This podcast features stories of the Strong Towns movement in action. Hosted by Tiffany Owens Reed, it’s all about how regular people have stepped up to make their communities more economically resilient, and how others can implement these ideas in their own places. We’ll talk about taking concrete action steps, connecting with fellow advocates to build power, and surviving the bumps along the way—all in the pursuit of creating stronger towns.
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The Bottom-Up Revolution Is…City Building With Small-Scale Manufacturers
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Ilana Preuss is the founder and CEO of Recast City, a program that helps cities build strong downtowns by empowering small-scale manufacturers. She is also the author of “Recast Your City: How to Save Your Downtown with Small-Scale Manufacturing.” Previously, she was the vice president and chief of staff at Smart Growth America and led the technica…
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The Bottom-Up Revolution Is…Fighting for Better Public Transit in the Big Apple
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Danny Pearlstein is the policy and communications director at Riders Alliance, a nonprofit transit advocacy organization in New York City. With degrees in environmental studies and urban planning from Cornell, a degree in law from Cardozo and a history on the New York City Council, Pearlstein works to ensure every New Yorker has access to frequent,…
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The Bottom-Up Revolution Is…Helping Local Advocates Improve Their Cities
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In this special episode for Member Week, Tiffany interviews Strong Towns Community Builder John Pattison. Pattison works with advocates in hundreds of communities as they start and lead local Strong Towns groups called Local Conversations. In the interview, they explore how these groups embody the bottom-up nature of the Strong Towns movement, some…
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The Bottom-Up Revolution Is…Unexpected Allies Fighting a Highway Expansion Project
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In this special edition of The Bottom-Up Revolution, recorded last week at the 2024 National Gathering, we have a double interview with Susan Graham and Ally Smither. Graham and Smither are part of a movement in Houston, Texas, called Stop TxDOT I-45, which is working to prevent a massive highway expansion. Susan is a retired nurse who has lived in…
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Brian Boland: Reclaiming Land From Urban Highways
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Brian Boland is a native of Cincinnati and the founder of Bridge Forward Cincinnati, an advocacy group working to reclaim 19 acres of city land from urban highways. He has a master’s degree in Urban Sustainability and Resilience and 30 years of experience in neighborhood revitalization. In addition to his work with Bridge Forward Cincinnati, Boland…
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Christian Gray: Alleviating Neighborhood Poverty at a Root Level
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Christian Gray is a native of Southern California, but now resides in Omaha, Nebraska, with his family, where he is the co-executive director of inCOMMON Community Development, an organization that aims to alleviate poverty at a root level by uniting and strengthening vulnerable neighborhoods. Gray has worked in the field of national and internatio…
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Sara Joy Proppe: Helping Churches Use Placemaking To Connect With the Community
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Sara Joy Proppe is a native of Texas, but lives in St. Paul, Minnesota. She has a degree in urban planning, and has over a decade of professional experience and managing private real estate development projects, as well as leading community placemaking workshops throughout the Midwest. She's the founder and director of Proximity Project, a consulta…
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Armando Moritz-Chapelliquen: A Grassroots Community Advocate
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Armando Moritz-Chapelliquen is a passionate community organizer in Pennsylvania's Lehigh Valley. With extensive experience in providing reports and educational materials on community and economic development, he has collaborated with organizations such as the Association for Neighborhood and Housing Development, the U.S. Economic Development Admini…
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Maddy Novich: Not Your Typical Bike Activist!
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Maddy Novich is a criminal justice professor at Manhattan College, a mom of three, and an Instagram influencer living in New York City—you might know her as @cargobikemomma. Novich fell in love with cargo biking during a trip with her family to Europe in 2019, and launched an Instagram account when she came back to just share her love of biking aro…
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Deatra Kemp: Helping First-Time Homebuyers Realize Their Dreams
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Deatra Kemp is a native of Milwaukee with a long background in the real estate industry. She is passionate about helping close the home ownership gap within her city's Black and Hispanic communities. As the Vice President of Programs at Acts Housing, she oversees the homebuyer coaching, lending, and home rehab programs that help first-time homebuye…
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Adam Greenfield and Miriam Schoenfield: Fighting Freeway Widening in Austin
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On this week’s episode, we’ve got a special double interview with Adam Greenfield and Miriam Schoenfield, who are both freeway fighters based in Austin, Texas. Greenfield is a transportation and land-use advocate and co-founder of Rethink35. Schoenfield, who is a board member at Rethink35, is a professor at The University of Texas at Austin. Challe…
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Jessica Peacock: Fighting for a Family-Owned Grocery Store
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Jessica Peacock is a native of Raleigh, North Carolina, and for the past four years, she’s been fighting to reopen her great-grandparents’ neighborhood grocery store in the Walnut Terrace neighborhood. The endeavor has required her to go through an extensive rezoning process, and on this week’s episode, she’s going to share what that journey has be…
