I often describe myself as an urbanist. I find it a useful shorthand for a set of ideas about how places ought to be built and laid out, one which roughly translates to the traditional, pre-automobile development pattern. "Urbanism" to me means the following:

Places are built to the human scale, and around the needs of people who walk.

The development pattern is compact, without a lot of wasted space, and streets are places for human activity, not high-speed traffic.

There are 15-minute neighborhoods where you can meet your needs on foot.

There are welcoming streets and third places that encourage people to live a large chunk of their lives in public, with the serendipitous social interaction that that entails.

Okay. Now read that above description and ask yourself, "What size place am I picturing?"

What if I hadn't used the word urbanism to describe it? Would your answer change?

I avoid describing Strong Towns as an "urbanist" organization (though I'm sure I've slipped up now and then) because of a predictable source of resistance: the mistaken idea that, despite the word "Towns" in our name, much of what we write about is irrelevant to small towns, or to anywhere that aspires to a "small town" character.

“Don't you see? We're not urban. We don't want to be urban.”

The word "urban" has a bunch of unhelpful connotations here, associated with big cities and their noise and impersonality. And, while I adore the energy and diversity and the world-at-your-fingertips sense of freedom you can attain in a big city, it's not for everyone, or for anyone all of the time.

So let's be clear about where the principles of "urbanism," as I defined it above, apply. Here are some photos of the village of Dingle on the west coast of Ireland, population about 2,000 (plus a good number of seasonal tourists):