How Love of Place Grows Into Community Leadership

How Love of Place Grows Into Community Leadership

Author: Strong Towns December 18, 2025 Duration: 1:07:43
What does it look like to actively love the place you live? Tiffany Owens Reed talks with New Haven Alder Caroline Tanbee Smith about community-building, public space, and how small, people-powered projects grow into lasting civic impact. ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES Local Recommendations: Criscuolo Park Ozzy’s Pizza The Crooked Goat Taqueria Oyameles Caroline Tanbee Smith (site) Tiffany Owens Reed (Instagram) Do you know someone who would make for a great Bottom-Up Revolution guest? Let us know here!   This podcast is made possible by Strong Towns members. Click here to learn more about membership.

There’s a quiet shift happening in neighborhoods and city halls across the continent, a push to rethink what makes a place thrive. The Bottom-Up Revolution, from the team at Strong Towns and hosted by Tiffany Owens Reed, dives into that shift by sharing real stories from within the movement. Instead of grand top-down plans, this podcast focuses on the tangible, often overlooked work of everyday people who are rolling up their sleeves to foster economic resilience right where they live. Each conversation explores the practicalities-how someone identified a small, solvable problem in their community, the steps they took to rally their neighbors, and the challenges they faced turning an idea into reality. You’ll hear about the messiness of local advocacy, the importance of building connections to create lasting influence, and the personal lessons learned along the path to a stronger town. It’s a resource for anyone who believes change starts on their own street, offering not just inspiration but a sense of shared struggle and possibility. Tune in for a candid look at the grassroots work that’s quietly reshaping our cities and towns, one concrete action at a time.
Author: Language: English Episodes: 100

The Bottom-Up Revolution
Podcast Episodes
Mr. Barricade: How to Quick Build a Connected City [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:03:41
Vignesh Swaminathan is an engineer, transportation planner, and content creator. Formerly the the CEO of a civil engineering firm, he now works as a project engineer and has over 1.7 million followers on TikTok, where he…
Bottom-Up Shorts: How To Humbly Observe Where People Struggle [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 13:28
Danny Wind is a Local Conversation leader and Regional Transportation Commission member from Lake County, California. In this Bottom-Up Short, Danny discusses their Open Street Map Project, which gives people a space to…
Noah Roth: How Animation Can Build Strong Cities [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 38:07
Noah Roth is the founder of Streetcraft, a platform that uses visual storytelling and urban design to explore and improve the built environment. He joins Tiffany to talk about what led him to this form of advocacy, how v…
Bottom-Up Shorts: How State Governments Can Foster Strong Towns [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 16:07
Danny Lapin is a revitalization specialist with the New York State Department of State. He and Norm discuss the ways that New York state is encouraging bottom-up community development, as well as Danny’s strategies for g…
Bottom-Up Shorts: How To Build a Network of Advocates [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 12:29
Hazen Elwood is a student, a member of Strong Towns Calgary (in Alberta, Canada), and a community manager with the organization For the City. Today, Norm and Hazen discuss ways to build an advocacy network and the power…
Justine Underhill: Using Media To Build a Better City [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:12:18
Justine Underhill is an elected city council member in Falls Church, Virginia, and an award-winning video journalist and independent filmmaker. She’s worked for international and domestic news organizations, created an a…
Bottom-Up Shorts: How To Make a More Walkable City [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 15:53
How do you turn three people with snow shovels into an initiative that gets covered on the news, triggers a city-funded pilot program, and inspires people to stay in the city long-term? That’s what Andrew Neidhardt and D…
Rosaline Hill: Proving the Power of Infill Housing Development [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 49:19
Rosaline Hill is a registered professional planner and awards-winning architect from Ottawa, Canada. She’s consulted on zoning for the city of Ottawa and is the founder and principle architect of BuildingIn, a planning p…