Alli Thurmond Quinlan is an architect, landscape architect, and small infill developer. Shefounded and runs Flintlock Ltd Co (a multi-disciplinary design practice) and FlintlockDevelopment (an urban infill real estate development company) in Fayetteville, Arkansas. Shealso served on the Fayetteville Planning Commission and the Construction Board of Appeals, aswell as being known to occasionally teach urban design with a focus on advanced grading andstormwater in the Landscape Architecture Department of the Fay Jones School of Design at theUniversity of Arkansas.

Alli grew up on a large working cattle ranch in western Oklahoma and believes strongly in beinghands-on in your farm. She believes that small developers have the potential to be advocatesfor their neighborhoods, leading the redevelopment of communities in a way that protects andincludes long time residents while welcoming new, diverse neighbors. As part of this approach,she recently completed a tactical urbanism project to make walking to the community centereasier for neighborhood kids, located nearby to Flintlock Development’s South St Cottages.

Working as in a range of roles (architect, land planner, owner, developer, and city administrator)over a wide variety of development projects has taught Alli to cut through the voodoo of proformas and zoning / building code to create beautiful, lovable, walkable projects that makesense for communities and make money for investors. Her work solo and with the University ofArkansas Community Design Center has been honored with national and international awardsfrom the Congress for New Urbanism, the American Society of Landscape Architects, theAmerican Institute of Architects, Architizer, and the American Planning Association.

Alyssa (uh-LEE-suh) has only lived in Sacramento since 2022, but it didn’t take long to form a huge and caring community through groups like Strong SacTown. In her day job, she manages communications for the Caltrans Director’s Office of Sustainability. For 9 years prior, she worked as a campaign organizer for youth climate justice organizations, coaching and training hundreds of students ages 17-25 in skills like meeting facilitation, group-building, and campaign strategy.  Having grown up car-deficient in California, moving to Boston introduced her to the joys and transformative possibilities of walkable, mixed-use, and economically resilient communities that are not car-dependent. As one of the Local Conversation leaders, she helps manage the group’s communications, oversees and welcomes new sign-ups, and helps provide coaching and training to the project teams. You can usually catch her walking or biking around Sacramento with her husband (and fellow Strong SacTown leader) Troy, yapping about local ownership and cooperatives, and eating croissants.

Andrew Burleson has served as Chairman of the Board for Strong Towns since 2014. Andrew’s professional work has spanned several fields, from newspaper publishing and urban planning to real estate and financial technology. Before Strong Towns, Andrew founded the Houston chapter of the Congress for the New Urbanism in 2009, and he met Chuck Marohn through CNU. Andrew has been a key advocate for Strong Towns’ evolution from an engineering-centric blog to a broader, movement-building organization. Andrew lives in Denver, Colorado, with his wife and four children.

Annette Mann Bourne is the Research & Policy Director for HousingWorks RI at Roger Williams University (HWRI). She is responsible for the overall management of the research program, including the annual Housing Fact Book, which details housing affordability and its relationship to Rhode Island’s economy and its impacts on health and educational outcomes. HWRI is also the Rhode Island partner for the National Zoning Atlas and hosts the Rhode Island Zoning Atlas, which is used for land use analysis relevant to housing affordability. Prior to joining HWRI, Annette was the Training Manager for Grow Smart RI, where she oversaw the land-use training programs for municipal staff and officials. She also spent 10 years at Rhode Island Housing in several positions providing technical assistance to municipalities regarding the research and planning of long-term affordable homes and as the grant administrator to several federal grant programs. Before moving to Rhode Island, Annette managed the NeighborWorks HomeOwnership Center of a Vermont Community Land Trust in Springfield, VT, and was also the Program Coordinator for the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard University. She resides in Cranston, where she is an active member of the community, having served as an appointed member of the Cranston Housing Commission (2021-2024) and the OneCranston Health Equity Zone. Annette holds a B.A. in Political Science from Boston University, and an A.L.M. with a Concentration in Government from the Harvard University Extension School. She is also a member of the 2007 Gamma II Class of Leadership RI.

