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. I worked in urban planning for several years in Houston, before deciding I could be a more effective advocate if my day job was in a different industry. At that point I moved into Software Engineering. For me, this has been a productive fusion, combing my attention to and concern for the quality of the built environment with the optimistic progress-orientation of Silicon Valley.
My goal in writing is to explore where our cities are headed in the future. I think the post-suburban future ahead of us is both inevitable and exciting — things are going to get better, the question is how and when.
I’m writing for self-identified urbanists and advocates for a better built environment, and 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 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!
