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This podcast features stories of the Strong Towns movement in action. Hosted by Tiffany Owens Reed, it’s all about how regular people have stepped up to make their communities more economically resilient, and how others can implement these ideas in their own places. We’ll talk about taking concrete action steps, connecting with fellow advocates to build power, and surviving the bumps along the way—all in the pursuit of creating stronger towns.
Episodes

2 hours ago
2 hours ago
Stanis Moody Roberts is a business owner from the Portland, Maine area. For the past year he has been organizing locals to oppose a highway expansion that would have claimed eight acres of his land. He joins Tiffany on today’s episode of The Bottom-Up Revolution to discuss this journey and the progress his community has made — including how they convinced their town council to rescind support for the project and delayed construction by several years.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES
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Local Recommendations:
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Tiffany Owens Reed (Instagram).
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Do you know someone who would make for a great The Bottom-Up Revolution guest? Let us know here!

3 days ago
3 days ago
Welcome to this episode of Bottom Up Shorts! Today, Norm is joined by Andrew and Anna Carley, the leaders of Strong Towns Grand Rapids, a Local Conversation in Michigan. They discuss the progress they’ve made in advocating for policy changes in their city and how they became one of the go-to groups that city officials turn to when they’re considering policy changes.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES
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Strong Towns Grand Rapids (site).
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Want to hear more from the Carleys? Hop on the Spring Local Motive Tour, where they’ll share their tactics for regional organizing and letter-writing campaigns.
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Do you know someone who would make for a great The Bottom-Up Revolution guest? Let us know here!

Thursday Jan 30, 2025
Emily Hutcheson: Building a Culture of Bicycling
Thursday Jan 30, 2025
Thursday Jan 30, 2025
Emily Hutcheson is a bike advocate in San Antonio, Texas, and a mom of three. She joins Tiffany on this episode of The Bottom-Up Revolution to discuss her work improving bike infrastructure in her city. They discuss her path to advocacy, some of the initiatives she’s spearheaded, including a bike club and bike bus, and the response from the public and local officials.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES
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Local Recommendations:
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Tiffany Owens Reed (Instagram).
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Do you know someone who would make for a great The Bottom-Up Revolution guest? Let us know here!

Tuesday Jan 28, 2025
Bottom-Up Shorts: How To Incrementally Improve Your City's Zoning Laws
Tuesday Jan 28, 2025
Tuesday Jan 28, 2025
Spencer Coyne is the mayor of Princeton, British Columbia. As a proud Strong Towns member, he works to bring incremental development and community resilience to his city. Coyne joins this Bottom-Up Short to explain how he’s implementing the Strong Towns approach in Princeton, including how to incrementally reform a zoning code and how to do a lot with a small amount of funding.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES
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Connect with Spencer Coyne:
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Do you know someone who would make for a great The Bottom-Up Revolution guest? Let us know here!

Thursday Jan 23, 2025
Thursday Jan 23, 2025
In this episode of The Bottom-Up Revolution, host Tiffany Owens Reed is joined by Ellie Riggs and Ryan Carter from Catawba Riverkeeper, a grassroots organization that preserves the waters of the Catawba-Wateree River basin in North Carolina.
They discuss stormwater’s effect on the environment, how it’s connected to parking reform and developers, and a new stormwater management bill that Riggs and Carter are introducing to the North Carolina state legislature in a few weeks. They also discuss Riggs and Carter’s experience with advocacy at the state level.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES
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Local Recommendations:
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Tiffany Owens Reed (Instagram).
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Do you know someone who would make for a great The Bottom-Up Revolution guest? Let us know here!

Tuesday Jan 21, 2025
Bottom-Up Shorts: How To Remove Parking Mandates in Your Downtown
Tuesday Jan 21, 2025
Tuesday Jan 21, 2025
In this episode of Bottom-Up Shorts, host Norm Van Eeden Petersman is joined by Michael Bassili, one of the leaders of Strong Towns Nanaimo, a Local Conversation group based in British Columbia, Canada. Bassili explains how his Local Conversation created a parking campaign that convinced their city council to vote 8-1 to eliminate parking mandates in their downtown.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES
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Connect with Strong Towns Nanaimo:
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Try Strong Towns Nanaimo’s letter of support generator.
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Do you know someone who would make for a great The Bottom-Up Revolution guest? Let us know here!

Thursday Jan 16, 2025
Matt Harder: Making City Budgeting More Participatory
Thursday Jan 16, 2025
Thursday Jan 16, 2025
Matt Harder is the founder of Civic Trust, a participatory budgeting company that provides technology infrastructure, communications and process methodology to help citizens participate in their governments’ budgeting process.
In this episode of The Bottom-Up Revolution, Harder joins host Tiffany Owens Reed to discuss participatory budgeting, a method of getting resident input on how a city’s budget is spent. They talk about the three phases of participatory budgeting, the benefits and challenges to implementing this method, and real-world examples of where it’s been implemented.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES
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Local Recommendations:
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Civic Trust (website).
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Tiffany Owens Reed (Instagram).
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Do you know someone who would make for a great The Bottom-Up Revolution guest? Let us know here!

Tuesday Jan 14, 2025
Bottom-Up Shorts: How This 4-Step Approach Can Transform Your Community
Tuesday Jan 14, 2025
Tuesday Jan 14, 2025
In this special episode of Bottom-Up Shorts, host Norm Van Eeden Petersman is joined by Edward Erfurt, chief technical advisor for Strong Towns, to discuss a transformative 4-step approach to public investment.
They explore real-world examples of this approach in action, including the inspiring stories of Sheboygan, Wisconsin, and Chisholm, Minnesota. These stories illustrate the power of starting small, focusing on what's possible today, and engaging local energy to build something truly transformative over time.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES
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Read more about the incremental approach to public investment:
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“The Strong Towns Approach to Public Investment” (article).
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“Starting a Local Business Can Be As Easy as Setting Up a Chair” (article).
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“Learn the 4-Step Process for Public Investment” (Academy course).
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Do you know someone who would make for a great The Bottom-Up Revolution guest? Let us know here!

Tuesday Jan 07, 2025
Bottom-Up Shorts: How Local Papers Can Help Combat Social Isolation
Tuesday Jan 07, 2025
Tuesday Jan 07, 2025
In this episode of Bottom-Up Shorts, host Norm Van Eeden Petersman is joined by Jake Loftis, a pastor and leader of the Local Conversation group Strong Towns Blair. They discuss the ways that North America’s built environment can lead to social isolation and how Loftis used his local paper to combat that isolation and encourage engagement in his community.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES
- Transcript available on our site.
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Do you know someone who would make for a great The Bottom-Up Revolution guest? Let us know here!

Thursday Dec 19, 2024
The Bottom-Up Revolution Is…Building a Coalition for Long-Term Change
Thursday Dec 19, 2024
Thursday Dec 19, 2024
In this episode of The Bottom-Up Revolution, host Tiffany Owens Reed is joined by Chloe Groome and Aaron Feldman, co-leads of the Local Conversation group Strong Towns Chicago.
They discuss the initiatives that Strong Towns Chicago is working on, including legalizing fourplexes throughout the city and getting city officials involved in tactical urbanism. They also talk about the challenges the group faces and their strategies for overcoming those difficulties, including building a coalition with other advocacy groups.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES
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Local recommendations:
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The winter Christkindlmarket
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Summer streetfests.
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Live music concerts.
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Strong Towns Chicago (Instagram).
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Tiffany Owens Reed (Instagram).
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Do you know someone who would make for a great The Bottom-Up Revolution guest? Let us know here!