ArkanSTRONG Towns Convention Report!
Sha la la la live for today!
Strong Towns Explainer Section
(Skip this section, if you know what it means to be STRONG)
Strong Towns is a YIMBY organization that claims the infrustructural system of North American cities has gone financially awry. Best way to understand might be to watch a few dozen hours of their (or “our”, as I am a member) YouTube channel.
It’s a movement of local communities trying to influence their officials to stop over prioritizing cars, stop under prioritizing pedestrians, to redo city zoning and city codes wholistically, and to stop treating home ownership as an investment product. If these things aren’t done, towns go bankrupt. Weak towns make weak communities and just…life is less worth living.
Strong Towns has a federated model, as they believe that lasting change only comes when local led. There’s a few hundred chapters of Strong Towns across the USA and now with some international chapters. They call these chapters “conversations”, because…I don’t know…but I go to their events and I’m in the Discords for the LA Conversation, the Artesia Conversation, and the Orange County Conversation (though OC is no longer using the official Strong Towns branding).
Fair Fayetteville
(Where the Walmartians have terraformed Northwest Arkansas)
The Strong Towns National Gathering was in Fayetteville, Arkansas.
My trip and lodging was paid for by The Land Value Group. The Land Value Group advocates for the Land Value Tax and the ideas once made popular by Henry George. Some of us don’t like the term Georgists, but I love the term Georgists and I like to call us the Georgists.
We had one (of about 10) tables at the convention. I think around 400 people attended the conference over 3 days.
There are no buses or trains from XNA to Fayetteville. Will there be? My Uber driver said that 5 years ago, there were 35 people per day moving to Fayetteville and now there’s 110 people per day moving to Fayetteville. Housing prices are gonna soar, he said.
Fayetteville is half a university town (U. of Arkansas) and half a Walmart town (that is, the Walton family lives half an hour away). The Walmartians have invested a bunch of money in the university, in parks and rec, other things too, and the public library of Fayetteville.
The library was the main venue for the convention. I put a red circle around the space that was used for the “convention floor” in the photo above. The room behind what you can see in the photo was the main conference room. The Graduate hotel also hosted some breakout sesssions, which is 0.4 miles from the library. Between the hotel and the library, very walkable, very cute, city square, and a mix of housing styles. I stayed at the Graduate hotel, which is where everyone stayed, unless they got an AirBnB.
In 2013 or so, the Walmartians are reported to have said they were going to spend $300+ million on development in NW Arkansas, but then I also just read the Walmartians are reported to have spent $1+ billion on building the Crystal Bridges Museum nearby. According to a pair of old Georgists who visited the museum, it wasn’t that spectacular, but it’s free. Everyday low prices, eh?
Southern Stroll
(The autofiction of a lonely urbanist…skip this section if you’ve already eaten lunch)
The day I arrived there was a street festival in the main square adjacent to the Graduate hotel.
My hotel room was boring and over air-conditioned so I creeped outside, into the bright sun, red-eyed and hungry.
I had woken up at 4:30 am for my flight from LA to Denver and then Denver to Arkansas and hadn’t slept much either on the plane or the night before.
At this street festival, everybody was with somebody. I’m always both surprised at how white the south is and yet nowhere close to all white. And I’m always like…almost disappointed with how similar fashion is across America nowadays.
I remember my cool older cousins in Tennessee in the 90s wearing collared with their hair combed down on their forehead and baggy jeans with sneakers, while I had recently gotten permission to spike my hair and was hoping to get a pair of Airwalks and would soon start wearing skinny jeans. I would have said my cousins looked dumb, but by being my older cousins, they defined coolness to me. Maybe I should comb my hair down on my forehead.
There was a stage with a band at the festival. I listened for half a song.
Lotsa food trucks, but didn’t buy nothing, since I’m cheap and I knew the Georgists would pay for my dinner (I think all I’d eaten were some airplane pretzels). I noted the funnel cake.
You know, you throw up just once from eating funnel cake that your granddaddy bought you in the middle-of-nowhere West Tennessee (Reelfoot Lake) and you can’t help but think of it every time you see funnel cake at a festival.
I looked at the art and stuff. Didn’t buy nothing. Was tempted to get my face painted, but my face is beautiful enough, but maybe if I comb my hair down on my forehead it would be more beautiful.
