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The Nonprofit Strong Towns Will Soon Host Its First-Ever National Summit Here in Tulsa

Aired on Tuesday, March 28th.

Our guest on ST is Chuck Marohn, an engineer based in Minnesota and member of the American Institute of Certified Planners. He's also the founder and president of Strong Towns, a nationwide media nonprofit that, per its website, supports "a model of development that allows America's cities, towns, and neighborhoods to become financially strong and resilient. For the United States to be a prosperous country, it must have strong cities, towns, and neighborhoods. Enduring prosperity for our communities cannot be artificially created from the outside but must be built from within, incrementally over time." Later this week, starting on Thursday the 30th, Strong Towns will host its first-ever national summit right here in Tulsa. This event is called "America's Next Transportation System: Transforming More While Spending Less," and will argue that current land-use and transportation patterns across the U.S. are actually bankrupting our cities. But, as Marohn explains on our show today, a more productive model for prosperity is possible. And it's basically a matter of how we think about development, he says; we as a society need to change our development strategy from focusing on continuous expansion to placing the maintenance and maximization of existing infrastructure at the top of our list of priorities.

Rich Fisher passed through KWGS about thirty years ago, and just never left. Today, he is the general manager of Public Radio Tulsa, and the host of KWGS’s public affairs program, StudioTulsa, which celebrated its twentieth anniversary in August 2012 . As host of StudioTulsa, Rich has conducted roughly four thousand long-form interviews with local, national, and international figures in the arts, humanities, sciences, and government. Very few interviews have gone smoothly. Despite this, he has been honored for his work by several organizations including the Governor's Arts Award for Media by the State Arts Council, a Harwelden Award from the Arts & Humanities Council of Tulsa, and was named one of the “99 Great Things About Oklahoma” in 2000 by Oklahoma Today magazine.
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