Governing Like Caesar with Jesus in Mind

Why Cities Fail When They Plan Top-Down and Hope Bottom-Up

A few weeks ago, someone shared a book title on Twitter: "Planning Like Moses with Jacobs in Mind." I haven't read the book so it is possible I am missing something profound, but the very concept suggested in the title struck me as absurd.

The conversation began with someone who raised a red flag about the way many contemporary urban advocates invoke brilliant, nuanced thinkers like Jane Jacobs or Christopher Alexander to make simplistic, often technocratic arguments: highways bad, cars bad, sidewalks good, density good, growth bad.

It was Geoff Graham that got me pulled into the thread. He had tweeted:

The CNU has (to this day) a strong and internally influential faction of central planners who share more philosophy with Le Corbusier, Robert Moses, and the CIAM than with Krier, Jacobs, and Strong Towns.

I agree, and I responded with:

"Jane Jacobs ends through Robert Moses means" is the modus operandi of most planners and policy advocates, including large swaths of New Urbanists. It is a total misunderstanding of both the brilliance of Jacobs and the shortcomings of Moses.

To which the book cover was shared. The idea of "planning like Moses with Jacobs in mind" is so bizarre that it prompted me to reply:

"Governing like Caesar with Jesus in mind."

Someone responded to me, sincerely:

"Hi Chuck - I love your work and have been following Strong Towns for some time now. I am struggling with this point - do you mind expanding on it further? I can see the perspective you’re coming from, but a real world example where this mindset wouldn’t work would be helpful."

This column is my attempt to answer that question. Whether people ultimately agree or not, this point is central to understanding the Strong Towns approach.

The Core Problem: Wanting Grassroots Outcomes with Top-Down Tools

There are a lot of people out there trying to make cities better: planners, engineers, housing advocates, transportation reformers, environmentalists, and even developers who are trying to do something different. They often share their sincere desire for cities that are more humane, more walkable, more sustainable, more equitable, more alive.

They cite Jane Jacobs. They reference Christopher Alexander. They express admiration for complexity, spontaneity, and emergent order.

But too often, they try to get those outcomes using the methods of Robert Moses.

They write long-term comprehensive plans. They apply for federal grants using elaborate design renderings. They push overlays, mandates, subsidies, incentives, and process. They build master plans that promise walkable neighborhoods and equitable outcomes but require demolition, displacement, and debt to get there.

They want local character, but they impose regional templates.

They want community wealth, but they plan using fiscal abstractions.

They want human-scaled places, but they design through federal infrastructure pipelines.

But most of all, they want it all now. The lack of patience and humility results in a fundamental disconnect between the ends and the essential means. Humility means admitting that you don’t have all the answers from the start, and patience means being willing to let solutions emerge over time, through iteration, observation, and local feedback. They want a shortcut, but there truly is none.

When you try to achieve Jacobs-style complexity with Moses-style tools, you don’t get the city you hoped for. You don't get adaptable, organic, and strong. You get something brittle, bloated, and broken, at best a fleeting veneer of prosperity built on a foundation of fragility.

A Case Study in Broken Promises: Newport, Vermont

There are endless examples of local leaders using Robert Moses means to pursue Jane Jacobs ends. In 2013, Strong Towns was invited to Vermont to assist with community engagement in the town of Newport. The town had big plans: tear down blocks of historic buildings; build a new mixed-use development, a conference center, and a marina; and recruit a South Korean biotech firm to anchor the rebirth.

It was all going to be funded by the EB-5 visa program, an obscure federal initiative that traded American green cards for $500,000 in foreign investment. In local parlance, it was "free money."

The plan ticked every urbanist box. It promised density, economic vitality, and a way to counteract the sprawl threat of an incoming Walmart. The renderings were beautiful. The rhetoric was strong. The means were catastrophic.

Before anything real happened, Newport tore down its historic core. They tore it down! Then the funding collapsed in a cloud of fraud. The biotech firm was a sham. The developer was indicted. The town was left with an empty crater where its downtown used to be. Locals started calling it "Little Beirut."

Newport didn't fail because it lacked vision. It failed because it pursued that vision through speculative, top-down, federally mediated financing. It reached for transformation through central planning and distant capital. It wanted Jacobs, but it built with Moses.

The Ramps That Led Nowhere: Chester, Pennsylvania

Chester is one of the oldest cities in Pennsylvania. It has waterfront access, proximity to Philadelphia, and a proud working-class history. It also has decades of disinvestment, financial oversight, and economic hardship.

In the early 2000s, Chester was targeted for revitalization: a soccer stadium, some speculative real estate, and two new highway ramps to better connect it to I-95. State and federal leaders said this would be a game-changer.

The ramps cost $77 million, paid 80% by federal funds. Chester didn't ask for them, and they weren’t what locals needed. But they made for a good grant narrative: distressed city, shovel-ready infrastructure, catalytic development.

A decade later, Chester declared bankruptcy. The stadium remains. The village of housing and offices never materialized. The grocery store that was promised never came.

There was no accountability. The project won engineering awards. The contractors got paid. Politicians moved on. But Chester residents are still waiting.

And it's not like there isn't a lot that needs to be done in Chester; there is. The city is full of opportunities for small, incremental improvements: better lighting on local streets, support for neighborhood businesses, fixing broken sidewalks, adding benches or shade to bus stops, creating safer streets and neighborhoods, and developing housing that meets local needs.

These are modest, human-scale investments that could improve everyday life for residents. But none of them come with the kind of flashy renderings, ribbon cuttings, or grant-justifying narratives that attract federal dollars. So, instead of doing the dozens of things that would actually help, Chester got a highway ramp, and no way to turn back.

The ramps weren’t a mistake. They were the inevitable outcome of a system that funds abstractions instead of people. That pursues change through metrics, not relationships. That pursues the Caesar mindset while quoting Jesus in the footnotes.

The Alternative: Medicine Hat, Alberta

But not every city falls into this trap, at least not all the time. In Medicine Hat, Alberta, a busy crosswalk near an elementary school was getting dangerous. No child had been hit yet, but the principal didn’t want to wait.

So he started putting out cones.

Every day, staff and students placed bright orange cones to alert drivers. Parents took notice. They contacted the city. The city responded: It painted the crossing and installed bollards. Not years later. Not after a task force or study. Just a simple, human response to a real need.

Now, the street is slower, safer, and more welcoming. The cones are no longer needed. And kids cross without fear.

This is bottom-up planning. It’s not flashy. It won’t win national design awards. But it works, because it listens, adapts, and respects the people who live there.

Medicine Hat didn’t need a grant application. It needed a crosswalk. And it acted accordingly.

Governing Like Caesar with Jesus in Mind

Here’s what I meant by that tweet:

Caesar governs through command. Jesus leads through love.

If you try to use Caesar’s tools to implement Jesus’ vision, you get bureaucracy masquerading as compassion. You get demolition justified as equity. You get grants and renderings instead of healing and repair.

That’s what happens when cities invoke Jacobs and Alexander but still operate like Moses and Le Corbusier.

We need a different mindset. One that’s slower, smaller, and rooted in trust. We need to stop outsourcing our problems to distant institutions and start cultivating local capacity. We need to stop promising transformation and start practicing care.

The places that thrive are the ones that act with humility. That start small. That listen. That work to build strength instead of chasing the illusion of prestige or momentum. That prioritize durable value over superficial signs of success.

We don’t need to govern like Caesar with Jesus in mind. We need to govern like neighbors with neighbors in mind.

That’s how you build a strong town.