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The Truth about American Cities - Part 1 - Strong Towns [ST01]

Not Just Bikes · 858.2K views · 2020-11-02 · 5:32

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Overview

The first video in Not Just Bikes' Strong Towns series explains the financial instability of North American cities, based on Strong Towns research. It argues that low-density suburban growth costs more to maintain than it brings in.

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HN people recommend it as the best introduction to why sprawl and car dependence are fiscally unsustainable, often pointing to the whole series.

Recommended by 7 HN people across 7 months · HN mentions 2021–2026

Topics

Transit, cities & urban planningMacroeconomics & financial crises
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strong townssuburban sprawlcar dependencemunicipal financenot just bikes

What people said

iknownothow · 2024-05 · Strong recommendation

I think everyone should watch the Not Just Bikes YouTube channel especially their series on Strong Towns [1]. It shows just how bad parking mandates are and just how bad American car centric city planning is. As they article pointed out, you need such vanguard cities to pave the way for better cities, with less parking and fingers crossed, fewer cars. [1] [VIDEO]

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acchow · 2022-09 · Strong recommendation

I love this YouTube channel. They did a series summarizing the findings from Strong Towns - US-style suburbia is fundamentally unsustainable. [VIDEO]

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rglullis · 2025-09 · Recommendation

No, suburbs cost more per capita than people living in the inner city, generate less tax revenue and end up becoming a net negative to municipalities: [LINK] The whole series of videos from Strong Towns are good, you should take a look: [VIDEO]

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Sources

Video by Not Just Bikes, played through YouTube.

Data and selection notes

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HN Library: HackerTube export (2026-10-31) and open-index/hacker-news. Upstream summaries and classifications may contain AI errors.

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