TEDx1000Lakes - Chuck Marohn - The important difference between a road and a street

Chuck Marohn, the executive director of Strong Towns, explains the difference between a road, which is a connection to two place and a street, which is a network of activity. He stresses the importance of returning roads to towns for community and economic development.
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[@strongtowns]

@jonkenator Fair criticism. I hope I don't come across as "preaching" as much as sharing my work and observations. I started my career as an engineer building bad suburban development. It has been a long journey to get to this point and, while we've tried to sell the house and move to an actual neighborhood, it remains a vestige of my early career. Hope that doesn't keep you from reading the blog and listening to our podcast at Strong Towns. -Chuck Marohn

[@evanbost3888]

11 years later, and it still requires sharing this message.

[@harshbarj]

Great video! I see so many example of what he is saying right here in Omaha. We have lost so much in the name of the car. Roads so wide with pedestrian crosswalks that you have to dart across just to make it. Traffic going so fast, even in residential areas, that is becomes unsafe to use the roads for that whey were originally meant for. Truly a case of needing to look back to move forward!

[@al-du6lb]

After I found Chuck I just see it everywhere, literally everywhere. Absolute insanity!

[@dutchman7623]

Your cities and neighborhoods do reflect who you are... Maybe not who you want to be, or become, but who you are. The distance you walk on the parking lot from your car to the entry of the super-supermarket is about the distance I walk from my front door to the entry of the local supermarket. Toilet paper is sold with 24 in a package, I get them by 4. On my 15 minute slow relaxed cycle route from work to home, I pass at least 4 supermarkets, grocery shops, cafe's, bars, restaurants, bakeries, small parks etc. (and the best Italian ice salon in town). You drive your car a half hour for shopping and the only thing you pass is a gas station. The difference between Western Europe and the United States is enormous.

[@edwinlee2343]

Ever been to the US?

[@ellenorbjornsdottir1166]

I end up having to bike with a trailer to do car-sized shopping trips, because otherwise safety is awful.

[@al-du6lb]

I'm seriously considering leaving north america for these reasons. Will you guys welcome me back?

[@al-du6lb]

@@Andreas4696 Maybe slightly, but I've google earthed Norwegian towns and they are much much better than America's on average. Would love to visit one day.

[@Andreas4696]

@@al-du6lb Maybe if you're a skilled worker with a job offer.

[@1zcott]

I've always felt there was something weird and isolating about suburbs

[@al-du6lb]

YES! I never could put my finger on it until I found Chuck and the New Urbanists. If you want some laughs check out James Kunster and Andres Duany videos.

[@ConnieMoser]

Thank you so much for this video. I am sharing with everyone I know.

[@ariv8585]

This deserves more views.

[@woofwinkle1467]

Friend : " Yeah we'll just go down that road over there" me: "Well ACTUALLY-"

[@snoogins355]

@deezynar having lived in suburbia I can say it is not sustainable. if you cannot walk to locations then in the long run, they will fail. the social value of living in a dense city has much more health benefits.

[@ClarkWilliamsDerry]

@deezynar I disagree that it's too vague. Mr. Marohn has *plenty* of data to back up assertions. But for a TED presentation, they ask you to give a 15 minute general synopsis -- something that gives an average listener a reason why they might want to dig in more deeply for themselves. I think he's done a great job of providing a hint of specific data, along with some powerful emotional specifics -- images and anecdotes -- that bring the data home.

[@een_schildpad]

This is eye opening; I'm inspired to imagine a different future. Maybe the city of the future isn't autonomous cars and all, but rather cities built for people; vibrant places that are desirable to exist in. Maybe cars aren't even included in that inner space... but used primarily to go from point a to b over longer distances.

[@MrJpetrock]

This is right on target.

[@JamesTsividis]

What an eye-opening talk! Thank you Charles!

[@roteschwert]

Charles Marohn is one of those rare Republicans that actually advocates for fiscal responsibility and isn't overly attached to financially insolvent suburbs. Sad thing is he'd probably get called a RINO for holding these (conservative) views.

[@timharbert7145]

Yep. You are right. Republicans have no idea how subsidized their suburban lifestyle is and local government hides the numbers from the community. Imagine a republican telling the cul-de-sac dwellers property taxes need to triple just to break even. Chuck, and his analysis friend Joe Minicozzi at Urban3, need to be paid attention to.

[@syost87]

@jonkenator I understand that since Mr. Marohn is arguing against suburban living that it might be important to some that he practices what he "preaches", but keep it in perspective. Individual choices in aggregate can have an impact on overall patterns, but the real point that Mr. Marohn is arguing is that we as a society need to change our financial incentives to make it feasible for large scale restructuring of our communities. He's doing his part by pointing out the issue at hand.

[@commentor3485]

Doing what your preach is far more important that what your are preaching. Just look at Church's when they preach "love your neighbor" but they themselves dont love their neighbor. Most people get turned off by that and ignore the "love your neighbor" message.

[@syost87]

@@commentor3485 my reply was from 10 years ago(!).

[@syost87]

Since then, he moved into the historic urban fabric of his town.

[@commentor3485]

@@syost87 Glad to see he is now doing what he preaches.

[@commentor3485]

@@syost87 Internet is forever, which is good/bad.

[@enricocanali]

I'm planning on captioning the video into brazilian portuguese. Is there a transcript of the lecture, in English? Thank you.

[@colab1210]

great work Chuck ++

[@andrepoiy1199]

Came to watch this after Not Just Bikes

[@duncankamara-hagemeyer3037]

Really cool ted talk, I learned a lot.

[@wednesdayschild3627]

A place is something to care about. A place is not something to use and dispose of.