Bernice Radle is a dreamer and a doer. Her entire life work has been dedicated to bringing vacant buildings back to life in Buffalo, NY. She is the President of Neighborhood Evolution LLC, a consulting firm that helps places build their small development ecosystem by coaching, training, and one on one project development assistance. Bernice is the Executive Director at Preservation Buffalo Niagara where they use non profit tools to renovate historic buildings that are demolition candidates. She is the Founder of Buffalove Development LLC where since 2012, she has focused on renovating vacant historic buildings in her neighborhood. Bernice recently left the Zoning Board of Appeals after serving for 9 years and was a leader in Buffalo to overhaul the zoning code to the current Buffalo Green Code. She is a member of Strong Towns and has a cat named Jane Jacobs!

Carlee Alm-LaBar is the Chief of Staff for Strong Towns. Carlee has become a champion for strong communities and civic engagement through her work in Lafayette, Louisiana. She has held senior leadership roles in local government and nonprofit organizations. When she’s not with her husband Will or dog Jozy, she spends her spare time volunteering with a variety of local organizations that build connections between people and empower local residents. Carlee graduated Magna Cum Laude from Northwestern University and holds a master’s degree in Public Administration from Louisiana State University.

Chris Arnade is a freelance writer and photographer whose work has appeared in the New York Times, Atlantic, Guardian, Washington Post, Financial Times, and Wall Street Journal among many others. He has a PhD in physics from Johns Hopkins University and worked for twenty years as a trader at an elite Wall Street bank before leaving in 2012 to document addiction in the Bronx. He currently writes the popular Substack, “Walking the World.”

Charles Marohn (known as “Chuck” to friends and colleagues) is the founder and president of Strong Towns and the bestselling author of “Escaping the Housing Trap: The Strong Towns Response to the Housing Crisis.” With decades of experience as a land use planner and civil engineer, Marohn is on a mission to help cities and towns become stronger and more prosperous. He spreads the Strong Towns message through in-person presentations, the Strong Towns Podcast, and his books and articles. In recognition of his efforts and impact, Planetizen named him one of the 15 Most Influential Urbanists of all time in 2017 and 2023.

Daniel Herriges has been a regular contributor to Strong Towns since 2015 and is a founding member of the Strong Towns movement. He is the co-author of Escaping the Housing Trap: The Strong Towns Response to the Housing Crisis, with Charles Marohn. Daniel now works as the Policy Director at the Parking Reform Network, an organization which seeks to accelerate the reform of harmful parking policies by educating the public about these policies and serving as a connecting hub for advocates and policy makers. Daniel’s work reflects a lifelong fascination with cities and how they work. When he’s not perusing maps (for work or pleasure), he can be found exploring out-of-the-way neighborhoods on foot or bicycle. Daniel has lived in Northern California and Southwest Florida, and he now resides back in his hometown of St. Paul, Minnesota, along with his wife and two children. Daniel has a Masters in Urban and Regional Planning from the University of Minnesota.

Edward Erfurt is the Chief Technical Advisor at Strong Towns. He is a trained architect and passionate urban designer with over 20 years of public- and private-sector experience focused on the management, design, and successful implementation of development and placemaking projects that enrich the tapestry of place. He believes in community-focused processes that are founded on diverse viewpoints, a concern for equity, and guided through time-tested, traditional town-planning principles and development patterns that result in sustainable growth with the community character embraced by the communities which he serves.

Gregory is a passionate urbanist and real estate professional with over 10 years of experience in community and economic development in the city of Newark and its environs, serving as senior development officer. Previously, Gregory was the economic development manager for the city of East Orange, where he first discovered Strong Towns. Gregory also founded and is currently the executive director of Urban Exposure, a youth athletics program. Gregory serves as board chair for the Greater Newark Convention and Visitor’s Bureau and as commissioner on the Newark Central Planning Board. He is a graduate of The Lawrenceville School and earned a bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of Delaware and a master’s degree in public administration from Rutgers University. Gregory lives in Newark, New Jersey, with his wife and four children.

