A critique from Bay Area planner Asher Kohn, also from 2017: https://www.asherjkohn.com/blog/2017/10/30/the-weak-logic-in...
Strong towns I'm pretty sure intentionally chooses it's rhetoric to try to be more Republican compatible. (Strength, budgets, irresponsibility, etc.) But ultimately they are asking for a big pile of federal dollars, to rebuild cities/towns to be more compact and efficient, just like most everyone left of center.
I think it's good to point out we shouldn't just densify everything --- we already use too much land area. Some places need to densified, and others need to de-densified (remove housing and use for other purpose).
No, not really. They focus a lot on "try things out" at small scale, see what works, and improving a city's cash inflow vs outflow.
https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2019/9/19/the-strong-tow...
https://www.pnj.com/story/news/2020/04/29/coronavirus-studer...
A strong line of critique has been, "City A" knocks down a "blighted" business zone and replaces it with a single business w/ large parking lot & grass everywhere- but when you examine the financials, the new business brings less revenues to the city than the old "blighted" corner mall.
https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2012/1/2/the-cost-of-aut...
https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2018/8/22/the-more-we-gr...
At least they agree that some up-front spending to reconfigure spaces to be more economically sustainable is necessary, if not that a big pile of federal dollars all at once is the way to do it.