ZacTax: How To Build Financially Healthy Cities

ZacTax: How To Build Financially Healthy Cities

Author: Strong Towns May 12, 2025 Duration: 54:12
ZacTax is a financial analysis firm that helps city officials understand their revenue streams and make smarter financial choices. Today, Chuck is joined by its founders, Chad Janicek and Patrick Lawler. They explain how they work effectively with local governments and how their work is helping drive a cultural shift toward stronger and more productive cities. ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES Learn more about ZacTax: Website LinkedIn Connect with Chad and Patrick: Email: chad@zactax.com || patrick@zactax.com LinkedIn: Patrick Lawler Learn more about the Strong Towns approach to finance. Chuck Marohn (Substack)

Each week, Charles Marohn guides a discussion that feels less like a formal lecture and more like a thoughtful chat with a knowledgeable neighbor. The Strong Towns Podcast digs into the practical, often overlooked details that determine whether a community thrives or just struggles along. The conversations here consistently connect the dots between sensible budgeting and the physical shape of our streets, parks, and neighborhoods, arguing that true resilience comes from this intersection. You’ll hear specific examples of how towns and cities can make incremental, affordable investments that build long-term wealth and stability, moving beyond short-term fixes. Rather than offering abstract theory, this podcast focuses on actionable ideas for local leaders and engaged citizens alike, exploring how everyday decisions about infrastructure and land use directly impact a place's financial health. It’s a grounded perspective on creating communities that are not only more solvent but also more welcoming and livable. The ongoing dialogue reinforces the core idea that a strong town is built from the bottom up, one block at a time.
Author: Language: English Episodes: 100

The Strong Towns Podcast
Podcast Episodes
Starve the Beast: Rethinking the Federal Role in Transportation [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 42:13
Beth Osborne has watched the same story play out five times: a new federal transportation bill arrives with big language about goals and accountability, states adopt the right words, and nothing changes. Osborne, who led…
Illinois Housing Reform Gets Practical [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 38:40
Illinois is short roughly 130,000 homes today and needs about 240,000 more by 2030. The state can’t change mortgage rates or material costs, so Governor JB Pritzker of Illinois is targeting something else: the rules that…
The Neighborhood Outside the Church Doors [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 46:53
A trip to Italy left Chuck surprised by how ordinary Catholic life felt in a country filled with churches. A later visit to Hasidic Brooklyn stayed with him for a different reason: families living under intense physical…
A Congressman Makes the Case for Local Power [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 41:19
Congressman Jake Auchincloss joins the the Strong Towns podcast with a case for localism that takes it seriously without treating it as a cure-all. He explains why localism deserves a bigger role in national politics, no…
Why Manchester’s Boom Isn’t the Whole Story [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 57:17
Is a city “dynamic” just because its charts point up and to the right? Chuck uses a week in the UK to question that assumption. In Manchester, a swelling population of 20‑somethings looks like success, until you notice h…
How Inner City Highways Bankrupt Downtowns And How We Rebuild [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 58:38
When planner Patrick Kennedy started asking why prime land near downtown Dallas was filled with parking lots and boarded‑up buildings, the trail led straight to an elevated freeway: I‑345. He explains how making a hard e…
New Zealand Keynote Planning In A World Of Limits [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 44:55
Speaking to planners in New Zealand, Chuck Marohn connects the country’s adopted infrastructure plan with a global pattern of cities that have grown themselves into insolvency. He traces the shift from incremental, pre‑D…
Why Persuasion Fails When You Lead With Data [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 45:20
Good arguments fail when they ignore how people feel. Chuck Marohn and Joshua Bandoch talk through using empathy, ethical persuasion, and values-based stories with everyone from public works directors to concerned reside…
Why Messy Cities Depend On People Who Take Action [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 56:47
Chuck and Kevin Klinkenberg explore why progress comes from people who stop waiting for permission and start doing things locally. They look at incremental developers, neighborhood groups, and the limits of top-down syst…
Gas Taxes, Freeways, And What Washington Should Fund Now [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:02:43
Chuck Marohn and Tony Dutzik unpack the messy history of the gas tax, cross‑subsidies between states, and the moral story drivers were told about “user fees.” They revisit highway revolts, the rise of federal transit fun…