Let me tell you about the single hardest and best part of my job.

More than a few times a week, I get an email from an excited reader. They just found Strong Towns, and they really like what they see. Whether they’re a professional engineer or an average citizen who’s never thought about how the roads under their feet were made, something about what we have to say has struck a chord. They recognize their own city in our description of the Growth Ponzi Scheme. They can’t believe no one talks about how much it really costs to maintain something as simple as our city infrastructure, especially when that money could go to so many other things they care about more. And they can’t believe how many people die because of how we build our world--and that no one, really, is held responsible.

Whatever they care about and whatever their politics, our readers are fired up. They want to do something. And they want Strong Towns to tell them what’s next.

Here’s where I have to let them down. (But hopefully, not for long.) Strong Towns has always believed that the only way enduring change happens is from the bottom up, through the messy, chaotic, but infinitely smarter work of building real relationships between real people in real places. And as an organization who wants to do something so huge it sounds surreal--to change the way that a million Americans think about how our communities are shaped, and care about what they see--that makes my job...well, pretty hard.

If I thought one petition to the Federal Highway Administration would change the world, I’d ask you to sign it today. If I thought I could give you a blueprint for the perfect town that you could build like a dollhouse, I’d already have the plans sketched out. But Strong Towns doesn’t believe that, and neither do I.

You can’t build a Strong Town from a blueprint, because what really makes a town strong is the process of figuring it out in your unique place. Luckily, it’s some of the most incredible work you’ll ever do.