Strong Towns had a booth and I stopped by as things were winding down. The volunteers were gathered around a bench in the back and one waved at me. There were bunches of bananas turning brown on their table. I took a b4n4n4 and pretended I wasn’t supposed to. After I left the booth, I took the banana out of my pocket (ha, ha) and I ate it!
I started down the hill and could see out over Arkansas. So many trees and so green. It was as Springtimey as can be. What land, what nature. What Land Value!? One forgets, when one lives in the concrete sprawl of suburban Southern California.
I kept going downhill, pretending I had a destination.
Major Tom
(The autofiction of a one dumbass meeting another…skip this section if you don’t love dogs)
Went past a large apartment building. It had a big lawn in front of it and I sat on a bench nearby. The bench had a ballcap left on it, but I was wearing my “Tax Soil Not Toil” hat, so I didn’t put it on.
I thought about dinner and looked at the trees. I could also see a nearby bar & restaurant that was livening up. Catty-corner from me a young woman, a parking lot attdendant, was sitting and reading a book in a yellow vest. She probably doesn’t know about the Yellow Vest Protests and about sortition and ancient democracy. I was in the shade and she was in the sun. There would probably be hot sun for another hour or something. A band was beginning to play at the bar. I had 45 minutes before I was supposed to be back at the hotel for dinner with the Georgists.
Then Old Tom came and sat next to me. He asked if I didn’t mind his sitting on the bench with me. I didn’t mind. Especially because, with old Tom, was an old bulldog. Tom was missing some teeth. Tom had a Southern accent like my cousins and grandaddy did. Tom was living in the apartment building I had just walked by. Tom’s bulldog was named Major. Tom was an ex-drug addict and had been given Major not too long ago by a friend who couldn’t keep him.
I said, “Oh, so, you didn’t name him Major? Like, you’re ‘Tom’ and he’s ‘Major’ and like, ‘Ground control to Major Tom?’”
Tom didn’t seem to understand my reference. Wonder if Bowie was big in the South.
Tom said, “I grew up biking all these streets. All day and all night. Yeah, I was a dumbass…I lived over there, top of that hill.”
“Oh, you’d bike up that?!”
“More like walk up it. Ha ha. Once I got home though, that was it. I wasn’t coming back out. No way in Hell I’d go back up that hill a second time. Ha ha.”
Can’t remember how it came up that he had started doing drugs. He was doing most of the talking. I asked him why he started the meth and he said because he was a dumbass. He says he’s pretty happy now with just marijuana. While he likes living in the apartment building, it really annoys him that he can’t smoke pot in the building.
“Gotta come out to California”, I said.
He just sorta gazed out over Fayetteville.
I asked him how he’d ended up at that apartment building. He said there was some church program. I asked him what he thought of all that, the bible and Christianity.
“Can’t make no sense of it.”
I replied, “Yeah, me neither. But…maybe I’m a dumbass.”
He said he was about ready to finish his dog walk now and thanks for letting him sit on the bench. I said it’s not my bench and it was nice meeting him and Major, whom I’d been petting and whispering secrets to. I told Tom it was actually time for me to go, too, and meet my friends for dinner, so we both stood up.
He pointed at the ballcap on the bench and said, “Don’t forget yer hat.”
“Yeah, that was here before I sat down.”
We both looked at the hat. We both had on hats.
We said goodbye and shook hands. Successfully resisted the impulse to wipe my hand off on my pants. Felt a little bad about having the impulse to wipe my hand off on my pants.
I crossed the street and headed back to the hotel to meet up with Land Value Group for dinner.
As I passed the parking lot attendant, I smiled and nodded. Wonder if she or the landlord had made more money during the time I had been sitting on the bench with Tom and she had been sitting in the hot sun and the landlord had been sitting on his fat ass.
The Georgists’ Booth
(Advocating to advocates)
At the Strong Towns National Gathering, we needn’t to have worried about our booth location. Given the size of the gathering (400ish) and the number of booths (10ish), everyone who was at all interested in checking out the booths came by our booth sooner or later.
Our booth was officially the booth of the Land Value Group.
The young among us embrace the term “Georgists” and the “Land Value Tax”. The veterans soured a bit on the term “Georgist” at some point in past and also wanted to get away from using the term “tax”.
I understand. I’d heard about the whole “No new taxes!”
And I’m well aware that the idea of the Land Value Tax isn’t unique to George, so why focus on just that dude?
Whatever, I am proud to be called a Georgist.
