A free-range city is a city that allows, and encourages, human thriving. That includes freedom to build homes and businesses without stifling red tape, and freedom to create more beautiful places than today’s rules allow. But most all, it means freedom for families and children. Kids should be free to go to their friends houses, to play at the park, to walk to school, to live in their neighborhood, without needing an adult to drive them everywhere.
Free-Ranging has become a widely known concept in agriculture: basically what you’d think farming is like, with animals roaming a pasture instead of being confined to cages indoors. We intuitively grasp why it’s more humane for animals to graze outside — yet fail to notice how we’ve placed ourselves in the equivalent of industrial farming environments. It isn’t good for us!
My goal in writing is to explore how our cities work, where they’re headed in the future, and how we can make them better — especially for families. I think the tides of land use policy and transportation technology are turning, and if we harness them for good, the next era of life in American cities can be far better than the last one.
I primarily write for “city advocates” who recognize the challenges in our built environment and are working to make it better. When possible I try to write short, “canonical” posts about a single idea. Together, I hope this will make my posts ideal for reference (good clean links), and for sharing with insiders (cut to the chase).
I’m a cofounder of Strong Towns and have served as Board Chair since 2014. My academic background is in architecture, urban planning, and (plot twist) computer science. If you’d like to know more about me, I wrote a bit of my story here.
I’m writing this newsletter as myself, and not on behalf of Strong Towns. We’re a proudly heterodox movement, and even as a core team member I see some things a bit differently than the rest of the org. I’ll use this space to explore ideas, including some that our movement hasn’t converged on yet.
My goal is to post at least once a month, and more when I can. I hope you’ll subscribe, and look forward to discussing ideas in the comments!
