Maumee, Ohio, winner of the 2024 Strongest Town Contest, is facing a big sewer infrastructure challenge. It needs to update its sewer system to comply with EPA regulations — an extremely large, expensive project. To handle this problem, the city is requiring residents who want to sell their homes to pay for the needed updates to their sewage systems, which is generating backlash from residents.

In this episode of the Strong Towns Podcast, Chuck explains the history of sewer infrastructure, how the Clean Water Act affects cities and the very limited options that cities have to handle this kind of challenge. He also points out that the Strongest Town Contest is about celebrating cities that are working hard to improve, rather than finding cities that are perfect. Just because Maumee is facing this challenge does not mean that it’s a failure — and it’s not alone in this struggle, either. All cities are either facing this challenge, too, or will be facing it in the near future. That’s the consequence of decades of unproductive growth.

• Chuck Marohn (Twitter/X).

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In this episode of the Strong Towns Podcast, Chuck responds to a recent Substack column that criticized the Strong Towns stance on the Suburban Experiment and infrastructure spending. He corrects some misconceptions from the column and discusses the ways that cities handle (or fail to handle) their finances and how that can lead to financial insolvency.

• “Contra Strong Towns” (Substack).

• “What Strong Towns Really Says About Infrastructure Spending.”

• Chuck Marohn (Twitter/X).

Can your city escape the housing trap simply through blanket rezoning? Is completely eliminating zoning compatible with an incremental approach? How should your city handle historic designations that are blocking housing development? Strong Towns President Chuck Marohn answers all these questions and more in this episode of the Strong Towns Podcast.

This Q&A session comes on the heels of a member-exclusive event where Chuck discussed his and Daniel Herriges’ new book “Escaping the Housing Trap: The Strong Towns Response to the Housing Crisis.” If you’re interested in gaining access to this kind of event, become a member today.

• Click here to order your copy of “Escaping the Housing Trap: The Strong Towns Response to the Housing Crisis.”

• Chuck Marohn (Twitter/X).