tldr: we're trying to get people and local leaders involved in making Baltimore a more people-centric city through a 2-year program with Strong Towns. Information on the program here. Sign up for our email group here.

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Hey r/Baltimore,

A couple of months ago I asked about groups that were pushing for transit improvements and non-car-dependent solutions to development in Baltimore. I was a little late to help out with the BTEC campaign and I ended up joining the recently formed Strong Towns Baltimore. For those of you not familiar with Strong Towns, Not Just Bikes did an excellent video series explaining their mission and concepts here.

Shorter form videos from Curbside Chat here.

If you prefer reading to watching, this article is a great brief introduction.

The organization’s approach focuses on incremental development (rather than the scrape-and-replace that we frequently see in Baltimore), people-centric places, and targeted investment in our most productive neighborhoods, which tend to be the most overlooked. What sets Strong Towns apart is that it focuses on both transportation and land-use (housing and commercial areas) policy whereas similar organizations tend to focus on one or the other. Strong Towns believes that the two need to go hand-in-hand for successful placemaking and aims to work with those organizations to that end.

Right now, Strong Towns Baltimore is working on a proposal to have the national Strong Towns organization conduct a Community Action Lab (CAL) right here in our city. While Strong Towns Baltimore only came together recently, this would be a massive opportunity for the city to help strengthen its already growing momentum. The CAL is a two-year project designed to introduce Strong Towns ideas to our community, shift the conversation, and kickstart the implementation of a Strong Towns approach.

We are aiming to bring more people from all over the city into this conversation. So, if you are interested in getting involved with us and helping us bring this opportunity to Baltimore, you can sign up here. If you have any questions about getting involved or just about the organization's approach in general, feel free to comment below.

In order to show the national Strong Towns organization that Baltimore would be an amazing place to implement these ideas, we are also aiming to have a wide range of visionary and forward-thinking community leaders, politicians, community-based organizations, and thought leaders at the proposal meeting in early December. So, if you have a connection to your neighborhood association, city councilperson or another organization doing development work in the city who might be interested in being involved, please reach out to me directly via DM.

Thanks and I hope to speak to some of you soon!