Charles Marohn

Charles Marohn is an American author, land-use planner, municipal engineer, and the founder and president of Strong Towns, an organization which advocates for the development of dense towns and the restructuring of suburbia.[1][2][3][4][5]

Early life and education

Charles L. Marohn Jr grew up in Baxter, Minnesota on a small farm.[6]

He graduated from Brainerd High School. Marohn received a BS in Civil Engineering and a Masters in Urban and Regional Planning from the University of Minnesota.[1]

Strong Towns

Marohn started Strong Towns as a blog in 2008. He was frustrated with projects he was working on which he believed were actively harming the places they were supposed to help.[2] As he gained many readers, he realized there was a need for an organization that advocated the principles he espoused. Strong Towns became a non-profit organization to "support a model of growth that allows America’s towns to become financially strong and resilient."[7]

Marohn believes that post World War II suburban development has been a failure, due to it being inherently economically unsustainable. He posits that low-density communities do not produce the tax revenue necessary to cover either their current services, or the long-term costs of maintaining and replacing their services, and that suburbs are very difficult to adapt to an efficient, dense model because they were built as fully developed places.[6]

In 2011, he coined the word "stroad," a street/road hybrid, which has become popular among urbanists and planners.[8][9] According to Marohn, stroads are the "futon" of transportation alternatives. "Where a futon is an uncomfortable couch that also serves as an uncomfortable bed, a STROAD is an auto corridor that does not move cars efficiently while simultaneously providing little in the way of value capture."[6]

Personal life

Marohn lives with his wife and two daughters in Brainerd, Minnesota.[10]

Publications

Books
  • Thoughts on Building Strong Towns, Volume I (2012)
  • A World Class Transportation System: Transportation Finance for a New Economy (2014)
  • Thoughts on Building Strong Towns, Volume II (2016)
  • Thoughts on Building Strong Towns, Volume III (2017)
  • Strong Towns: A Bottom-Up Revolution to Rebuild American Prosperity (2019)[11]
  • Confessions of a Recovering Engineer: Transportation for a Strong Town (2021)

See also

References
  1. "Crisis in the Suburbs: One Man's Fight to Fix the American Dream". Time. Retrieved 2021-01-16.
  2. "Q&A: Focused on "strong and resilient" towns". Fauquier Now. Retrieved 2021-01-16.
  3. "A Stronger America Needs 'Strong Towns' First". The American Conservative. Retrieved 2021-01-16.
  4. "Strong Towns: A Bottom-Up Revolution to Rebuild American Prosperity". Manhattan Institute. 2019-10-10. Retrieved 2021-01-16.
  5. "'Jane Jacobs Goals Through Robert Moses Tactics'". Reason.com. 2020-01-19. Retrieved 2021-01-16.
  6. Callaghan, Peter (2015-12-02). "Why a conservative Republican from northern Minnesota wants to kill the suburbs". MinnPost. Retrieved 2021-01-14.
  7. Communities, AARP Livable. "Strong Towns Website". AARP. Retrieved 2021-01-16.
  8. Sarah Goodyear (January 7, 2014). "Defining the Worst Type of Street Design". Bloomberg.com. Marohn says he coined the term in 2011 to wake up the people who design America's roads. "I really was writing it as a way to push back at the engineering profession and get my fellow engineers to think about the bizarre things they're building," says Marohn. That was why he initially wrote the word in that annoying all-cap style, which he eventually dropped.
  9. "What's a Stroad and Why Do Stroads Matter?". Planetizen - Urban Planning News, Jobs, and Education. Retrieved 2021-01-16.
  10. "Charles Marohn". Strong Towns. Retrieved 2021-01-16.
  11. "Strong Towns: A Bottom-Up Revolution to Rebuild American Prosperity | Wiley". Wiley.com. Retrieved 2021-01-16.
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