Welcome back to the Ten Blocks podcast. This is Brian Anderson, the editor of City Journal.

Joining us on today's show is Charles Morone. Charles spent his early career as a professional engineer and a public land use planner.

But now he's the founder and president of Strongtowns, an organization that works to support a realistic model of development

for America's aging suburbs. His new book is similarly titled, Strong Towns, A Bottom Up Revolution

to Rebuild American Prosperity. One of our contributors, Aaron Wren, recently reviewed the book

for the City Journal website.

We'll link to both the book and the review in the description.

Charles joined us in the studio where he was interviewed by the Manhattan Institute's Michael Hendricks,

who also writes for the magazine.

That's it for me.

The conversation between Charles Morone and Michael Hendricks begins after this.

I'm Michael Hendricks, Director of State and Local Policy here at the Manhattan Institute, and I'm joined by Charles Morone, president and founder of Strong Towns. Chuck, it's good to have you here. Good. Hey, wonderful. I'm glad you called me Chuck, because that's what my friends call me, so I wouldn't want people listening thinking that we're not pals, so. Absolutely. You are the author now of a new book, Strong Towns, A Bottom Up Revolution to

Rebuild American Prosperity.

Tell me, what is a strong town?

Oh my gosh.

I haven't gotten that question for a long time, actually.

It used to be the number one question I get.

What is a strong town?

I think in my engineering planning days, in the early days of strong towns, I would have said,

it's a place that has the wherewithal to take care of itself.

It's not going to go away if outside forces stop propping it up.

It's a place that has enough wealth, enough economic activity going on to where it can

...