These were the Georgist orgs that collaborated at Strong Towns:
Public Revenue Education Council (PREC)
Center for the Study of Economics (CSE)
Common Ground USA (CGUSA)
Baltimore Thrive
Center for Land Economics (CLE)
Progress & Poverty Institute (PPI)
To give credit where it’s due, I think the money for the booth was from PREC and CSE and CGUSA? Idk if CLE or PPI contributed. Anyway, same team. We had 11 Georgists:
Sue Walton - CGUSA, PREC - veteran Georgist and quaker, married to Scott
Scott Walton - CGUSA, PREC - veteran Georgist and quaker, married to Sue
Josh Vincent - CSE, CGUSA - master Georgist with real LVT successes to his name in Pennyslvania and elsewhere over the years
David Bjorndalen - Baltimore Thrive - tall Georgist and urbanist, bright and polite
Eric Reingardt - CGUSA, PREC - curly-headed Georgist who ran for Indiana state representative and has now convinced the woman who defeated him in the primaries to embrace the Land Value Tax!
Max Clark - CGUSA, PREC, CSE - journeyman Georgist and not-so-secret sortition spy
Sharon Suarez - veteran city planner, Georgist-aligned, married to Alan
Alen Feinberg - veteran city planner, Georgist-aligned, married to Sharon
Lars Doucet - CLE - wizard Georgist, perhaps the most famousest of living Georgists, a personal hero of mine, since his article converted me
Greg Miller - CLE - well-dressed movement-building young Georgist
Russell Ritchie - PPI - Georgist strategist and urbanist and ex-cognitive scientist
On our table was a replica of the Landlord’s Game that I bought on eBay a few years ago. This is my favorite way to start up a conversation with passers-by.
Lars Doucet also had 3D printed a visualization of the land assessments he had done for the city of Fayetteville! This was how Lars would engage people. Watching him talk was like sitting at the foot of a guru. He’s snappy and non judgmental.
Straight across the aisle from us was the Parking Reform Network (PRN)!
PRN has done great work teaching the YIMBYs movement about the deleterious effects of parking mandates. However, I’ve been a little frustrated with how much attention parking reform gets without the acknowledgement that it is but a special case of Georgism! The Parking Reform Network origin story revolves around the work of UCLA Georgist economist Donald Shoup. They give out awards in his name, but they never mention he was a Georgist or the Land Value Tax! (See the second sentence on his Wikipedia entry, where it says he was “a noted Georgist”)
Anyway. Same team.
Next to PRN, Urban3 had a booth! All good Strong Townies know Urban3 from seeing their super cool 3D visualizations of revenue and property values in cities used in many of the Strong Towns videos.
Other booths included organizations promoting mixed-use and infill development. Some with services to help peopel getting started building their communities or data services to prepare reports for persuading elected officials to implement the Strong Towns vision.
Everyone who came by the booth was more likely than not to have heard of the LVT, which, I have to remind myself, is a big deal. Nearly all were sympathetic and interested in learning more. Some were doubtful of its ever getting passed.
Land Value Tax Pizza Party
(Pizza and justice!)
Center for Land Economics (CLE) hosted an LVT Pizza Party night at their AirBnB, which was also a 5 min walk from the library and the hotel.
It was a great party, way better than any political party! (Har har har). Maybe like 20-30 people came through. We ate pizza and drank beer and asked Lars questions! Lack of dancing though.
S’More Urbanism
(Fire? I hardly know ‘er)
I ended up tagging along with some Chicago + San Diego Strong Town members back to their AirBnB and we made s’mores around a gas pit fireplace. The group grew to about 15 people. Someone said let’s go around the group announcing “non urbanist hot takes”, but…after the first hot take, every hot take was urbanist. It sorta devolved into the loudest dudes arguing about how railroads should be built in California.
At times, I can be a loud dude. So cried out that I, actually, had my own hot take!
“Elections are not democratic. We should use random selection.” The group went pretty quiet and then one person said, “Do you mean…like anarchy?”
I said, “No, not anarchy, this would—”
And then there were flames!
Literally! Someone had tossed the wooden skewers we’d been using for s’mores into the gas firepit and they ignited and someone said “Don’t do that!” I guess because it’s a gas firepit and you don’t want ashes or something and people semi panicked, by which I mean, we all just kinda like sat up and nobody really did anything, except for someone tried to fish the flaming wooden skewers out, and someone else said “Don’t do that!” because it wasn’t clear where the flaming wooden sticks should go, as we were tightly huddled around the fire, and nobody wanted to firy sticks in their lap, but the wooded skewers were just plopped onto the stone perimeter around the fire and someone said, “It’ll be fine.” It was fine.