Isaac Gonzalez is the owner of Diysl Consulting, a community outreach and public relations firm specializing in cultural competency outreach, active transportation projects, media relations and government consulting. He serves as the Vice Chair of the Active Transportation Commission for the City of Sacramento and is the founder of Slow Down Sacramento, a grassroots advocacy organization promoting tactical urbanism to address vehicular violence. In addition to his work, Isaac serves in leadership roles on several community boards, including Strong SacTown, his local chapter of Strong Towns, and the Tahoe Park Neighborhood Association. In his free time, Isaac enjoys building LEGO with his son, Ryan, and going thrift store shopping with his daughter, Madeline.

Jamie has spent her entire adult life working in and for local government.  Afforded opportunities few have, she's been a practitioner, educator, and consultant speaking from a place of realism.   Leading educational programs across North America and Europe, what she has experienced, heard, and observed over her career is carried forward in the sessions she leads and the conversations she facilitates.  Having had the privilege of testifying to the United States Congress on the critical importance of public lands while working for the City of Boulder, Colorado, she is a self-described “disappointed idealist” believing society should be fueled by anger and love in order to do what may not be popular, but necessary.   Jamie is currently the president and a principal consultant with 110% Inc. and serves as a faculty member of Indiana University where she teaches financial management in the School of Public Health’s Master’s program.

John Pattison is the Community Builder for Strong Towns. In this role, he works with advocates in hundreds of communities as they start and lead local Strong Towns groups called Local Conversations. John is the author of two books, most recently Slow Church (IVP), which takes inspiration from Slow Food and the other Slow movements to help faith communities reimagine how they live life together in the neighborhood. He also co-hosts The Membership, a podcast inspired by the life and work of Wendell Berry, the Kentucky farmer, writer, and activist. John and his family live in Silverton, Oregon. You can connect with him on Twitter at @johnepattison.

Jon Jon is an avid urbanist who enjoys decoding what makes a space great. Across his two TikTok channels, his videos discussing urbanism and Chattanooga have garnered more than 3.2 million likes and 325k followers. He recently returned from spending seven months abroad, exploring cities and documenting what makes spaces great. He is excited to bring those ideas back to Chattanooga in tactical ways.

Joseph Minicozzi, AICP is the principal of Urban3. Prior to creating Urban3, he served as the Executive Director for the Asheville Downtown Association. Joe is an urban planner imagining new ways to think about and visualize land use, urban design and economics. Joe founded Urban3 to explain and visualize market dynamics created by tax and land use policies.

Joe holds a Bachelor of Architecture from the University of Miami and a Master of Architecture and Urban Design from Harvard University. In 2017, Joe was recognized as one of the 100 Most Influential Urbanists of all time. Before moving to Asheville, he was the primary administrator of the Form-Based Code for downtown West Palm Beach, Florida. Joe’s cross-training in city planning in the public and private sectors, as well as private sector real estate finance, has allowed him to develop award-winning analytic tools that have garnered national attention in Planetizen, The Wall Street Journal,Planning,New Urban News,Realtor,Atlantic Cities and the Center for Clean Air Policy’s Growing Wealthier report. Joe is a sought-after lecturer on city planning issues. His work has been featured at the Congress for New Urbanism, the American Planning Association, the International Association of Assessing Officers, and New Partners for SmartGrowth conferences as a paradigm shift for thinking about development patterns. Joe is a founding member of the Asheville Design Center, a non-profit community design center dedicated to creating livable communities across all of Western North Carolina.

Justine Underhill is an elected City Council member in Falls Church, Virginia, and an award-winning video journalist and independent filmmaker. On her YouTube channel, she explores urbanism and housing, using storytelling to educate and drive change. Previously, she worked for both international and domestic news organizations, including Yahoo Finance as an on-air host, reporter and producer. She also created a docuseries that earned recognition for excellence from multiple outlets, including the Telly Awards.

