Charles Marohn

2 weeks ago | pagosadailypost.com | Charles Marohn

This op-ed originally appeared on StrongTowns.org on April 21, 2025. You don’t have to look far to see that things feel unstable right now. National politics is a mess. State legislatures are swinging wildly from one state to the next. Economic signals are chaotic. Interest rates, federal funding, inflation, labor markets — it all feels like shifting sand. If you’re a local leader, it’s hard not to feel whiplash. But the problem isn’t just that the world is volatile. Volatility is part of life.

3 weeks ago | pagosadailypost.com | Charles Marohn

This op-ed by Chuck Marohn first appeared on StrongTowns.org on April 17, 2025. Last weekend, I had the privilege of speaking at the New Jersey Bike & Walk Summit — a packed room filled with passionate local leaders, planners, engineers, and advocates working to make their places safer and more human. Before I started, I entirely scrapped the talk I had prepared. The moment demanded something different. There’s a lot of fear right now. I could read it clearly in the room.

1 month 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.

2 months 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.

2 months 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.