Upzoned

Edmonton changed its zoning to allow more homes in existing neighborhoods, and Alberta has now given the city three months to undo those reforms. The fight, reported by Global News in “Edmonton Mayor Pushes Back as Alberta Orders Reversal of Infill Housing Rules,” targets changes that expanded housing options and removed parking mandates. Norm Van Eeden Petersman is joined by Dear Winnipeg author Michel Durand-Wood and Strong Towns chief technical advisor Edward Erfurt to examine why those reforms triggered such a fierce backlash and whether the sudden jump in larger infill means the rules went too far or simply exposed demand that had been bottled up. ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES Norm Van Eeden Petersman (LinkedIn) Dear Winnipeg (Site), You'll Pay For This! (Book) Edward Erfurt (LinkedIn) Articles mentioned and Downzone: He Ain’t NIMBY, He’s My Brother (Article) The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable: With a New Section: On Robustness and Fragility by Nassim Taleb (Book) The Little Book of Springerle by L. Heart (Book) Theme Music by Kemet the Phantom.   This podcast is made possible by Strong Towns members. Thank you! Join fellow members discussing this episode in The Commons.

A reliable bus is a big improvement, but Mobile is also looking at how appearance, comfort and the experience around the trip can make transit more appealing to people who have other options. The idea comes from “A Streetcar Named Spiro: Mobile Mayor Pushes Trolley-Filled Future,” published by AL.com and Mass Transit. Norm Van Eeden Petersman talks with Levette Fuller, Strong Towns board member, and Wanda Cochran, an attorney in Mobile, Alabama, about what happens after the basics start working. The trolley idea gets at the gap between a transit system that technically works and one that people actually want to use, especially in a city where most residents are accustomed to driving. Better service helps close that gap, but so does making the ride feel more inviting and making the experience around the bus stop more comfortable and practical. ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES "A Streetcar Named Spiro: Mobile mayor pushes trolley-filled future" by John Sharp, Masstransitmag.com (September 2026) Norm Van Eeden Petersman (LinkedIn) Levette Fuller (LinkedIn) Wanda Cochran (LinkedIn) Articles mentioned and Downzone: Unforgiving Places: The Unexpected Origins of American Gun Violence by Jens Ludwig (Book) Richard Scarry (Site) Ian McGilchrist (Site) Theme Music by Kemet the Phantom.   This podcast is made possible by Strong Towns members. Thank you! Join fellow members discussing this episode in The Commons.

States are legalizing ADUs, cutting parking mandates, and changing zoning, but it's still difficult to estimate how much housing each of those reforms will actually produce. Carlee Alm-LaBar talks with Arnold Ventures housing director Stephanie Kestelman, The Turnout’s Grace Gordon, and Strong Towns executive director John Reuter about the Housing Data and Technology Innovation Challenge, a nine-week competition asking teams to build open-source tools that estimate the effects of housing reforms using public data and transparent assumptions. Plenty of housing reforms have arrived with big promises about what they’ll produce and then fallen short; building these tools could give people a better way to challenge the assumptions behind those promises and be clearer about what the available data can actually support. ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES Housing Data and Technology Innovation Challenge by The Turnout and Arnold Ventures Downzone: The Human Condition by Hannah Arendt A Paradise of Small Houses: The Evolution, Devolution, and Potential Rebirth of Urban Housing by Max Podemski The Serviceberry by Robin Wall Kimmerer Carlee Alm-LaBar (LinkedIn) Dr. Stephanie Kestelman (LinkedIn) Grace Gordon (LinkedIn) John Reuter (LinkedIn) Theme Music by Kemet the Phantom.   This podcast is made possible by Strong Towns members. Join fellow members discussing this episode in The Commons.

Seven years of planning have not produced a version of Boston’s Blue Hill Avenue redesign that everyone can live with. In the Boston Globe article “More Parking, Fewer Bike Lanes: City of Boston and MBTA Release New Blue Hill Avenue Redesign,” the latest proposal restores parking and traffic space while reducing parts of the planned bike network. Norm Van Eeden Petersman talks with transportation historian Peter Norton and Ann Arbor transportation manager Malisa McCreedy about what happens when a street is expected to satisfy every demand, even when those priorities conflict. As each revision absorbs another concern, the challenge is whether the city can keep its focus on what will actually work best there instead of reopening the same choices again and again. ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES "More parking, fewer bike lanes: City of Boston, T release new Blue Hill Avenue redesign" by Diti Kohli, Bostonglobe.com (Without paywall here, from September 2026) Norm Van Eeden Petersman (LinkedIn) Peter Norton (LinkedIn) Malisa McCreedy (LinkedIn) Downzone: Ballot Babes (Podcast) The Ark (Site) Andy Boenau (X) The Mis-Education of the Negro by Carter G. Woodson (Site) Theme Music by Kemet the Phantom.   This podcast is made possible by Strong Towns members. Thank you! Join fellow members discussing this episode in The Commons.

A New York condo sold for $238 million, but the city assessed it at just $15.5 million. Mayor Zohran Mamdani has framed his new pied-à-terre tax as a way to “tax the rich,” but a recent article by Ken Girardin, “The Sheer Absurdity of New York’s Pied-à-Terre Tax,” argues that the bigger problem sits underneath it. Chuck Marohn talks with Urban Three founder Joe Minicozzi and land economist Lars Doucet about how classifications, assessment caps, and decades of special rules can shift the tax burden away from high-value property. If the system is already distorted, does adding another tax make it fairer or just harder to fix? ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES "The Absurdity of New York City’s Pied-à-Terre Tax" by Ken Girardin, Theatlantic.com (September 2026) Chuck Marohn (LinkedIn) Joe Minicozzi (LinkedIn), URBAN3 (Site) Lars Doucet (LinkedIn), Center for Land Economics (Site) Articles Mentioned an Downzone: DALT: Depreciation-Assisted Land Value Tax (Substack) Moneygpt: AI and the Threat to the Global Economy by James Rickards (Site) Subtract: The Untapped Science of Less by Leidy Klotz (Site) Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die by Chip Heath and Dan Heath (Site) Book Review: The Natural Dividend (Site)  Theme Music by Kemet the Phantom.   This podcast is made possible by Strong Towns members. Thank you! Join fellow members discussing this episode in The Commons.