The Bottom-Up Revolution

Jay Stange: Slowing Down Cars and Building Up Neighborhoods

Jay Stange is a former newspaper reporter, teacher, community organizer, and Alaska native. He’s also the Content Manager at Strong Towns. In this conversation, he’s talking about his efforts to slow down cars on busy stroads in both his former neighborhood in Anchorage, as well as his current neighborhood in West Hartford, Connecticut.

Jay discusses the ways he’s worked with neighbors to push for the change, tested out temporary approaches, and addressed the concerns of business owners along the roads in question. In his working class, renter-dominated neighborhood in Anchorage, these efforts were also part of a larger movement to help people believe in the future of their neighborhood and combat apathy—to show people that they had something to be proud of in their community. 

In the episode, we also talk about Jay’s lifelong love of biking, from riding his bike to sports practice as a kid when his parents couldn’t drive him, to bike commuting and biking with his own kids today. Plus, we discuss Jay’s belief that change should look fun and it should happen collaboratively.  We know you’re going to appreciate the energy and passion Jay brings to this conversation. It’s something he brings to all of his work at Strong Towns.

Additional Show Notes

• “The Road that Killed a City,” by Jay Stange, Strong Towns (March 2022).

• “The Pedalling Pastor,” by Jay Stange, Strong Towns (March 2022).

• Read all articles by Jay.

• Send your story ideas to rachel@strongtowns.org.

• Subscribe to The Bottom-Up Revolution on iTunes, Google Podcasts, Podbean, or via RSS.

• Support this podcast by becoming a Strong Towns member today.

Carlos Alfaro and Jacob Pritchett: Reaching Across Political Divides

It’s news to exactly no one that we’re living in polarized times. But Strong Towns advocates are doing their best to push back against polarization in their communities. In fact, it’s a core value of our movement that we work with people on all parts of the political spectrum, because we know that the change we seek across North America won’t happen without everyone on board.

Today’s guests on The Bottom-Up Revolution podcast, hosted by Rachel Quednau, are doing the challenging but important work of bridging political divides in their home state. Carlos Alfaro and Jacob Pritchett founded Arizona Talks as a platform for learning, dialogue, and connection for individuals impacting public policy. They facilitate debates, conversations, and dialogues amongst residents and leaders throughout Arizona. It’s a diverse state full of lots of different political views, and Carlos and Jacob have navigated those waters to bring together Democrats, Republicans, and folks between and outside those labels for constructive conversation on the issues that matter. 

In this interview, they talk about how this project came to be, some of their successes and failures, and their advice for others trying to build common ground in a polarized time.

Additional Show Notes

• Arizona Talks website.

• Send your story ideas to rachel@strongtowns.org.

• Subscribe to The Bottom-Up Revolution on iTunes, Google Podcasts, Podbean, or via RSS.

• Support this podcast by becoming a Strong Towns member today.

Christa Theilen and Seairra Shepherd: Small-Scale Rural Farming

We have two special guests today: Strong Towns staff members Christa Theilen and Seairra Shepherd. Christa works as Strong Towns’ office assistant in our Brainerd, Minnesota, office and Seairra is a writer and multimedia creator based in central Illinois.

But besides serving at Strong Towns, they both also work part time at local small-scale farms. Christa’s is a vegetable farm and Seairra’s, an animal farm. We invited them on the show to talk about their experiences in this vital industry: growing the food we all eat and need to survive, and growing it close to home so it doesn’t require costly shipping or rely on global supply chains to get to our kitchens. 

This life isn’t easy. Christa and Seairra both talk about the round-the-clock, 365-day nature of farm work, but also how much they love it and how rewarding it is to be outside, getting your hands dirty and literally seeing the fruits of your labor. They discuss the growing interest they’ve witnessed in local food in their regions and the ways their farms have gotten connected with people in the surrounding towns. 

This isn’t the first conversation we’ve had with a local farmer on The Bottom-Up Revolution. But we think Christa and Seairra offer a unique perspective as workers on rural farms in the modern age.

Additional Show Notes

• Brambling Rows Farm (Brainerd, MN)

• Trillium Dell Farm (Knoxville, IL)

• Previous podcast episodes about local food: “Beth Hoffman: Getting Real About the Cost—and Value—of Farming,” “Alfred Melbourne: Growing Food, Growing Resilience,” and “Alex Hagler: An Entrepreneur Creating Opportunities for Other Entrepreneur.”

• Read articles by Seairra Shepherd.

• Send your story ideas to rachel@strongtowns.org.

• Subscribe to The Bottom-Up Revolution on iTunes, Google Podcasts, Podbean, or via RSS.

• Support this podcast by becoming a Strong Towns member today.

Robin Roemer: Stopping a Harmful Highway Project

A few years back, we published an op-ed from a Strong Towns reader who was fighting a proposed highway project in San Jose, California, near his child’s school—mere yards away, to be exact.

The highway expansion would make a key crossing—where hundreds of children and parents walked to the school building every day—extremely dangerous. It would also bring noise and pollution into kids’ classrooms, strip recreational land away from the school, and, as with every highway expansion project, cost taxpayers millions of dollars to implement. The justification for the project from the DOT was basically: We planned for this a few decades ago and we finally got the funding, so let’s build it. 

