Strong Towns: This Is Not a Conference

streets.mn members are invited to join the Strong Towns National Gathering. It’ll be local. It’ll be educational. It’ll be September 12 – 14, 2014.

This is not a conference, but a gathering.

Strong Towns is hosting it’s first National Gathering in two weeks in Minneapolis, but it’s aim is entirely different than that of a “conference“. The idea is to participants to actually help shape the future of the organization and set a strategic agenda.

Don’t expect to be sitting in a room watching PowerPoint presentations. You are the program. The neighborhood is the classroom.

The Gathering will be neighborhood centered [at 38th Street and Nicollet Avenue] in Kingfield. It’ll be utilizing restaurants and community meeting spaces within walking distance of that intersection, with the opportunity to venture out in the evenings to Uptown, Lyn-Lake or Eat Street.

WHEN: September 12, 2014 at 12pm – September 14, 2014
WHERE: Sabathani Community Center [310 E. 38th St. MPLS]

streets.mn members benefit: Saturday, Sept. 13 at 9:00 PM – Movie Showing on the Piazza on the Mall – Come to watch a semi-public screening of The Human Scale – a story about the work of Jan Gehl [Watch the Trailer] @ Westminster Presbyterian Church [1200 S Marquette Ave, Minneapolis, MN 55403]

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EDIT: [9:33pm] — You can register for a one day Friday or Saturday. Strong Towns will be re-envisioning a new set of transportation principles and using MSP as an example at the Transit session Saturday afternoon. See the schedule here.

5 thoughts on “Strong Towns: This Is Not a Conference”

Matt SteeleSeptember 2, 2014 at 8:37 pm

Looking forward to this. An excellent way to further the discussion here in Minneapolis, and to introduce thought leaders from around the world to our great neighborhoods.

NathanielSeptember 3, 2014 at 1:27 am

I’ll see you there Matt.

And, for anyone else interested, I do want to invite people to join on (at least) Saturday, Sept. 13 at 9pm for the movie showing on the Piazza on the Mall of The Human Scale – a story about the work of Jan Gehl

Jim KumonSeptember 3, 2014 at 9:59 am

I’ll add that we have two great keynote speakers, one each afternoon of the event:

Friday @ 4 PM: Monte Anderson, an unorthodox developer working in urban, suburban and small town settings to restore and expand the traditional neighborhood fabric and create new economic opportunities through incremental investment.

http://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2014/7/16/monte-anderson-to-keynote-national-gathering.html

Saturday @ 1:30 PM: Former Seattle Mayor, Mike McGinn – That’s right, he’s the guy who fought tooth and nail against digging the huge tunnel to bury their shoreline freeway preferring to turn it back to a surface boulevard.

Also, he lead a guerrilla grassroots effort to defeat a ballot initiative to funnel a huge amount of money towards low returning road and transit projects (ahem, MoveMN) and the next year got a transit only ballot passed that actually didn’t suck. His advocacy in Seattle all got started trying to get a sidewalk installed in his neighborhood.

http://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2014/8/6/mayor-mike-mcginn-at-the-national-gathering.html