Charles Marohn had a vision to replace the “Suburban Experiment”, as he calls it, with a pattern of development that is financially strong and resilient. He claims to advocate for cities of all sizes to be safe, livable, and inviting. He wants to “elevate local government to be the highest level of collaboration for people working together in a place, not merely the lowest level in a hierarchy of governments.”
Marohn thinks that the expansion of rural America following the Great Depression and World War II is a bad thing, a failed experiment, as he calls it. In his book, “Strong Towns: A Bottom Up Revolution to Rebuild American Prosperity”, Marohn recalls how he walked in the ruins of Pompeii and observed how there were two-room shops along the center spine of the town, towards the outskirts.
“With just two rooms, the family member who ran the fast-food operation in front could also keep an eye on small kids in back, taking a break from sales when times were slow and being more attentive when they were not. Thus, half the household’s parents could both create an income stream and care for young family members simultaneously.” Writes Marohn
How delightfully Norman Rockwell of them. Then, it all went terribly wrong. “We responded to the economic hardships of the 1930s and 40s by radically shifting our development pattern in order to generate growth, create jobs, and quickly build a middle class”, He says.
How dare we.
We have grown too fast … no argument there. But Marohn completely misses the mark as to why, as well as the ramifications. And his motivations are somewhat in question.
He states the problems arise because governments fund water or sewer system expansion, as well as transportation (roads) … to foster development. He links private-sector debt, where individuals take on debt as part of the development process, as being a factor in a reduced quality of life and the destruction of the small town. Somehow, the fact that people desire to live in a rural, single-family community equates to a giant, government-sanctioned Ponzi Scheme.
So, to cure this Suburban Experiment, Marohn wants to do away with single-family housing. He wants to get back to a time when people would live upstairs and sell goods out their front door…as they did in Pompeii and before the 1940s. Thus, opening the door to mixed development units in the heart of our small towns. Glorious.
But why stop there? The problem with small towns is that they are, well, small. So, his answer is to eliminate single-family zoning and allow every residential area the right to “upzone” into multi-family. How wonderful it will be when all the people of a town can come together, interact with each other, and walk to nearby shops and restaurants…he believes.
If Marohn gets his way you might want to get used to all that walking because he really wants to lock you into those small towns by cutting off funding for highway expansions. After all, if they don’t build or expand highways, you won’t leave because you won’t want to spend all that time in traffic … but that’s our interpretation, not his.
While Charles Marohn likes to hard sell his groundbreaking ideas of fiscal responsibility and accountability, in the end, it’s just a wrapper for a very old idea of Urbanism … or in this case, the Urbanization of Rural America.
As with most things in our nation, the Urbanization of Rural America is rooted in Politics. Urban areas naturally devolve into Democrat strongholds while Rural areas steadfastly remain Republican. The recent exodus of people fleeing highly populated cities in favor of green pastures has only amplified the situation.
The answer, by Democrats, is to Urbanize Rural America … to seize control. Terraform it if you will.
That’s where Marohn plays his part.
Marohn’s 501c(3) organization, “StrongTowns.org” creates educational material to help those small town Councilmen and Mayors learn how to urbanize their towns, in order to maximize revenue. Of course, this is all for the purpose of increasing the quality of life in the town. His organization produces podcasts, articles, lectures, and other resources to help small towns succeed.
The non-profit is well-funded. 2019 tax returns, the last year in which there is a record due to a backlog at the IRS, show they were raking in over $700,000 / year. Based on the rate of growth from past years, this figure could be in the millions of dollars today.
Let’s take a quick look at the Strong Towns Strategic Plan for 2022 as published from their own documents:
Wait, this looks familiar, where did we see this before? Oh yeah, the Fate Planning & Development Page:
Well, if propaganda works, why bother to change it? Cut & Clip works just fine. But it does make one wonder, who is actually setting our town policies and agenda? We, the People? Or Strong Towns?
The funny thing about leftists is that they tend to work in plain sight, right under your nose. But unless you are a born skeptic (as we are), or are skilled in recognizing leftist buzzwords (as we are), you might not even recognize that you have been fed mind-altering propaganda.
In fact, Fate’s leadership has had strong ties to the organization since at least April 2018. Mayor Billings has even bragged about the association on Facebook … because he thinks this is a good thing.
This was actually a re-post from an earlier one made in December 2017. It would seem that our Mayor drank the “Strong Towns” cool-aid a long time ago and has been gleefully putting those policies into action ever since. Did you know that?
Unfortunately, as is often the case, people are generally going about their lives and not really paying attention to local politics. And this was way before the overt attacks on liberty by the government were in the mainstream news. But now people are awake and paying attention and they are learning how the left has been actively working against the American people for decades.
But let’s get back to Charles Marohn and Strong Towns.
