The Bottom-Up Revolution

De’Nita Wright comes from a family of activists, and has been involved with bringing neighbors together for cooperative organizing around affordable housing and food access in her hometown of Louisville, Kentucky. She’s the featured guest on today’s episode of The Bottom-Up Revolution podcast, hosted by Rachel Quednau.

Wright is the founder of the Coalition of West Louisville Neighborhood Associations and also serves on the board of the Louisville Association for Community Economics. Both efforts are focused on connecting neighbors with one another to build broad-based support for goals like a new community grocery store, or efforts to preserve home ownership in the neighborhood. Wright has watched band-aid government programs try and fail to help her community, and sees outside money making its way into her neighborhood in a negative way.

She’s a strong believer in the power of co-ops as a long-term solution to economic challenges. For Wright, cooperative organizations are the way of the future, ensuring that residents have a say in what takes place in their neighborhood, and have the collective power to make it happen.

Additional Show Notes

• Grab your ticket to the 2022 Local-Motive Tour today!

• Nominate your town for the Strongest Town contest.

• Visit the Louisville Association for Community Economics website.

• Send your story ideas to rachel@strongtowns.org.

• Support this podcast by becoming a Strong Towns member today.

Gracen Johnson, a founding member and long-time contributor to Strong Towns, recently had that now-common experience of moving mid-pandemic—to Ottawa in Canada. Yet she’s found small but powerful ways to get to know neighbors and be a positive part of her neighborhood. Having a dog to walk regularly helps. So does observing what’s going on around her and finding ways to plug into that, rather than showing up with her own agenda. If you’ve heard of our "4-Step Process for Public Investment" at Strong Towns, this is exactly what Gracen is talking about.

Gracen has lived in rural and urban areas, but she says she’s not a city person or a small town person—rather, she’s “a neighborhood person.” In this episode, you’ll hear a lot from Gracen about how to connect with your neighbors and, as she says, “give more than you take” with those around you. Near the end of the interview, we also have an interesting conversation about top-down versus bottom-up advocacy, because the reason Gracen moved to Toronto was to work for a quasi-federal government housing agency. It’s certainly a valuable discussion.

Additional Show Notes

• Grab your ticket to the 2022 Local-Motive Tour today!

• Nominate your town for the Strongest Town contest.

• Read Strong Towns articles by Gracen.

• Read Gracen’s "Places I Don’t Want to Sit" photo essay.

• Why are street trees important? Read "The Magic of Tree-Lined Streets," by Sarah Kobos.

• Watch the Curbside Chat video series Gracen created for Strong Towns

• Check out the popular Not Just Bikes channel on YouTube.

• Send your story ideas to rachel@strongtowns.org.

• Support this podcast by becoming a Strong Towns member today.

If you wanted to decrease crime in your neighborhood, what would you do? Say there’s a park where people tend to hang out selling and doing drugs, getting into trouble, and making the rest of the neighbrohood feel unsafe… Would you set up more police patrols? Install brighter lighting? Maybe cut down the bushes that protect the park from public view? These are all typical tactics that cities use.

But today’s guest on The Bottom-Up Revolution podcast tried something very different: He and the organizations he leads —the Lykins Neighborhood Association and Neighborhood Legal Support of Kansas City—have been combatting crime in a Kansas City neighborhood through activity and development. 

Gregg Lombardi is a practicing lawyer and has been using legal strategies to help a neighborhood procure abandoned homes and rehab them.  His organization serves as a facilitator, convener, and liaison for development, helping bring together the financial resources to make these projects happen and, most importantly, giving primary focus to listening to what residents want to see in their neighborhood. They’re also spurring neighborhood activities—like soccer practice and local events in that now formerly dangerous park.

When we see disinvested neighborhoods, we shouldn’t just throw up our hands and conclude they’re on a downward trajectory that can’t be stopped. Lombardi says: “There are a lot of problems in neighborhoods that are solvable.” The work happening in the Lykins Neighborhood of Kansas City is already serving as a pilot project for development and revitalization in other neighborhoods, too.

