I was sitting down a few weeks ago, greatly enjoying the most recent issue of Current Affairs, when I came across an article on the Charles Marohn blog and book Strong Towns.
Here’s the basic idea: Strong Towns pitches itself as a forward thinking, progressive movement. But, in reality, it’s just a warmed over version of a set of libertarian ideas. It advances the view that market incentives and ‘nudges’ should replace the state.
What kinds of market incentives and policies? In short, Strong Towns advocates for things like housing upzoning and bus services targeted at economic development rather than need. We thereby avoid ideas like public housing and working class centered public transit and utilities services.
Thinking about all this reminds me of something…
Iowa City as Strong Town
A couple of things, in fact. One related to national politics in the U.S., and the other related to local politics.
First, there’s nothing in the right wing version of Strong Towns that actually conflicts with ‘progressivism’ as people practice it in the U.S.. Many progressives advocate for some or all of the above ideas. It’s one reason among many why we should be socialists, not progressives. Continuing to claim and haggle over the ‘progressive’ label just isn’t doing much for us.
As leftists, we should drop it.
But that’s a common enough theme on this blog.
The second thing that stood out to me is that this is a pretty good description of the center of Iowa City politics. As I’ve pointed out previously, attacks on the government without proposing a working class alternative are common in ‘left’ Iowa City spaces. In addition, the laundry list of policies criticized in the Current Affairs article read like a laundry list of what Iowa City’s city council has either done in the last couple of years or is in the process of doing.
So, yeah. I bet some people in Iowa City read Strong Towns. I bet they liked it.
