I just wanted to introduce this group to Strong Towns, a non profit devoted to making development make sense. I worked with the founder of Strong Towns years ago when the idea was new.
The issues and framework of Strong Towns transcend partisan politics and instead gathers people under the banner of demanding that our towns be built to upon principles most any reasonable person would want to see enacted. Principles like: development responsive to local needs and financial transparency.
Please check them out.
I’d recommend both books written by the founder, Charles Marohn:
Strong Towns: A Bottom-Up Revolution to Rebuild American Prosperity
Confessions of a Recovering Engineer: Transportation for a Strong Town
Those are very good recommendations. I do admire the way he has taken on the engineering profession and called them on their BS.
I used to follow them until i realized they were cherry picking data to make points. When I realized the ‘suburb’ they were using to point put that suburbs were all bankrupt or near was a rural town of a few thousand I realized I.couldn’t trust them.
Don’t get me wrong, there is good stuff there, but be careful not to believe everything you read.
I’m curious what town you are referring to?
I don’t remember anymore. Something in southern MN, but it’s was at least 3 years ago, I remember being disgusted that they would pull something so stupid and quit reading completely.