Upzoned

In January 2025, wildfires swept across Los Angeles with record-breaking destruction. To encourage swift rebuilding, Governor Newsom suspended environmental regulations. But six months later, only a fraction of homeowners have even received permits, let alone started the rebuilding process. Chuck is joined by Edward Erfurt, Strong Towns’ chief technical advisor, to talk about why, as well as the deeper challenges of rebuilding in fire-prone areas.

ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES

• “Why it’s taking LA so long to rebuild” by Umair Irfan, Vox (July 2025).

• Want to bring the conversation to your community? Book Chuck or Edward as a speaker.

• Abby Newsham (X/Twitter).

• Theme Music by Kemet the Phantom.

In Lincoln County, South Dakota, a growing agriculture company is being charged $50,000 annually for wear and tear on township roads caused by the company's trucks and machinery.

Abby and Edward discuss the balancing act between infrastructure costs and municipal budgets, especially in rural areas with few taxpayers. They explore the public process behind this kind of decision and offer suggestions on how it could be improved.

ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES

• “Milk facility to pay $50,000 for road use” by Rae Yost, KELOLAND (July 2025).

• Want to bring the conversation to your community? Book Edward as a speaker.

• Abby Newsham (X/Twitter).

• Theme Music by Kemet the Phantom.

Sunbelt cities like Phoenix, Dallas, and Atlanta have long prided themselves on having affordable and abundant housing. However, they’re now seeing stagnation in housing construction and rapidly rising costs. Today, Abby is joined by Rachel Leonardo, a trained architect and Strong Towns’ video creator, to discuss how rigid single-use zoning has locked cities into expensive fragility. They explore whether these cities can course correct and how they could become more resilient and prosperous in the long-term.

ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES

• Here are 6 simple ways to make housing more affordable in your community.

• “Sprawl made the American Sunbelt affordable. Now it’s breaking it.” by Marina Bolotnikova, Vox (July 2025).

• See Rachel’s work:

  • Studio Leonardo (YouTube)

  • Strong Towns (YouTube)

• Abby Newsham (X/Twitter).

• Theme Music by Kemet the Phantom.

Today, Abby is joined by Bernice Radle, a small-scale developer and historic building preservationist from Buffalo, New York. They cover two developing stories: First, a new bill was proposed that would give the Buffalo housing court more power to sell or repair buildings taken from absentee or negligent landlords. Second, the Historic Preservation Fund is currently at risk.

Bernice and Abby discuss how these changes could affect small-scale developers and historic preservationists. Bernice also explores how these two fields are closely linked and should work together to save urban spaces.

ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES

• “Proposed bill would give Buffalo housing court greater authority over derelict properties” by Nate Benson, WGRZ (May 2025).

• “Preservation Under Threat: A Critical Moment for the Historic Preservation Fund” by Preservation Buffalo Niagara, Buffalo Rising (June 2025).

• See more from Bernice:

  • Strong Towns

  • Neighborhood Evolution

  • Preservation Buffalo Niagara

• Abby Newsham (X/Twitter).

• Theme Music by Kemet the Phantom.

This podcast is made possible by Strong Towns members. Click here to learn more about membership, including member-exclusive perks.

Residents of Boca Chica, Texas, have voted to turn their community into a new official city called Starbase. This new municipality is tightly controlled by SpaceX leadership and most residents are SpaceX employees, which has raised concerns about the reemergence of company towns.

In this Upzoned episode, Abby is joined by our Chief Technical Advisor Edward Erfurt to discuss the Strong Towns perspective on this story.

ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES

• “Elon Musk’s company town: SpaceX employees vote to create ‘Starbase’” by Nick Robins-Early, The Guardian (May 2025).

• Abby Newsham (X/Twitter).

• Theme Music by Kemet the Phantom.

As of the 2023-24 academic year, the University of California faces $9.1 billion in deferred maintenance, while California State University faces $8.3 billion. In today’s episode, Chuck and Abby explore how this problem arose, how it mirrors the challenges cities are facing, and what it'll take to manage this decline.

ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES

• “Inside a $17 billion maintenance backlog plaguing California’s universities” by Victoria Mejicanos, Matthew Reagan and Mercy Sosa, CalMatters (April 2025).

• Learn more about the Growth Ponzi Scheme and how to evaluate your own city’s financial position.

• Abby Newsham (X/Twitter).

• Chuck Marohn (Substack)

• Theme Music by Kemet the Phantom.

President Trump has proposed the privatization of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, organizations that back the majority of mortgages in the U.S. and have been under a government conservatorship since the 2008 financial crisis. In this Upzoned episode, Chuck and Abby discuss the proposal and how it would affect the housing market.

ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES

• “How Trump plans to get government out of the mortgage business” by Paige Sutherland and Meghna Chakrabarti, WBUR On Point (March 2025).

• Abby Newsham (X/Twitter).

• Chuck Marohn (Substack)

• Theme Music by Kemet the Phantom.

In this Upzoned episode, Abby is joined by Strong Towns Chief Technical Advisor Edward Erfurt to discuss the emergence of food deserts in the United States. In the 1980s, the U.S. government stopped enforcing price discrimination laws, letting large supermarkets use their size to leverage better prices from suppliers. This led to the closure of many small, independent groceries and helped create today's food deserts.

Abby and Edward discuss the shift from grocery stores being neighborhood assets to regional destinations and how that extracts wealth from communities. Then they share bottom-up ways that everyday people can address these food shortages in their communities.

ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES

• “The Great Grocery Squeeze: How a federal policy change in the 1980s created the modern food desert” by Stacy Mitchell, The Atlantic (December 2024).

• Abby Newsham (X/Twitter).

• Theme Music by Kemet the Phantom.

Co-hosts Abby Newsham and Chuck Marohn discuss the challenges faced by Victoria, Prince Edward Island, a town in Canada that only has 139 full-time residents. In an attempt to attract new residents, the town has adopted its first five-year development plan.

Chuck and Abby talk about how very small towns like Victoria show the absurdities of the Suburban Experiment best — and feel its consequences most keenly. They explore what the future could look like for communities like this and emphasize the importance of embracing the things that make a specific town special instead of trying to copy suburban subdivisions.

ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES

• “Population growth called 'critical' for the sustainability of Victoria, P.E.I.” by Sara Fraser, CBC News (February 2025).

• Abby Newsham (X/Twitter).

• Chuck Marohn (Substack).

• Theme Music by Kemet the Phantom.

Residents of a neighborhood in Colorado are confronting a $434 million debt incurred by their community’s special taxing district, which was set up by developers to finance the neighborhood’s infrastructure. A group of neighbors are now organizing to take control of the district’s board and try to bring transparency to the financial situation.

In today’s episode of Upzoned, Abby is joined by Edward Erfurt, Strong Towns’ chief technical advisor. They discuss how using special taxing districts to fund developments is a common practice, how it leads to snowballing debt, and how difficult it is for residents to manage this kind of situation.

ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES

• “The largest neighborhood of this Colorado city is $434M in debt. Neighbors are now seeking board control.” by Olivia Young, CBS News (February 2025).

• This Thursday, February 27, Strong Towns will release a toolkit to help city officials welcome incremental housing development. Learn more here. Become a member to join the launch livestream with experts Alli Thurmond Quinlan (Incremental Development Alliance) and Eric Kronberg (Kronberg Urbanists + Architects).

• Abby Newsham (X/Twitter).

• Theme Music by Kemet the Phantom.