The next smallest thing is…

Thanks to Chuck Marohn and his Strong Towns message, the launch of our speaker series is already stirring the waves of creativity and glimmers of action are forming. 

There is far more to be unpacked from Chuck’s talk than we can tackle with this snapshot. We hope you’ll make an hour and watch the conversation with Chuck sometime soon. Get ready, you’ll want to take notes and we want to hear what you think. https://fb.watch/c5FGwgFl1n/

Inspiration emerges from the smallest of catalyst. An experience, a story shared, that moment of clarity, song, art, and those that make; through our everday interactions with eachother we spark powerful ideas and find the kindling to take meaningful action. These experiences are what drive us to lead efforts toward building a more vibrant Stillwater and establish the goals behind the Vibrant Stillwater Speaker Series. Each speaker will expand our ideas, challenge our thinking and build a more aware and educated citizen focused on the hard work of understanding issues and doing something to create meaningful impact.

The Strong Towns conversation was a wonderful place to start, it provides a common language for disucussion and lense to see how things work now against how they will work better. Chuck shared about community develpment prior to WWII, how cities were built as complex structures capable of growing incrementally. Thier natural development process adjusted to the demand of citizen and community needs. He described the shift, after WWII as we replicated patterns of mid-term success chasing growth and economic prosperity. This resulted in a loss of adaptability and sustainable complexity by burdening ourselves with more than we can maintain. This type of growth and expansion has to adapt in order to create vibrancy. 

The goal should be citizen led, incremental change that is financially accessible and rewarding to the local community rather than expansion and development establishing long-term financial burdens of maintenance without adequate reward. 

Chuck talks about lowering the bar to entry, increasing opportunity, agility and adaptability in residential and commercial neghborhoods. He described how financially rewarding development and locally sustanable economic prosperity is not simple but is it reasonable and it is attainable.