The Bottom-Up Revolution

While Rachel is on maternity leave, we’re re-running some of our best and most popular episodes of The Bottom-Up Revolution podcast.

This episode from August of 2021 is a fascinating story about a Strong Towns member who literally bought a road in order to try and make it safer. Mary Moriarty Jones lives in Honolulu, where plenty of roads are privately owned, which is what made this story possible. You’ll hear a lot more about that process and why Jones is so passionate about making this street safer for her children to walk to school. But since we recorded, we also have an update to share: Jones emailed a couple months ago to say that she successfully transferred ownership of the road back to the city and county, who now plan to add sidewalks and crossings to hopefully make the street safer for everyone who uses it.

This is ultimately the story of someone who was so dedicated to the Strong Towns mission and so believed in the cause of safer streets that she did everything she possibly could to make it happen. We hope that those who come after her do not have to fight quite so hard just to ensure they can safely walk to work or school without risking their lives. But we’re thankful and inspired by advocates like Mary Jones. Check out our Safe and Productive Streets campaign if you want to connect more with these efforts.

• A couple of articles about Mary Jones’s quest for safer streets, from Civil Beat: “This Diamond Head Mom Found An Unusual Way To Fight City Hall“ and “Diamond Head Mom Who Took Over Road Riles Neighbors By Charging For Parking.”
• Safe and Productive Streets campaign page.
• Support this podcast by becoming a Strong Towns member today.

Welcome to a special Strongest Town contest episode, featuring a competitor in the Final Four round of our competition: Durango, Colorado. Our guest is Durango city planner, Bryce Bierman. You can learn more about the contest and vote in this match-up against Norwood, Ohio, by visiting strongtowns.org/strongesttown.

Podcast host and Strong Towns Program Director Rachel Quednau has been eyeing electric bikes for some time now, and, while she hasn’t made the leap to purchase one herself just yet, she loves seeing the growth of this industry and the possibilities it opens up for people to have better, cheaper transportation options beyond cars.

Stephanie and Sean Tuff also started seeing that possibility a few years ago and they turned that into a new electric bike business. A few years back, Steph and Sean and their three young children were spending more time outside and looking for ways to get around town that weren’t as expensive or polluting as a car. They found that biking provided this for them and so much more—the chance to really see the city around them instead of just letting it blur past through a windshield, the chance to enjoy fresh air and exercise and, frankly, to have more fun getting around than the typical car commute.

But with young kids in tow and the difference in their abilities to bike quickly at the same speed—especially in hilly areas—they ended up turning to electric bikes to help make their travels even better and easier than on a regular bike.

Eventually they partnered with friends to start a new e-bike company: Tuff Hill eBikes. Opening their business during the pandemic led them to choose a hybrid model where they don’t have a formal storefront but they give people the chance to meet up and test drive a bike, access maintenance, and more.

For Steph and Sean, this isn’t just about sales—although they’ve been quite successful in their enterprise. “We don’t just see it as selling bikes,” says Sean, “we see it as connecting people to a bigger community.” In this conversation, you’ll hear the Tuffs talk about how biking around their city has helped them understand Strong Towns concepts in a real and up-close way, and how they hope that getting more people on e-bikes will allow those people to share in the Strong Towns approach and mission, too.

• • Tuff Hill eBikes.
  • Not Just Bikes (YouTube).
  • “ Are Electric Bikes a Passing Fad or a Revolutionary Transportation Tool?” by Rachel Quednau, Strong Towns (February 2022).
  • “ How Dutch Cities Restored the ‘Freedom to Roam’,” by Chris and Melissa Bruntlett, Strong Towns (June 2021).
  • Youth En Route website.
  • Send your story ideas and guest suggestions to [email protected].
  • Support this podcast by becoming a Strong Towns member today.

Consider how your community builds wealth. Well, as a Strong Town advocate, you may think of your local entrepreneurs, creating homegrown products and services to serve the community; or you may think of your downtown, where residents gather and use these products and services.  

Brandon Schielak—Strong Towns member and this episode’s guest on It’s the Little Things—has witnessed the value of entrepreneurship in his rural community of La Grange, Texas. They’ve built thriving businesses in downtown and contribute to La Grange’s economic ecosystem. 

But as Brandon further investigated how to support rural entrepreneurs, he discovered an opportunity that he’d later transform into a product for rural communities across North America: institutions, such as schools or nonprofit organization, still sold product produced outside the community for their local fundraisers. 

Think the magazine subscriptions or the tins of flavored popcorn that you’d pitch to your neighbors in exchange for a low payment of $50 for your elementary school. 

That’s why Brandon and his wife created The PlatForum: an online marketplace where organizations can view a catalog of local products and services, which they can use for their local fundraisers. 

Today, The PlatForum has partnered with dozens of communities across North America—with a focus on rural communities—who’ve made a small bet to reimagine how they can support local entrepreneurs, keeping their dollars in the community in the process. 

In this episode, Brandon reflects on his experiences at The PlatForum and shares how you can support rural entrepreneurs in your community, including how rural communities traditionally think of economic development, how to find and cultivate rural entrepreneurs, and—most important—how to plug them into your local, economic ecosystem.

If you heard that a new coffee shop was opening in a lower-income neighborhood, what would be your reaction? In most bigger cities and plenty of smaller ones, the coffee shop is a universal symbol for gentrification. It means that this neighborhood has been designated as the new trendy hotspot and rents are about to go up.

At Strong Towns, we’ve been having an ongoing conversation about the meaning of the term “gentrification” and the complex story behind this concept that is so often oversimplified in public discourse and media. It’s not as clean-cut as “poor people live here and now they’re getting kicked out and that’s bad.” Empty storefronts getting filled, streets getting fixed up and property values increasing are all good things—especially when we consider the alternative, which is those storefronts remaining vacant, those streets staying neglected, and the people who live there experiencing continued disinvestment and devaluation of their neighborhood.

The problem comes when the people who live in a given community are excluded from the improvement and new investment that’s happening there. If we can help neighborhoods incrementally revitalize—if we can make space and opportunity for residents to start businesses, fix up homes and storefronts, and make their community a more prosperous place—then we’re accomplishing something different. This is what Incremental Development Alliance co-founder, Monte Anderson calls “gentlefication.”

This week’s Bottom-Up Revolution podcast episode features Coté Soerens, who opened a coffee shop in a lower-income immigrant neighborhood in Seattle. She’s participating in that positive reinvestment and revitalization, rooted in and for the community. Resistencia Coffee was founded a few years ago with the intention of being a neighborhood “third space”—a place to hang out and spend time with neighbors outside of the home or workplace.

The coffee shop came into being through the efforts of so many community members, from investors who helped with start-up capital to contractors who helped build out the space, and many others. In this conversation with Strong Towns Program Director Rachel Quednau, you’ll hear about Coté’s dedication to helping her community grow and thrive, while also operating a financially sustainable business. You’ll learn about the essential need for listening to and collaborating with neighbors to make an effort like this successful. And you’ll also hear about the unique ways Coté has adapted her business and space during COVID.

• Resistencia website
• Strong Towns articles on gentrification
• Urban Fresh Food Collective
• 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 [email protected].
• Subscribe to The Bottom-Up Revolution on iTunes, Google Podcasts, Podbean, or via RSS.
• Join our new course, “ Aligning Transportation with a Strong Towns Approach” and, for a limited time only, get 20% off your purchase with discount code “NoStroads.” We’re also offering 20% off our whole 8-course bundle with code “LearnEverything.”
• Support this podcast by becoming a Strong Towns member today.