There’s no better way to understand the place you live than to simply get outside and walk its streets. You see how your neighbors go about their needs, how they interact with each other, and where they face difficulties in negotiating the environment. And you can take it all in and reflect on it in a way that you can’t possibly do from behind a windshield.

When Jessica Ryals of Fort Myers, Florida worked for the local Lee County government, she found that a number of people in the position to make decisions about street design—elected officials and planning staff—were having a hard time seeing the value in things like ensuring that streets are accommodating and safe for all users, not just those in vehicles. It seemed like a luxury to them, an additional expense that might or might not satisfy a cost-benefit calculation. This despite the fact that greater Fort Myers, an area dominated by car-centric development and massive stroads, ranks the 8th most dangerous metro area for pedestrian deaths in the whole country (according to Smart Growth America’s 2019 Dangerous by Design report).

Ryals started looking for resources that would make the case for better design in terms that community leaders understood—financial terms. She became aware of Strong Towns through local activists working to promote complete streets, and began using Strong Towns materials to help cities and communities in Southwest Florida understand the dollars-and-cents case for retrofitting auto-oriented areas into places that support pedestrian vitality. Says Ryals,

“In Southwest Florida, we have a high growth rate, and people tend to look at a new McDonald’s or a new housing subdivision as “great for the economy.” It’s hard to get people to see past the initial growth stage. How are they really going to move around in these places? How are they going to interact?”

Taking the Classroom to the Streets