The Friday News Digest

Each week, I'm sharing my thoughts on news shaping the Strong Towns conversation.

Hey everybody,

When I first started Strong Towns, I wrote something called the Friday News Digest. It was a collection of links and hot takes, and I loved writing it. As Strong Towns grew, I no longer had time for it. But with our recently announced leadership transition, now seems like the perfect time to bring it back.

Here’s a preview of this week’s Friday News Digest. If you’d like to get the full Friday News Digest every week, subscribe to our newsletter here.

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Last month, the city of Charlotte voted to rescind its approval of a highway expansion project, the I-77 South toll lane. The Charlotte Regional Transportation Planning Organization backed out a week later. Home removal in an historically Black neighborhood has been the political flashpoint, but this is another silly expansion project with a $600M price tag and little measurable financial benefit, especially to Charlotte. They were right to back out.

Now, there is a move in the North Carolina legislature to make Charlotte compensate the state for the $60M they supposedly spent on design. Cities, did you realize that not opposing a project early and loudly could potentially make you liable for the budget of your state’s DOT?

• This is me actually being kind to the city of Charlotte and to those communities who did vote to rescind their vote, and I am communicating to you right now that this will happen. This is not a joke. You will lose this, and you will have to pay back the money to the state. When you are 15 years into a project, and then on a political whim, overnight, rip it out, you are doing generational damage to your community. — North Carolina Sen. Vickie Sawyer, WCNC Charlotte

One pushback we’ve received on our Housing-Ready Toolkit is the call for 24-hour permit review on entry-level housing. It’s true that it can’t be done without rethinking the process, but that’s different than “it can’t be done.”

In fact, as the Washington Post reported, pre-approved building plans are one of the ways cities — including cities with limited staff — are making next-day permitting happen.

• Aaron Sprik has been building houses for 25 years. Recently, he experienced something new. He applied for a city permit to build four duplexes, side by side. And within 24 hours, he had the permit in hand. “I’ve never had anything even close to that fast” from a city, he said. — The Washington Post

Jersey City is a nationwide leader in safe streets. They have a commitment to quick-build projects that has allowed them to make meaningful changes to dangerous streets. National Gathering 2024 attendees heard Barkha Patel, former Director of Infrastructure for Jersey City, tell us all about it — super impressive.

Well, for everyone else, know that even Jersey City still has struggles, demonstrated by six drivers that blew through a new stop sign during, of all things, a traffic safety press conference. They were all ticketed. (Shout out to Strong Towns member Andrew Price, who first shared this on the Commons.)

• You can do really easy investments by rethinking the way your infrastructure department works. It doesn’t have to be high cost. — Hoboken Mayor Emily Jabbour, NJ.com

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