Michel Durand-Wood lives in the Elmwood neighborhood of Winnipeg with his wife and three children. He writes at DearWinnipeg.com, a really fun blog about infrastructure and municipal finance. He has no formal training or education in city planning, municipal finance, infrastructure maintenance, or anything else he talks about. He's just a guy, in love with a city, asking it to make better use of his tax dollars.

Mike Keen, PhD, LEED-AP, Broker is Managing Partner of Hometowne Development LLC, President of The Bakery Group LLC, and Managing Partner at Neighborhood Evolution. He received his PhD in Sociology from the University of Notre Dame and spent 30 years as a professor at Indiana University South Bend. In 2008, Mike founded the IU South Bend Center for a Sustainable Future and led the development of the first B.A. in Sustainability Studies in Indiana.  In 2016, he was awarded a Sagamore of the Wabash in 2016, the highest recognition that can be awarded to a resident of Indiana.  As Managing Partner of Hometowne Development Mike has taken the lead role in an incremental neighborhood revitalization project located in South Bend, Indiana’s Near Northwest Neighborhood. As President of The Bakery Group he is leading the effort to renovate a 56,000 s.f. abandoned the former bakery in the NNN and turned it into a “collaborative village” of retailers, professionals, artists, makers, and food entrepreneurs.  He is also the organizer of the South Town Makers, a network of small scale developers, design professionals, finance officers, real estate agents, property managers, contractors, neighbors, and municipal officials dedicated to helping create wealth in neighborhoods for neighborhoods.

Monte Anderson is managing partner at Neighborhood Evolution, and President of Options Real Estate Investments Inc, a multi-service real estate firm specializing in developing sustainable neighborhoods in Southern Dallas and Northern Ellis counties. He is both an advocate and practitioner of incremental development and is often found speaking and teaching across the country on the Cultivating of Local Neighborhoods. Monte and Options have been recognized by the Dallas Chapter of AIA, North Texas Council of Governments, the American Planning Association, Preservation Dallas, Preservation Texas, and the Greater Dallas Planning Council for their work. Award winning projects have included Main Station Duncanville, DeSoto Market Place, Tyler Station, the Texas Theatre, Belmont Hotel in Dallas, and MidTowne Midlothian. Monte previously served on the Duncanville, Texas City Council. He is the founding President of the North Texas Chapter of Congress for the New Urbanism (CNU) and was a co-founder of the Incremental Development Alliance. In his spare time Monte enjoys playing with his grandchildren, his cats, and listening to rap music.

Noah Roth is the founder of Streetcraft, a platform that uses visual storytelling and urban design to explore and improve our built environment. As a leading voice on social media, Noah creates solution-oriented videos that simplify complex urban planning and transportation issues, sparking conversations about change.  By combining animation, design, and compelling narratives, his work helps people see how streets and places can be transformed, inspiring audiences to think differently and take action toward creating better places.

Norm Van Eeden Petersman is the Director of Movement Building at Strong Towns. He is a skilled communicator of the Strong Towns message and a community builder. He leads DelPOP, a land use reform and housing advocacy group in Delta, British Columbia, and is a leader of the Strong Towns Toastmasters Club.

Norm has a Master of Divinity and a Bachelor in Political Studies. He spent 10 years pastoring churches in Canada as a preacher, teacher, and leader. He worked in communications for the second-largest city in British Columbia and carried out infrastructure-related stakeholder outreach for Canada's Minister of Health and Federal Economic Development Initiative for Northern Ontario in Ottawa, ON.

Norm has published articles on housing, transportation, faith, and culture and his writing appears regularly on the Strong Towns site. You can connect with him on Twitter at @normvep or on LinkedIn.

