van Eeden Petersman (LinkedIn)
• Daniel Herriges (LinkedIn)
• Gracen Johnson (LinkedIn)
• Theme Music by Kemet the Phantom.

This podcast is made possible by Strong Towns members. Click here to learn more about membership.

While Los Angeles gets ready for the Olympics and World Cup, residents watch trash pile up in the places tourists never see. Chuck, Norm, and Carlee trace the links between auto‑oriented growth, a strained city budget, and basic services that can’t keep up. Through one neighborhood organizer’s Saturday cleanups, they show how garbage exposes which streets are truly cared for.

• "Talking Trash" by Alissa Walker, Torched.la (February 2026)
• Chuck Marohn (LinkedIn)
• Norm Van Eeden Petersman (LinkedIn)
• Carlee Alm-LaBar (LinkedIn)
• Theme Music by Kemet the Phantom.

This podcast is made possible by Strong Towns members. Click here to learn more about membership.

A multigenerational home addition sparked national attention and local outrage in Fairfax County, Virginia. Chief Technical Advisor Edward Erfurt sits down with guest host Norm Van Eeden Petersman to explore why legally allowed housing can still feel deeply disruptive — and what this reveals about zoning, design, and incremental change.

• "Massive Multigenerational Home Addition Sparks Furious Debate in Virginia Community" by Julie Taylor, Realtor.com (November 2025)
• "The Monster House: Why a Change in Neighborhood Scale Isn’t a Bad Thing" by Emma Durand-Wood
• "Multigenerational Living Isn't Immigrant Culture, It's Human Culture" by Shina Shayesteh
• Norm Van Eeden Petersman (LinkedIn)
• Edward Erfurt (LinkedIn)
• Theme Music by Kemet the Phantom.

This podcast is made possible by Strong Towns members. Click here to learn more about membership.

Utah wants to override local zoning to boost housing supply, but allowed by right doesn't mean possible in practice. Abby and Edward dig into the hidden barriers — complicated permits, scarce financing, and broken systems — that stop housing from actually getting built.

• "Utah’s Governor Suggests Overriding Local Zoning. Could His Plan Solve—or Shatter—the State’s Housing Future?" by Allaire Conte, Realtor.com (November 2025)
• "Why State Housing Reform is Failing (and What We Can Do About It)" by Edward Erfurt
• Abby Newsham (X/Twitter)
• Edward Erfurt (LinkedIn)
• Theme Music by Kemet the Phantom.

This podcast is made possible by Strong Towns members. Click here to learn more about membership.