Today’s guest is the author of that initial op-ed and a leading community activist in the fight against the project. Robin Roemer got in touch with us a little while ago to say that, after a four-year battle, he and his neighbors had finally succeeded in getting the city council to vote unanimously against the project. You’re about to hear his story of persistence, of bringing neighbors together to show that they have power over the future of their community and they don’t have to accept a harmful project being handed down from on high. 

Roemer has helpful advice for any community organizing effort, too: give people the facts and voice to help them make decisions for themselves, use peoples’ energy wisely, pace yourself for long-term efforts, and, also, you don’t have to participate in government processes that are rigged against you. He’s got a great story about not showing up for a city council meeting but instead, arranging a separate meeting for the community that would actually allow them to attend and voice their concerns. We’ll let him tell the rest…

Additional Show Notes

• “A Literal Bridge From the Future to the Past,” by Robin Roemer (Strong Towns, October 2018).

• “After a fierce fight, San Jose abandons ‘extremely dangerous’ overpass project,” by Maggie Angst (The Mercury News, February 2022).

• California Walks website.

• Send your story ideas to rachel@strongtowns.org.

• Subscribe to The Bottom-Up Revolution on iTunes, Google Podcasts, Podbean, or via RSS.

• Support this podcast by becoming a Strong Towns member today.

Strongest Town 2022: Jasper, IN

Welcome to a special Strongest Town contest episode, featuring a competitor in the Final Four round of our competition: Jasper, Indiana. Our guest is the Director of Community Development and Planning, Darla Blazey. You can learn more about the contest and vote in this match-up against Yellow Springs, Ohio, by visiting strongtowns.org/strongesttown.

Strongest Town 2022: Yellow Springs, OH

Welcome to a special Strongest Town contest episode, featuring a competitor in the Final Four round of our competition: Yellow Springs, Ohio. Our guest is the village council president, Brain Housh. You can learn more about the contest and vote in this match-up against Jasper, Indiana, by visiting strongtowns.org/strongesttown.

Strongest Town 2022: Norwood, OH

Welcome to a special Strongest Town contest episode, featuring a competitor in the Final Four round of our competition: Norwood, Ohio. Our guest is a resident and board member of a local community development corporation, Alisha Loch. You can learn more about the contest and vote in this match-up against Durango, Colorado, by visiting strongtowns.org/strongesttown.

Strongest Town 2022: Durango, CO

Welcome to a special Strongest Town contest episode, featuring a competitor in the Final Four round of our competition: Durango, Colorado. Our guest is Durango city planner, Bryce Bierman. You can learn more about the contest and vote in this match-up against Norwood, Ohio, by visiting strongtowns.org/strongesttown.

Rosemarie Rossetti: Designing Homes that Work for Everyone

Today’s guest on The Bottom-Up Revolution podcast is an expert in universal design: an approach to building spaces in a way that benefits both people living with disabilities and people who aren’t.

After an accident several decades ago, Rosemarie Rossetti began using a wheelchair and she and her husband quickly realized the home they lived in would no longer accommodate her needs. After searching for a more accessible place to live and coming up short, they decided to build their own universally designed home and use it as a “living laboratory” to show others what is possible in home construction. 

Whether you live with a disability or not, know that many of your neighbors and fellow residents do and, as we age, it’s likely that we may also one day desire homes that accommodate mobility challenges or other needs. What would it mean to be able to stay in our current houses or apartments rather than having to move to a facility? This is the promise of universal design, among other things, and it doesn’t have to cost a lot to implement, either. 

Rosemarie Rossetti is a speaker, author, and leader in this field. We hope you enjoy this conversation about universal design.

Additional Show Notes

• Rosemarie Rossetti’s website

• Universal Design Living Laboratory website

• Check out the Universal Design Toolkit

• Send your story ideas to rachel@strongtowns.org.

• Support this podcast by becoming a Strong Towns member today.

A Special Update Episode Featuring 4 Previous Guests

Today, we're featuring updates from four guests who were on the show in the last couple of years.

We’ll first hear from Marilyn Burns, who’s helping lead an effort to create a community laundry co-op in the Woodhill neighborhood of Cleveland, Ohio.  

We’ll also hear from Alex Rodriguez, a Strong Towns member who’s been involved in an ongoing process to help revitalize his rural town of Lexington, New York, through arts, housing, and small business. 

Next, we’ll hear from Sheleita Miller, a Strong Towns member who runs a community radio program in Gary, Indiana, and has been helping business owners during the pandemic. 

And finally, we’ll close with a brief update from our summer intern last year, Sarah Davis, on her new urban planning job.

Additional Show Notes

• Listen to past episodes featuring these guests: Marilyn Burns (May 2021), Alex Rodriguez (March 2021), Sheleita Miller (December 2020), Sarah Davis (September 2021)

• Check out the Woodhill Community Coop on Instagram.

• Learn more about the Lexington Arts and Science project.

• Visit the ”Heart to Heart with Sheleita Miller” Facebook page.

• Read about Toole Design.

• Join the Strong Towns Facebook group.

• Send your story ideas to rachel@strongtowns.org.

• Support this podcast by becoming a Strong Towns member today.