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The Bottom-Up Revolution features the stories of the Strong Towns movement in action. Hosted by Tiffany Owens Reed and Norm Van Eeden Petersman, 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. Each episode features a Strong Towns advocate who is making positive change in their community.
Episodes
Jun 30, 2022
Jun 23, 2022
Jun 16, 2022
Jun 9, 2022
Jun 9, 2022
32 min
Welcome to a special Member Week episode of The Bottom-Up Revolution podcast, featuring two amazing Strong Towns members: Nick and Amanda Lanata, from Zachary, Louisiana. Nick is a data scientist and Amanda works for the Louisiana Main Street program, and also helps run a small family business. It probably won’t come as a surprise to hear that when this duo encountered Strong Towns, they were hooked and soon got involved.
Nick was drawn to Strong Towns’ focus on doing the math and assessing the value per acre of developments in our cities. He’s even done analyses on his own community and shared those with elected leaders. Amanda was interested in the Strong Towns approach to helping downtowns and small businesses get activated again and grow economically resilient.
The Lanatas took the Strong Towns mission and really ran with it over the last couple years: meeting and getting to know their city councilors, helping their neighbors see the potential in their city, starting a Local Conversation group, and allowing the Strong Towns approach to guide their personal choices—like how they get around town.
We’re excited for you to hear from these inspiring Strong Towns members and hope that you’ll take a step and join them by becoming a member yourself.
Additional Show Notes
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Send your story ideas and guest suggestions to rachel@strongtowns.org.
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Subscribe to The Bottom-Up Revolution on iTunes, Google Podcasts, Podbean, or via RSS.
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Support this podcast by becoming a Strong Towns member today.
May 26, 2022
May 26, 2022
30 min
We’ve all heard the phrase “housing crisis” a thousand times these days. Many of us have been personally impacted by a lack of available housing, whether you’re a young person who has been hoping to buy your first home, but are totally unable to because of high costs and competition—or whether you’re someone who has experienced homelessness because of eviction, job loss, or any number of other reasons.
There are a lot of people proposing solutions to this housing crisis and one of them is today’s guest, Beth Silverman. But the solution she’s been working on isn’t one of the typical responses you might have heard lately, like “we just need to build more homes,” or “we just need more government subsidies for housing.” Rather, it’s about uniting for-profit landlords and developers, together with non-profit service organizations toward a common goal of getting people housing who need it.
Beth Silverman is the founder and executive director of the Lotus Campaign, whose mission is “[t]o increase the availability of housing for people experiencing homelessness by engaging the for-profit sector as a partner in the solution.” She sees herself partly as a translator between entities that typically work separately and rarely talk to one another. She knows that nonprofits have services, connections, and insights to offer, and that landlords and real estate professionals can bring innovation, capital and access to housing, for homeless people or people at risk of homelessness.
During its short time in operation, the Lotus Campaign has already housed more than 360 individuals and families for a cost to their organization of less than $1,000 per person each year, and most of those people are able to stay housed after their participation in the program ends.
Additional Show Notes
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Send your story ideas and guest suggestions to rachel@strongtowns.org.
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Support this podcast by becoming a Strong Towns member today.
May 19, 2022
May 12, 2022
May 12, 2022
26 min
There’s something special about Michigan. Two of our past seven Strongest Town Contest winners have come from the state (Muskegon and Traverse City), we hear inspiring stories from Michigan all the time, and we have some amazing, dedicated members doing good work in the Great Lakes state.
Today’s guest is one of those people. Cooper Frost hails from Charlotte, Michigan, a rural community of about 10,000 people outside of Lansing. For a while, he had been absent from the town, but during the pandemic, he came home to Charlotte and has since made it his mission to help it grow stronger.
He’s stepped up to get involved in a number of local organizations with a particular focus on economic development. He’s also purchased his mother’s house, and has begun investing in it to help build up generational wealth and stability. Additionally, Frost has been dedicated to sharing the message about bottom-up, incremental transformation through talking with community members about the Strong Towns movement and books.
Frost is part of a long line of advocates, many of whom we’ve featured on this show, who believe in their hometowns and want to see them thrive. He knows that building up passion for the place where he came from will help those around him see its value and make it stronger over the long run. He’s all about taking that next smallest step to see this vision come to fruition.
Additional Show Notes
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Learn more about our open Member Advocate position and apply today.
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Send your story ideas to rachel@strongtowns.org.
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Support this podcast by becoming a Strong Towns member today.
May 5, 2022
Apr 28, 2022
Apr 28, 2022
31 min
Jay Stange is a former newspaper reporter, teacher, community organizer, and Alaska native. He’s also the Content Manager at Strong Towns. In this conversation, he’s talking about his efforts to slow down cars on busy stroads in both his former neighborhood in Anchorage, as well as his current neighborhood in West Hartford, Connecticut.
Jay discusses the ways he’s worked with neighbors to push for the change, tested out temporary approaches, and addressed the concerns of business owners along the roads in question. In his working class, renter-dominated neighborhood in Anchorage, these efforts were also part of a larger movement to help people believe in the future of their neighborhood and combat apathy—to show people that they had something to be proud of in their community.
In the episode, we also talk about Jay’s lifelong love of biking, from riding his bike to sports practice as a kid when his parents couldn’t drive him, to bike commuting and biking with his own kids today. Plus, we discuss Jay’s belief that change should look fun and it should happen collaboratively. We know you’re going to appreciate the energy and passion Jay brings to this conversation. It’s something he brings to all of his work at Strong Towns.
Additional Show Notes
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“The Road that Killed a City,” by Jay Stange, Strong Towns (March 2022).
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“The Pedalling Pastor,” by Jay Stange, Strong Towns (March 2022).
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Send your story ideas to rachel@strongtowns.org.
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Subscribe to The Bottom-Up Revolution on iTunes, Google Podcasts, Podbean, or via RSS.
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Support this podcast by becoming a Strong Towns member today.
Apr 21, 2022
Apr 21, 2022
29 min
It’s news to exactly no one that we’re living in polarized times. But Strong Towns advocates are doing their best to push back against polarization in their communities. In fact, it’s a core value of our movement that we work with people on all parts of the political spectrum, because we know that the change we seek across North America won’t happen without everyone on board.
Today’s guests on The Bottom-Up Revolution podcast, hosted by Rachel Quednau, are doing the challenging but important work of bridging political divides in their home state. Carlos Alfaro and Jacob Pritchett founded Arizona Talks as a platform for learning, dialogue, and connection for individuals impacting public policy. They facilitate debates, conversations, and dialogues amongst residents and leaders throughout Arizona. It’s a diverse state full of lots of different political views, and Carlos and Jacob have navigated those waters to bring together Democrats, Republicans, and folks between and outside those labels for constructive conversation on the issues that matter.
In this interview, they talk about how this project came to be, some of their successes and failures, and their advice for others trying to build common ground in a polarized time.
Additional Show Notes
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Send your story ideas to rachel@strongtowns.org.
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Subscribe to The Bottom-Up Revolution on iTunes, Google Podcasts, Podbean, or via RSS.
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Support this podcast by becoming a Strong Towns member today.