The Bottom-Up Revolution

Jordan Deffenbaugh and Jim Hodapp—primary organizers of Strong Towns' most impactful Local Conversations—share how you can use your observations and passions to build neighborhood-boosting community groups, including how to inspire advocates in your community, how to effectively gather people around your mission, and how to generate neighborhood investments that include everyone in the process.

Andy Diaz—founder at Urban Acres in Peoria, Illinois—shares how you can use local food to build community in your neighborhood, including how to find the right investment for your neighborhood, how to embrace incremental development as you grow your investment, and why cities like Peoria and beyond need more $1,000 heroes to create strong towns. 

Greta McLain—Artistic Director at GoodSpace Murals, a Minneapolis-based organization that promotes community development through public art—shares how you can use public art to build community in your own city or town, including how to create a tribe of public art advocates in your community, how to humble yourself as you share your partner with different neighborhoods, and how to turn stakeholders leery of public art into advocates.

Rafa Wright—Detroit native, community leader, and soon-to-be owner of a new, Detroit-based neighborhood grocery—shares how you can make neighborhood-led investments in your community, including how to observe where people struggle, how to find the right investments for your neighborhood, and how to get your neighbors involved in the process.

Ed Morrison—author of Strategic Doing: Ten Skills for Agile Leadership—shares how city leaders can grow their economies by fostering collaboration on a local level, including how to find existing assets in your community, how to encourage existing organizations to focus on a shared goal, and how to incrementally pursue that goal.

Paul Fast—Principal Architect at HCMA, a Canadian architecture and design firm—discusses its More Awesome Now project and how listeners can revive neglected alleyways in their own neighborhoods, including how to assess the needs of the neighborhood, how to measure the success of the revitalization, and how to consider all members of the community in its design.

In this special member drive episode of It's the Little Things, Community Builder Jacob Moses converses with Kevin Leier—social studies teacher at Rugby High School—plus three of his students about how the Strong Towns movement inspired them to create a community building class. You'll learn how the classmates used Strong Towns principles to educate their peers and make Rugby a strong town, how Kevin introduced incrementalism to the students, how the students used Strong Towns concepts to strengthen their town.

Dan Burden—Director of Innovation and Inspiration at Blue Zones—shares how yow you can start building a healthier place in your community, including how to decide what to do first, how to partner with local leaders to create a shared vision, and how Blue Zones can help throughout the process.

Morgan Leichter-Saxby—co-founder at Pop-Up Adventure Play—shares how you can create low cost, low risk places to play in your neighborhood, including how to pitch the idea to your neighbors, how to commit to an incremental approach, and how Pop-Up Adventure Play can help throughout the process.

Alix Taylor—Manager of Water Programs at Green Communities Canada— shares how to depave neglected concrete in your own neighborhood, including how to get your neighbors involved in the process, how to pitch the idea to city leaders, and how to find sites in your neighborhood optimal for depaving.