Charles Marohn

Brainerd

Founder and Co-Host at Upzoned

President and Co-Founder at Strong Towns

Dad. Husband. Engineer. Planner. Author. Books: Strong Towns | Confessions of a Recovering Engineer | Escaping the Housing Trap

Articles

Are cities passively defaulting on their debts by not investing in the community?

1 week ago | theapopkavoice.com | Charles Marohn

As a young engineer, I used to sit in city council chambers during budget season, doing my best to help the cities I worked with figure out what to do next. These were communities I cared about, places I wanted to see thrive. But the meetings themselves were often bewildering. People would ask questions that seemed simple—How much debt do we have? What’s in the rainy day fund? Can we afford this project?—and the answers would be vague or nonexistent.
STRONG TOWNS: Economies of Scale Won’t Solve the Housing Crisis

1 month ago | pagosadailypost.com | Charles Marohn

After a lecture I gave last fall in Salt Lake City, a university professor who teaches real estate finance challenged my assertion that financialization was driving housing costs higher. She argued that the best way to lower home prices and improve affordability was to make housing finance more liquid — essentially, to pump more top-down money into the housing sector.
STRONG TOWNS: Evidence of Broken Municipal Governments

1 month ago | pagosadailypost.com | Charles Marohn

For years, I’ve been saying that North American cities are broke. That they owe more than they bring in… that they are functionally insolvent. Some have dismissed this as hyperbole or advocacy rhetoric. But it’s not. It’s the truth. And now, for the first time, we have the data to prove it — and it’s even worse than we thought. Over the past 18 months, with the generous support of a key donor, we’ve been developing a tool that will change how we talk about local government budgets.
NYC’s Congestion Pricing Was Flawed-But Killing It Won’t Fix Traffic

1 month ago | strongtowns.org | Charles Marohn

Last week, the Trump administration rescinded federal approval for New York City’s congestion pricing program, a move that left many transportation advocates and urban advocates frustrated. After years of delays, political fights and legal challenges, the first congestion pricing system in the U.S. was just getting started — only to be abruptly shut down by a policy reversal from Washington. If you believe in congestion pricing as a tool to manage traffic (and we do), this decision is infuriating.
Traffic Deaths Are Down, But Not for the Reasons We’re Being Told

1 month ago | strongtowns.org | Charles Marohn

Last month, the city of Tampa, Florida, announced that its Vision Zero initiative was working. Fatal crashes were down 12% in 2024 compared to the previous year, and serious injury crashes had dropped by 26%. The announcement celebrated these results as proof that local safety efforts were making streets safer. Everyone wants fewer deadly crashes, and any decline in fatalities is good news. But before we declare victory, we have to ask a crucial question: Is this decline real?
Massachusetts Zoning Lawsuit: Addressing Listener Pushback

2 months ago | strongtowns.org | Charles Marohn

On a recent episode of Upzoned, I joined Abby Newsham to discuss a fascinating and controversial case out of Massachusetts: the state’s effort to sue a city over exclusionary zoning near transit stations. The case centers on Milton, a town outside of Boston, and whether local zoning decisions are undermining the state’s broader housing and transportation goals.
Can Sean Duffy’s New USDOT Transportation Order Bring Economic Growth?

2 months ago | strongtowns.org | Charles Marohn

For years, Strong Towns has called for a fundamental shift in how the federal government approaches transportation spending, particularly in how it influences our development patterns. Both major parties have, in different ways, been hesitant to implement the kind of meaningful reforms needed to create financially productive, resilient places — ones that support long-term prosperity rather than just short-term economic stimulus.
A Plane Crash Gets an NTSB Investigation. A Car Crash Gets a Shrug.

2 months ago | strongtowns.org | Charles Marohn

Last Wednesday evening, an American Airlines Bombardier CRJ700 carrying 60 passengers and four crew members collided with an Army Black Hawk helicopter while preparing to land at Ronald Reagan National Airport. The crash into the Potomac River claimed the lives of everyone on board, making it the deadliest air disaster in the United States in over two decades. In the hours that followed, the response was immediate and comprehensive.
OPINION: America’s ‘Grand Housing Bargain’ is Broken; Time for a New One

2 months ago | pagosadailypost.com | Charles Marohn

This op-ed by Charles Marohn appeared on StrongTowns.com on January 28, 2025. For decades, we’ve been living under an unspoken grand bargain when it comes to housing. It’s an arrangement that most people don’t think about explicitly, but it shapes nearly every conversation we have about growth, change and affordability in our cities and towns.
America’s “Grand Housing Bargain” Is Broken. It’s Time for a New One.

2 months ago | strongtowns.org | Charles Marohn

For decades, we've been living under an unspoken grand bargain when it comes to housing. It’s an arrangement that most people don’t think about explicitly, but it shapes nearly every conversation we have about growth, change and affordability in our cities and towns. The current grand bargain is simple: No neighborhood needs to change; they can all stay in their current form, but in exchange, one or two neighborhoods will experience radical transformation.