After that, the conversation just went back to railroads. As in, a few people railroaded the conversation back to railroads. Har har.
The people next to me disengaged and started talking about Lost, the TV show, and I was kinda excited to have a smaller conversation, but then the person who cared a lot about Lost kinda droned on about the early 2000s and their CD collection.
I mean, listen, I can drone on and on with the best of ‘em. So, judge not lest ye be judged, I suppose. But…I was in a foul mood.
Walking Gawking Talking
(Knowing it all)
The next day, I went on one of the Strong Towns walking tours of Fayetteville. But first, while I highly value getting an opportunity to talk people about the LVT, without revealing all of the goings-ons of my personal life on Substack, I’ll let you know I was fighting a strong urge to just go around knocking people’s hats off*.
*See the first page of Moby Dick
Anyway, God and women were my enemy on that afternoon.
And so I walked with hate in my heart. The tour was led by Norm Van Eeden Petersman Jingelheimer Schmidt. He sure was chipper.
Norm is one of the top dogs of Strong Towns. He has very excellent elocution and precise hand gestures. A big smile, a well-groomed beard. Thin, healthy, good posture. Opens his eyes real big, but calmly, measuredly. Didn’t make any real sarcastic jokes or anything. Answered questions with sustained eye contact, a sustained smile, sustained encouragement.
He encouraged us just to have a conversation together during the walk. And so this tour of Fayetteville became a tour of urbanist know-it-alls guiding urbanist know-it-alls. Each know-it-all, upon sharing what they knew, would offer a humble disclaimer, “I know there are others in this group who know much more than I do, but I just want to point out that...”
And so we told each other about setback requirements., storm drain effects, why there are storm drains on this side of the street and not the others, retaining walls. At one point, the group was stumped about why a street light had a curved shape. We solved it. It was for artistic effect! More knowledge was shared on curb build outs, on noise reduction measures, explanations for why the side of a building does or does not have windows, a few of the disability acts that enforce a bunch of rules on the built enrivonment.
But I knew something the rest of them didn’t. A dark knowledge that had been forged in secret, that took all their knowledges and in the darkness binds them. But I didn’t speak. I brooded and walked.
They chittered. They chattered.
When Norm mentioned he was a pastor and I was not surprised in the least. I am a know-it-all, you know?
I once had pastor a named Norm. I eat at Norm’s. Norm norm nom nom nom.
I narrowed my eyes at Norm and wondered where, in his opinion, my eternal soul might end up residing. And if he believes in some kind of experienceable Hell, and if so, what kind of setback requirements housing there might have or...?
Suddenly, unlike the hereafter, the walking tour ceased to be. Norm announced he would be heading back to the library, but y’all can go where you pleased. Most of us headed back towards the library with Norm. As we safely crossed street after street, Norm turned to me, glanced at my name tag, and asked, “So, Max. What brings you here?”
I said, “You know what, Norm. You really do know a lot. Much more than I do about all this...complexity. And so do so many people here. But...”
*I heaved a sigh*
I went for it, “But it seems to me, we’re all just fighting the same...freaking battles and, yeah, I think we will have some victories, but I can’t see how this approach works long term. And, well, I’m here with the Land Value Group officially, but—”
Norm responded, “Oh, I really like the Land Value Tax idea. You know, I’m moderating your LVT panel later today.”
“Ah, great, yeah, that should be good—very excited to hear Lars Doucet speak—and I do think the LVT is...more core...gets underneath..heh..literally, most of these kinds of land-use issues—but ...yeah, all this…I have to say...it feels like we’re in a captured system. All these Non Profits here—and I’m very goal-aligned with most of them, probably all of them—they’re all dealing with the same struggles. Trying to secure donors. Applying for grants. Recruiting volunteers. Coming up with ‘calls-to-action’, managing social media account.”
I went on, “Oh man, I’m sick of social media accounts. And all these organizations want to say we’ve got big tent energy and they’re not competing, but sometimes, really, they are competing.”
I went on, “This is why, Norm, I really think sortition and civic assemblies are the path forward. Have you heard about these?”
Norm responded, “No, I haven’t, Max. I really do feel what you’re saying about all these difficulties. It’s tough. What is...what did you say, ‘sortition’?”
And then I spoke at length.