[@kuriadams9138]

10 years later, this video is still relevant. Our government sucks.

[@RichardMay1]

Sometimes the problems are too big to grasp. Brilliant analysis, followed up by detailed suggestions on how to fix it at the Strong Towns website Great job!!

[@Intransitman]

@jonkenator True enough, I live in a suburb, but I don't own a car. I mostly get around by foot & public transit.

[@lordoftheflings]

Our values as a poeple are very simple and wont be changing any time soon. And that one and only one thing is $$$

[@gabrielrendon]

Thing is, its more profitable to build toward the strong town method. More taxes for the government and more revenue for the business

[@gyrgrls]

2:00 reminds me of my grandmother's legs

[@philosoraptor1423]

I can't say that the proliferation of roads is the faulty component here. The lack of accommodation for all modes of travel is the problem. When community planners do not design for pedestrian traffic and economic activity, that is a failure, as is the lack of accommodation for the ease of travel. Mr. Marohn asked the question "How many of us have best friends who we haven’t met, who we never will meet, because we haven’t had the opportunity to do it?" yet that very same question is very applicable for the circumstance of not having the ease of travel, as the proliferation of roads makes long distance relationships of all kinds possible, and promotes a larger sphere of interaction, which is perhaps one of the most crucially important aspects of globalization; larger unity, and therefore a larger community. i recognize Mr. Marohn's complaints, but the fault does not lie in roads, but the poor decisions of designers and planners.

[@philosoraptor1423]

Stacy, if you see this, your student is not plagiarizing an online comment in his -paper, and is in fact quoting himself,

[@peter_smyth]

Development built around cars makes everything spread out, making walking everywhere harder and less practical. You can easily walk from shop to shop on a dense urban street, but suburban big box stores nvolve walking across a large parking area, crossing a wide many lane road, and crossing another large parking area to get between places.

[@MrPabaweza]

Aver cuantas personas se animan a trasladar estas chalas al español para quienes entendimos la mitad..

[@deezynar]

@snoogins355 What did you read in my comment that caused you to think I disagree w/ the speaker's message? Please read what I wrote a few more times until you see that I wasn't critiquing the message but the way it was presented.

[@cauchy911]

With you on your points. Lacking of leadership for decades in US from Federal level to local. But I reckon Autonomous driving can change everything for US. If I am in WH, I will convince CH to pour trillions of dollars in to this technology like we did for Apollo project. I hope Elon can solve this problem and Tesla will worth at least 100 trillion in no time.

[@IDJEGOI]

Public transport good. Car bad

[@paulmentzer7658]

He does not say the Car is bad, he is saying a society where the Car is king is bad. An importance difference.

[@MattMiller2157]

Well, society is hip to the strong town concept. Now you can't afford to live near the strong town. Multimodalism is great for property values. The mass of society still must live on the periphery of the urban core. Re-orienting away from road-based suburbanization ends up with unaffordable boutique neighborhoods nestled up to urban cores where high powered attorneys, professors and the cultural elite live. The problem isn't solved by building smart cities, and multimodal approaches. Sorry for the rant. I don't have a solution to the cost problem. I agree with multimodalism that is somehow affordable for all.

[@TheTapeandscissors]

+Matthew Miller The solution is to make more strong towns to drive down the price. That's how economics works, right?

[@al-du6lb]

The problem is lack of truly walkable areas which is absolutely insane when you realize how much cheaper they are to build. I don't think most people want to live in the center of new york city, but a more walkable human scaled place, yes.

[@jonkenator]

I am confused. Marohn argues that cities have value if they have streets with close buildings, walking people, beautiful parks and magnificent buildings. I actually couldn't agree more. But then he shows where he lives... Rural suburbia. In a neighborhood with a walkscore of probably 0. Mr Marohn, If you are going to preach the values of New-Urbanism and of the evils of cars/excessive infrastructure it would be wise to put these ideas to use and live what you believe.

[@Andreas4696]

Like he said, they moved there before he started this Strong Towns stuff. He now lives in the center of Brainerd.

[@w415800]

Just read about this guy opposing the Diverging Diamond, currently on a youtube safari down voting all his videos.

[@milly-sy4bc]

thanks for the useless comment

[@deezynar]

Too vague. You need more data to back up your assertions & you need to define your terms better. What's a street, what's a road? How does one park make money & another loses money? Who's making the decisions & what are they basing them on? They have some reason for doing what they do, tell us what it is, how it came about & why it's wrong. Finally, show us your utopia. I like what you're saying, but it isn't convincing.

[@Andreas4696]

This is a short TED talk, where you have to talk in broad strokes to get your point across. There's PLENTY of information on the Strong Towns website, and I also recommend you watch his Curbside Chat speech, where he gives examples and backs up his statements.

[@bobboberson2024]

Well, this guy no longer has any credibility after his Diverging Diamond fiasco. But you can fail that hard and survive in America. Sorry, TED.

[@milly-sy4bc]

get educated

[@bobboberson2024]

@@milly-sy4bc At least I can puncuate.

[@milly-sy4bc]

@@bobboberson2024 funni

[@blitzn00dle50]

His complaint with the DDI was that it's unfriendly to pedestrians. He's been proven correct time and time again as DDIs get singled out for how unsafe they are for pedestrians

[@mellocello]

Too long and too preachy. TED's not about that.

[@ConnieMoser]

Thank you so much for this video. I am sharing with everyone I know.

[@w415800]

Just read about this guy opposing the Diverging Diamond, currently on a youtube safari down voting all his videos.

[@GTFAN87]

Calvin Ye he is claiming that a diverging diamond is not pedestrian friendly. Not that it isn’t an efficient way to move cars.