On August 9, 2014, Michael Brown was fatally shot by a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, a northwestern suburb of St. Louis. Brown’s death, and the protests that followed, helped catalyze the Black Lives Matter movement and drew global attention to police brutality and racial inequality in the United States.
Five years later, what has changed in Ferguson? That’s the topic of a moving recent article from The Verge by award-winning St. Louis journalist Ben Westhoff — and the topic of today’s episode of the Strong Towns Podcast. Strong Towns president Charles Marohn was interviewed by Westhoff for his article. Now, Marohn turns the tables and asks Westhoff about his reporting, how Ferguson has changed since Brown’s death, and how it hasn’t. While some reforms have been made in the police department, for example, other structural problems have stayed the same or gotten even worse.
One such problem is that Ferguson is not a place designed for the people who live there. But Westhoff says that too few people are making the connection between the built environment and tax laws, on the one hand, and issues of racism and poverty on the other. Westhoff also busts the myths that residents of Ferguson — and other struggling suburbs around the country — lack the entrepreneurial spirit and pride-of-place they need to make lasting change.
By coincidence, today is also the release day for Westhoff’s new book, Fentanyl, Inc.: How Rogue Chemists Are Creating the Deadliest Wave of the Opioid Epidemic (Atlantic Monthly Press). Fentanyl is now killing more people on an annual basis than any other drug. Westhoff talks about how his reporting for this book led him to infiltrate synthetic drug operators in China and to a “shooting gallery” in St. Louis where people go to shoot up heroin and fentanyl.
Check out this week’s Strong Towns Podcast for a powerful conversation with award-winning investigative journalist Ben Westhoff.
Rethinking the “Moonshot” Approach to Complex Problems Like Street Safety
Has the Highway Trust Fund Outlived Its Usefulness? A Conversation With Beth Osborne.
What’s the Best Career for Someone Who Wants To Build Strong Towns?
Exploring the Role of Religious Institutions in Community Development
From Crime to Common Practice: How Fraud Dominates the Housing Market
From Boring to Brilliant: Making Municipal Finance Fun With Michel Durand-Wood
Build the Damn Train: How To Bring High-Speed Rail to the United States
The Traffic Enforcement Futility Loop
Why Local Leaders Can Address the Housing Crisis but Federal Programs Fail
Oh Crap! Dealing With Sewer Upgrades Is a Complicated Mess
The Truth About the Suburban Experiment: A Response to “Contra Strong Towns”
How To Escape the Housing Trap: A Special Q&A Session
Member Drive Week Special: Most Public Engagement Is Worthless
Member Drive Week Special: If We Made Shoes Like We Make Housing, People Would Go Barefoot
Member Drive Week Special: How Fannie Mae Puts a Chokehold on Local Home Financing Solutions
Member Drive Week Special: One Billion Bollards
Member Drive Week Special: The Cost of an Extra Foot
Megan Kimble: The Toll Urban Highways Take and the People Fighting Back
How to Escape Housing (and Baseball Stadium) Traps, Plus a Little Disney Urbanism.
The Strong Towns Tension With YIMBYism
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