(I just removed almost 500 words from this post that was my best recollection of how I huffed and puffed at Norm about the rational ignorance of voters, the fundamental problems of elections and campaigning, stratified sampling, wisdowm of crowds vs madness of crowds, et cetera.
Ultimately concluding something like, do I think the 400 people here can change the world? Yeah, a little. The Georgists are going to have a few wins soon and I’m proud of being involved, but will it stick? Seems to hardly ever stick. Elections are broken, YIMBYs need sortition.)
And in the end, Norm said something nice, like, “Well, wow. That’s very interesting. I will have to learn more about that.”
We had arrived back at the library and Norm turned to the group and thanked everyone for coming along and participating. He anounced a few of the upcoming events, such as the Land Value Tax panel he was about to moderate.
And I felt unburdened! As I walked toward the hotel, I felt like Norm was my friend.
And, then, funny to think of it, but had I just experienced the core value in sortition? Had I just had my voice be heard? Sortition is kinda like letting everyone take a turn being heard?
The deliberation in a sortition body is not to force a conversion to the “right” views. It’s about everyone getting to have a say. And while it may feels like “minds are being changed”, it’s often just new information being passed along to the people who then apply their pre-existing values to it. This is something Yoram Gat has recently been writing about on Equality by Lot.
In this post, I’ve joked about being a know-it-all, but really, I am definitionally ignorant about the communities I am not part of. I didn’t persuade Norm that the Strong Towns vision was wrong, but maybe he has a new idea (sortition) of how his values could be securely achieved.
The LVT Panel
(The strongest panel)
The Land Value Group hosted a panel.
The panel featured Josh Vincent, Sharon Suarez, Joe Minicozzi (not technically from our group, he’s the Urban3 guy), and Lars Doucet. Norm Van Eeden Petersman moderated.
Each person spoke for roughly 7 minutes and a Q&A followed.
Josh gave a simple introduction and some historical examples.
Sharon gave some examples with pictures of underutilized lots.
Joe had a bunch of 3D graphs and slick slides (but he was talking fast and it was a little hard to follow).
And then Lars knocked it out of the park with clear language and recent examples where he’s done assessments and things are moving (Virginia, Kentucky, Spokane).
The Q&A had energy and, even after officially ending the session, many people grouped around to discuss how we can get the LVT here and there and everywhere. Some kind of threshold from “what is the LVT” to “How can we get the LVT” has been mostly crossed in the YIMBY world, I think.
I learned a new thing during the Q&A, when people were asking “how can we persuade a city to do an LVT?!” Lars pointed to Josh.
He said, “Well, there’s one way that Josh did it in Allentown. They sent letters to all the homeowners whose taxes would go down.”
Josh filled in with some more details about how the biggest opposition in Allentown was the Fairgrounds, so they did an analysis and a mass mailing to all the people who would pay less.
You know, I can’t pretend to be an unbiased reporter here. In my estimation, the Land Value Tax is a system of land use that would provide a foundation of justice the world has seldom seen. It’s what drives my sortition advocacy, in a way. If I didn’t believe such just and efficient laws could exist, I wouldn’t be that excited about civic assemblies, frankly.
So there is this fear in me. What good is the LVT for a few decades? Probably still worth doing, but why have all the LVT successes in the 20th century mostly faded away? A few small towns in Pennsylvania have hung on. Allentown is the biggest, with 125,000 residents. Harrisburg has 50,000 residents.
In the next few years, I believe some cities in Virginia and Kentucky, or the city of Spokane, will shift taxes onto land and off of buildings. Will the fate of those LVTs be different?
Lars has told me he believes the LVT has often been lost due to poor assessment practices. For instance, Pittsburgh voters had a big reaction when there was a reassessment after many years and homeowners were upset. Lars is acting on his belief! CLE has done impressive work in making assessment easy, clear, and accessible. But what allows for poor assessment practices to corrode the LVT?
Lars is not going to live on Earth forever, at least, according to my eschatology. What will Earthlings do after Lars? Will another take up the torch?
Could it be that those elected to office don’t have much reason to protect or understand the necessity of a Land Value Tax? And so, over time, the elected class neglects the LVT?
Could it be that landed interests dominate our system of elections?
Maybe. That’s just like my opinion, man.
That’s my report. Sorry it’s so long.
The free breakfasts were pretty good, but not as good as the year before, I heard.
I haven't read it all yet but it's a great review of your trip. And yes, we in the South listened to Bowie back in the day. Young Americans is one of my all time favorite songs.