Rachel Leonardo is a Video Creator at Strong Towns. She began her career in project management for construction projects before transitioning to freelance video production, specializing in educational content about urban planning. Rachel believes everyone deserves to live in strong, resilient towns and that people have the power to make those changes happen. Currently, Rachel is based in Spain, but she grew up in Maryland. Outside of work, she enjoys learning new languages (currently working on Italian!), creating cardboard furniture and chatting late into the night with friends.

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Ryan is the author of "City of Yes," a Substack covering urban policy, politics, history, and culture from a progress-forward, solutions-oriented, and abundance-minded perspective. He is also an advocate for land use reform in Austin, Texas, where he sits on the Zoning & Platting Commission and the board of AURA, a grassroots urbanist organization. Before embarking on full-time writing and advocacy, Ryan spent a decade building and managing Montessori schools, culminating in San Francisco's Mission Montessori, which he helped found and where he served as CFO. He previously worked on Wall Street as an equity research analyst. He holds an MBA from NYU's Stern School of Business and a BA from Boston University.

Tiffany Owens Reed is the host of The Bottom-Up Revolution podcast. A graduate of The King's College and former journalist, she is a New Yorker at heart, currently living in Texas. In addition to writing for Strong Towns and freelancing as a project manager, she reads, writes, and curates content for Cities Decoded, an educational platform designed to help ordinary people understand cities. Explore free resources here and follow her on Instagram @citiesdecoded.

Tony Jordan is a nationally recognized advocate for transforming how communities think about and manage parking. Inspired by reading Donald Shoup’s The High Cost of Free Parking in 2010, Tony drew on his experience as a labor organizer and software developer to spark the Portlanders for Parking Reform movement. Building on that success, he co-founded the Parking Reform Network (PRN) in 2019 to help people everywhere understand the profound influence that parking policies have on transportation, land use, housing, and climate. As president of PRN, Tony leads a dedicated team of staff and volunteers in close collaboration with the organization’s board of directors and advisory board. He regularly speaks about parking reform at public hearings and city council meeting and is a regular presenter or panelist at local, regional, and national conferences, including SXSW, YIMBYtown, the Congress for the New Urbanism, Walk/Bike/Places, the StrongTowns National Gathering, and the National Shared Mobility Summit. Tony lives car-free in Portland, Oregon, with his wife Davida, their two children, and their dog Nova. When he’s not advocating for smarter parking policies, Tony is likely embarking on multi-day bike adventures or enjoying a strategy board game with friends.

Vanessa Elias, mental health activist, certified parent coach, and community advisor, helps people build relationships, connection, and community within the home, and outside the home. She is featured on NPR, PBS, and in the WSJ and serves as a parent support group facilitator for the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) and a speaker for The Aspen Institute’s Weave Social Fabric Project. Vanessa has moved 28 times in her life. In 2018, Vanessa launched Big Block Party Weekend in her hometown of Wilton, CT. Encouraged by the feedback and recognizing the need, she founded Block Party USA in 2023 as a free, simple, and actionable cure for our country’s loneliness, social isolation, divisiveness, and the youth mental health crisis. She helps people take actionable steps to change their lives, families, and communities, and to achieve a life worth living – full of meaningful connection, support, relationships, well-being, and play. To learn more, visit VanessaElias.com.

Vignesh is an urbanist, design strategist, and transportation planner with a proven track record of reshaping urban mobility. As the founder and lead of Crossroad Lab—a now-concluded firm—he delivered innovative complete street projects and protected intersections. He later served as the lead civil engineer for The Boring Company, driving forward groundbreaking tunnel network projects, and played a key role at the Silicon Valley Transportation Authority (VTA) on complex transportation challenges.

Now with Kimley Horn, Vignesh leads protected bike lane projects and solves intricate geometric challenges across interchanges and urban corridors. He also engages a vibrant online community on TikTok—where he educates over 1.7 million followers (@mrbarricade) on the inner workings of urban infrastructure and transportation planning.

Will Wilson is a lead organizer with RVA YIMBY, advocating for abundant housing in Richmond, Virginia region, and an active contributor to the Commonwealth Housing Coalition, collaborating with partners for housing reforms at the state level.