Welcome to Current Affairs. My name is Nathan Robinson. I'm the editor-in-chief of Current Affairs

Magazine. I am here today with the great Alison Learish Dean. She is an independent

journalist and urban planner based in North Carolina. She is also the author of a recent article in the print

edition of Current Affairs on the Strong Towns Movement. We're here to talk to her about that

article today. Allison, Lirish, Dean, thank you so much for joining us on

Current Affairs today. Thank you so much for having me on. I love current affairs. I'm thrilled to

have written for you, and I'm excited to be here. Well, I call you the great Alison Lerish, Dean,

because you've been a friend of the magazine for a long time. You've always been so supportive of our work, and you know, you've, you're kind enough to have

me on your ear to the pavement podcast, which is great experience.

I think you've had my colleague Yasmin on as well.

And, you know, it's a weird, just so excited after all this time to have you, you know,

finally write a piece for the, for the magazine, and what a piece it is.

Well, it was quite a piece to write. Thank you.

Yeah, it's exciting for me to be in current affairs because, yeah, I've long been a fan.

Yes, well, it's overdue. So let's get into it the Strong Towns movement that you're writing

about. I think, you know, let's get into it the Strong Towns movement that you're writing about. I think,

you know, let's assume that our listeners have not yet heard of the Strong Towns movement.

And in Curd Affairs, before we knock things down, we have to build them up. We have to make

the case for why they matter and why they're interesting to respond to. So give us the

quick kind of introduction to what Strong Towns is. Yeah, so Strong Towns is, they call themselves

a media advocacy organization actually. And they started as a blog in 2008. They were started by a man

named Charles Marone Jr. who's from Minnesota. He's actually an engineer and an urban planner

...