In this interview, hosted by Rachel Quednau, you’ll see the incremental, “small bets” approach that Lombardi and the neighbors involved in the project are employing. You’ll also learn about how so many challenges and opportunities in our neighborhoods are interconnected: public space, housing, safety, local businesses, and more. 

Additional Show Notes

• Grab your ticket to the 2022 Local-Motive Tour today!

• Visit the Lykins Neighborhood Association website.

• Send your story ideas to rachel@strongtowns.org.

• Support this podcast by becoming a Strong Towns member today.

Andrea Marr has had a fascinating career trajectory. She’s a nuclear engineer, she’s served in the U.S. Navy in the Persian Gulf, volunteered on a solar panel project in Nicaragua and now leads the city of Costa Mesa, California, as the mayor pro tem. She’s also a Strong Towns member.

What’s the connection between these different roles and experiences? For Marr, it’s about wanting to serve something beyond herself. 

In her current position as city councilor and mayor pro tem, she’s dedicated herself over the last few years to helping shift the culture around biking and walking in her region. For a car-dominated place like southern California, it’s not easy, but Marr is a big believer in the power of incremental progress. She’s also been working on economic development efforts and helping the city improve after some dysfunctional leadership.

Andrea Marr is yet another badass Strong Towns advocate in local government and an engineer pushing for change. We’re excited for you to hear her story on this week’s episode of The Bottom-Up Revolution podcast, hosted by Rachel Quednau.

Additional Show Notes

• Grab your ticket to the 2022 Local-Motive Tour today!

• Check out some of our new columns: Neighborhood Stories (by Karla Theilen), Community Building (by John Pattison), and the High Value fiction serial (by Hamilton Ludwig).

• Listen to recent Bottom-Up Revolution episodes featuring Strong Towns advocates in local government, including Ashley Salvador, Mason Thompson, and Rob Green.

• Join the discussion about this episode in the Strong Towns Facebook Community group.

• Send your story ideas to rachel@strongtowns.org.

• Subscribe to The Bottom-Up Revolution on iTunes, Google Podcasts, Podbean, or via RSS.

• Support this podcast by becoming a Strong Towns member today.

Kirk Seyfert got his start in a church basement. As he describes it, he was just a guy who cared about biking and transportation access, and started noticing a need in his community of Salem, Oregon. Seyfert heard about some neighbors who were walking miles to their third shift jobs because they didn’t own cars and the city bus service shut down during evenings and weekends. He thought that access to bikes might make a difference for these guys, and he was right.

That spark of an idea has since grown into a nonprofit called the Northwest Hub that reclaims and refurbishes bikes for low-income people, teaches bike maintenance classes, provides job training for young people, and more. It’s a great example of an organization that has adapted over time based on community needs.

In this conversation, you’ll hear from Seyfert about how his program got started, the issues they’ve been working on, and how you might implement something similar in your city. We have a saying at Strong Towns that small improvements in bike infrastructure and access are some of the most high-return investments you can make in your city. You’ll see how true that is in this story.

Additional Show Notes

• Visit the Northwest Hub website.

• Join the discussion about this episode in the Strong Towns Facebook Community group.

• Send your story ideas to rachel@strongtowns.org.

• Subscribe to The Bottom-Up Revolution on iTunes, Google Podcasts, Podbean, or via RSS.

• Support this podcast by becoming a Strong Towns member today.

In her new book, Bet the Farm: The Dollars and Sense of Growing Food in America, Beth Hoffman tells the story of how she and her husband moved onto Iowa land owned by her father-in-law and began raising cattle, goats, and growing various crops. But unlike many farming stories, this is not a romanticized tale of waking at dawn to gather eggs in your apron pocket and cooking a beautiful breakfast with homemade jam and bread, then heading out to the fields to weed your lush vegetable patch…

Alright, we’re exaggerating a little bit. But that’s kind of the vibe you get from food memoirs these days. And Bet the Farm is not that. Hoffman is brutally honest about the hardships she and her husband face in their farming venture—and that’s with land available and a good chunk of start-up money. She talks in depth about how much harder things are for farmers who don’t have these resources.  

In this interview on the Bottom-Up Revolution podcast (and in Hoffman’s book, if you read it), you’re going to notice a lot of parallels between the challenges of farming and the challenges of small towns in America, and you’ll also hear Hoffman talk about why farms and towns need each other to survive. 

