Strong Towns: A Bottom-Up Revolution to Rebuild American Prosperity

by Charles L. Marohn Jr.

California is a particularly perplexing example of this. The state, through ballot initiatives and legislative action, has stripped most taxing authority away from cities, leaving only a couple of coarse and nonadaptive approaches in the municipal toolbox. Cities respond by doing the one thing that brings in significant new revenue – more horizontal expansion – and the state supports that directly through massive levels of transportation subsidy. Then, given the environmental and social disaster of converting the open landscape to shoddy housing and, even worse, commercial development, as well as the obscene costs of the subsequent traffic congestion, the state enacts round after round of laws requiring environmental reviews, community engagement, and comprehensive planning and zoning regimes. These laws have slowed – through by no means stopped – the worst development practices, but they also have the perverse effect of giving individuals, especially the wealthy and well connected, mechanisms for stopping nearly any development proposal. Housing in California has become brutally expensive, partially because individual neighborhoods are empowered to delay, if not altogether stop, projects that would create more housing. In response, the California legislature has considered multiple proposals to strip local governments of decision-making authority on many building and permitting matters, further dulling any local initiative to adapt to the stresses being experienced. The t...