Marohn is not a normal leftist, he’s a special breed. He is not your typical Democrat. Definitely not a RINO Republican … and not even an Independent or Libertarian. No, those are all too mainstream for him. He’s a member of the “American Solidarity Party” (ASP). But he’s not just a member, he’s their “Number Two” on the Board of Advisors.
The ASP is sort of where Globalists, Leftists, Hippies, and Christians come together in solidarity … however, that works. They have 7 main tenants:
- Sanctity of Life
- Social Justice
- Community Oriented Society
- Centrality of the Family
- Economic Security
- Care for the Environment
- Peace and International Solidarity
The brochure looks nice. It’s very Cumbia. We’ll leave it to you to follow up with your own research on this political group as it’s not really germane to this discussion, but suffice it to say, it’s a fringe leftist group that masquerades as mainstream to suck in unsuspecting Democrats, and Marohn is right in the middle of it.
Need more? Let’s have a quick look at who is on the board of Strong Towns.
- Eliot Bostar – Democrat. Senator of Nebraska.
- Andrew Burleson – Engineer, Urban Planner
- LeVette Fuller – Democrat. Shreveport, LA Council
- Gregory Good – Democrat. Economic Development Pro.
- Gracen Johnson – Democrat. Founder of Incremental Development Alliance.
- Chitra Kumar – Planning expert at Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
- Michele Martinez – Former Councilmember in Santa Ana, CA. Special Master on Council for Homeless
- Joe Minicozzi – Urban Planner. Founder Urban3.
- Steve Mouzon – Architect, Self Proclaimed Urbanist & Green advocate.
- Grace Olmstead – Journalist. Author of “Uprooted: Recovering the Legacy of the Places We’ve Left Behind”
- Tifany Owens Reed – Journalist. Advocate for urbanization.
- Ian Rasmussen – Attorney and urbanist.
- John T. Reuter – Publisher. Former council member in Sandpoint, ID.
Again, we’ll leave it up to you to Google each of them and decide for yourselves who they are. I’m sure they all share the same values as the people of Fate.
This list of Who’s-Who in the Democrat, leftist playground seems like an odd group for our Mayor, who has claimed to be a Republican, to associate with. Don’t you think?
As of 2023, here are the Top 5 Campaigns that Charles Marohn and StrongTowns.org is advocating.
- End Highway Expansion. We seek to curtail the primary mechanism of local wealth destruction and municipal insolvency: the continued expansion of America’s highways and related auto-based transportation systems.
- Transparent Local Accounting. We seek to reveal the financial implications of the Suburban Experiment by increasing the transparency of local government accounting practices.
- Incremental Housing. We seek to have the next increment of development intensity allowed, by right, in every neighborhood in America.
- Safe and Productive Street. We seek to shift the priority of local streets from automobile throughput to human safety and wealth creation.
- End Parking Mandates and Subsidies. We seek an end to the mandates and subsidies that cause productive land to be used for motor vehicle storage.
Well, that seems nice. Who wouldn’t want all those good things? As usual, the left is REALLY GOOD at sounding benevolent but let’s dive in just a little deeper.
- Ending Highway Expansion. This is actually a page from the Green New Deal. Cars, as you know, are big pollution machines. So is construction. Ending highway expansion is one way to put up a speed bump in the way of carbon. As a bonus, it forces people to stay where they are. Nobody wants to deal with traffic so by making life miserable for commuting, you will inevitably curtail movement.
- Transparent Local Accounting. This is great, obviously. But the way you see it is much different than the way the leftist sees it. You want accountability … but they want to know where the money is … so they can take it and shape it to their agenda.
- Incremental Housing. This is code for “UpZoning”. To put it another way, Urbanization. Turning your single-family home into a duplex. Or a duplex into an Apartment building. Or an Apartment Building into a mixed-use development… and on and on. Urbanization.
- Safe & Productive Street. More buzzwords for urban development. They want people crammed into smaller spaces where they are forced to walk and ride bikes. This is their idea of a perfect town…as stated in Marohn’s books.
- End parking mandates. Again, Green New Deal. If parking is a bitch, then nobody will drive. Once again forcing people into these walking communities… because cars are bad.
All of this is for the sole purpose of urbanizing our rural communities. It consolidates power & money into the hands of the Government.
So, in the end, this brings us back to our main discussion. Why does the leadership of Fate not only associate but covet and emulate, the philosophies and methods of such a person? This seems to go much further than a benevolent “good stewardship” perspective of fiscal responsibility and capital improvement planning.
In a future expose we will delve into this more as we discover how much our Town leadership has involved themselves with the Strong Towns organization. How deep does the influence of Strong Towns have on our planning & zoning? Are they involved with our elections? We shall find out. Stay tuned.