Additional Show Notes

• Order Bet the Farm: The Dollars and Sense of Growing Food in America and use code STRONG25 for 25% off your purchase today.

• Visit the Whippoorwill Creek Farm website

• Connect with Beth Hoffman on Twitter (@BethFoodAg).

• Join the discussion about this episode in the Strong Towns Facebook Community group.

• Send your story ideas to rachel@strongtowns.org.

• Subscribe to The Bottom-Up Revolution on iTunes, Google Podcasts, Podbean, or via RSS.

• Support this podcast by becoming a Strong Towns member today.

All week, we’ve been celebrating the thousands of amazing Strong Towns members who make up this movement. They are safe streets advocates in Hawaii and mayors in Pennsylvania and small business owners in Georgia. And if those references sound familiar, it’s because every one of those stories was featured on the podcast this year. If you’ve ever listened to the show and thought, “Wow I wish I could do what Mary or Chris or Haile is doing in my city,” you can! It just takes stepping up and committing to this movement by becoming a member of Strong Towns.

This movement is made up of all sorts of people and there’s a place for you here. Become a member today.

This week’s guest is Edmonton, Alberta-based city councilor, Ashley Salvador. Before her recent election, Ashley ran an organization called YEGarden Suites. (YEG is the abbreviation for Edmonton, and a garden suite is another term for an accessory dwelling unit.) Ashley has been a huge proponent of making this sort of housing more legally and practically easy to build. She and her cofounder teach classes, provide resources, and advocate to decisionmakers, all in pursuit of increased housing options and affordability through what she calls “gentle density.”

Her leadership on this and other local issues eventually led her to step up and run for local office. Ashley’s campaign brought together over 100 volunteers in a very grassroots effort, and now she’s a brand new city councilor.

In this interview, Ashley talks about the positive, Strong Towns changes happening in Edmonton, how she got where she is today, and her advice for others who hope to be local leaders, too. 

Additional Show Notes

• YEGarden Suites website

• “Will Edmonton Be the First Major Canadian City to Eliminate Parking Minimums?” (Strong Towns article by Ashley Salvador)

• “How to Get Rid of Parking Minimums” (Strong Towns webcast featuring Ashley Salvador)

• Follow Ashley Salvador on Twitter.

• Join the discussion about this episode in the Strong Towns Facebook Community group.

• Send us your own voicemail about the small (or big) thing you’re doing to make your town stronger. Just record a voice memo on your phone and email it to rachel@strongtowns.org.

• Subscribe to The Bottom-Up Revolution on iTunes, Google Podcasts, Podbean, or via RSS.

• Support this podcast by becoming a Strong Towns member today.

Mason Thompson is a Strong Towns member and city councilor in Bothell, WA. But he’s not someone who’s been dreaming of running for office since he was a kid or anything. For him, it all started because he wanted some bike trails in the local park. That led him to the park board, and eventually, to an elected official inviting him to think about running for office. Mason is someone who has said "yes" to his community; he’s been a lifelong resident of Bothell, and he’s dedicated to making it a better place for everyone.

That means really listening to residents and their concerns, and seeking out the voices that aren’t often present in public decision-making. It also means running a nonpartisan campaign, where Mason focused on land use and transportation issues as an entry point that he knew everyone could get behind. Everyone cares about the way their environment feels and looks and how they get around, he says, and that was a good way to start a conversation with his fellow Bothellites.

In this episode, Mason shares his journey to running for office, the family motto that he invites everyone to utilize, and also a fun tangent about the awesome power of electric bikes. 

Additional Show Notes

• Listen to a previous Bottom-Up Revolution episode featuring Cary Westerbeck, fellow Bothell resident, Strong Towns member and founder of Bo-POP.

• Visit the Bo-POP (Bothellites for People-Oriented Places) website.

• Join the discussion about this episode in the Strong Towns Facebook Community group.

• Send us your own voicemail about the small (or big) thing you’re doing to make your town stronger. Just record a voice memo on your phone and email it to rachel@strongtowns.org.

• Support this podcast by becoming a Strong Towns member today.