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Jon Jon Wesolowski: Chattanooga Urbanist Society
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Today’s Bottom-Up Revolution guest is Jon Jon Wesolowski, who is an old friend of host Tiffany Owens Reed. Wesolowski lives in Chattanooga, Tennessee, with his wife and two kids and works full time in social media. Outside of work, he makes content for various social media platforms—mostly TikTok and Instagram—related to urbanist issues. He was a f…
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Jennifer Gaughran: Running the Strong Towns Toastmasters Group
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On this episode, host Tiffany Owens Reed chats with Jennifer Gaughran. Gaughran is a resident of San Diego, California, and outside of her full-time job in marketing, she runs the Strong Towns Toastmasters group, where folks interested in cities and public speaking gather every week online to refine their speaking skills, while talking about variou…
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Dustin LaFont: The Largest Community Bike Shop in Louisiana
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On this episode of The Bottom-Up Revolution, host Tiffany Owens Reed chats with Dustin LaFont. LaFont is the proud executive director of Front Yard Bikes, a youth workforce development program providing safe spaces for youth in Baton Rogue, Louisiana, to learn bike mechanics, welding, urban gardening, cooking, riding safety, and providing after-sch…
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Alisha Loch: Keeping Norwood, OH, Vibrant for Future Generations
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Alisha Loch is a Strong Towns member, a mother of three, and a founding board member of Norwood Together, a community development corporation in Norwood, Ohio—which was a finalist in the 2022 Strongest Town Competition. A lover of cities, Loch enjoys community events, parks, porches, and anything that increases the small-town feel of Norwood. She i…
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Scott Jones: Building Neighborhood Connections With Acts of Hospitality
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On this episode of The Bottom-Up Revolution, host Tiffany Owens Reed talks with Scott Jones. Jones is a lifelong resident of Long Beach, California, where he is the co-founder and executive director of We Love Long Beach, a nonprofit that encourages and equips residents to build connections with their neighbors through acts of generosity and hospit…
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Aimee and Cody Frederick: Café Owners and Conversation Leaders
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Aimee and Cody Frederick are the owners of Blockhouse Coffee, a specialty coffee house in a historic part of downtown Richmond, Texas, a small town in the Houston metro area. Even though they aren’t from Richmond or even from Texas, their café is just one way they are demonstrating radical commitment to their city. They also lead a Strong Towns Loc…
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Shelby Wild: Breaking Down Barriers to Local Food
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Shelby Wild is a mom, a lifelong gardener, and executive director of Route One Farmers Market in her hometown of Lompoc, California, which she started in 2018 after her neighborhood farmer’s market closed. As both a traditional farmer’s market and a nonprofit, Wild’s goal for Route One Farmers Market is to increase access and break down barriers to…
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Marques King: Doing Incremental Development in Detroit
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On this episode of The Bottom-Up Revolution, host Tiffany Owens Reed is joined by Marques King, a licensed architect, practicing urban designer, and small-scale developer operating out of Detroit, Michigan. Originally from Detroit, King returned home after spending a decade in Washington, DC, and now runs a design firm that specializes in increment…
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Gary Oddi: A Lifelong Educator Advocating for Active Transportation
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On today’s episode of The Bottom-Up Revolution, host Tiffany Owens Reed is joined by Gary Oddi, a longtime resident of Temecula, California, who served in public education as a teacher and administrator before retiring in 2016. A lifelong biker, he founded Bike Temecula Valley in 2020, a nonprofit that advocates for more active transit in his city.…
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Barry Greene: A Dad Advocating for Density and Localism
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This week on The Bottom-Up Revolution, host Tiffany Owens Reed talks with Barry Greene Jr., an urban journalist and local advocate from the Southside neighborhood of Richmond, Virginia. After spending time in Brooklyn and Charlotte, Greene returned to Richmond earlier this year and launched his Substack, Density Dad. On Greene’s blog, he draws on h…
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Noah Tang: Working Alongside Local Government
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Noah Tang, high school history teacher in Bloomington, Illinois, discovered the power of small steps when he invited a few friends over to discuss the city's housing issues. From that initial gathering, a Local Conversation movement was sparked that led to the city unanimously changing its zoning code. This change allows residents more flexibility …
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LeVette Fuller: Actively Making a Strong Town
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Who are the people working to make their places stronger? On this episode of The Bottom-Up Revolution, host Tiffany Owens Reed interviews LeVette Fuller. Fuller was born and raised in Shreveport, Louisiana, and has served for four years on the city council, ran for mayor, and is now working in real estate. She’s taken part in many projects pointed …
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Introducing Your New Host for The Bottom-Up Revolution!
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After taking a hiatus for her maternity leave, Rachel Quednau is back with a new episode of The Bottom-Up Revolution, where she's introducing Tiffany Owens Reed, who will soon be our new host for the podcast. Those of you who have been around here for a while may recognize Tiffany as one of our regular writers and a previous guest on this very podc…
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