When you’ve got a friend or family member visiting you from out of town, where do you take that person? After you’ve said your hellos and they’ve dropped off their bags, where is the fun place you head to show them what your community is all about? Is it, by chance, a brewery, or the farmers market stand with the homemade cheese and sausage, or maybe it’s a cute jewelry shop on main street that makes all their own stuff…
There’s something about a locally-crafted food or good that just instills in us a pride for our place. It’s about saying: “This is my community and here’s what we’re capable of making.”
Ilana Preuss is an urban planner and founder of a company called Recast City, which helps build communities where small-scale manufacturing businesses can thrive. She’s also the author of a new book called Recast Your City: How to Save Your Downtown with Small-Scale Manufacturing and today she joins Rachel Quednau on The Bottom-Up Revolution podcast to talk about her work and why small-scale manufacturing can and should be the beating heart of your city.
Preuss shares how small-scale manufacturing can reinvigorate downtowns, build local pride and create meaningful opportunities for entrepreneurs to start businesses and scale up. She also outlines the steps that local leaders can take to make space for this manufacturing renaissance to occur and shares examples of this work in action across the country. It’s about building on the energy and manufacturing already present in your community, and harnessing that to make your town stronger.
Additional Show NotesRecast City website
Get the book: Recast Your City: How to Save Your Downtown with Small-Scale Manufacturing. Use code STRONG25 for 25% off anything from islandpress.org.
Send us your own voicemail about the small (or big) thing you’re doing to make your town stronger. Just record a voice memo on your phone and email it to rachel@strongtowns.org.
Support this podcast by becoming a Strong Towns member today.
Partnering with Neighborhood Associations to Guide Public Investment
Seeing Your City's Budget through a Strong Towns Lens
Using Local Entrepreneurs to Revive Your Main Street
Planting Street Trees to Slow the Cars
Supporting Rural Entrepreneurs
Fall Member Drive 2019: Strong Towns Member Andy Diaz Discusses Building Strong Neighborhoods
Serving the Youth in High-Risk Neighborhoods
Finding Home Wherever You Are with Melody Warnick
Fostering Micro-Neighborliness
Building Productive Places (and Showering them with Love)
Combating Food Deserts (and more) Through Corner Stores
Inspiring Grassroot Community Revitalization
Creating People-Oriented Places
Using Tactical Urbanism to Create Safer Streets
Fostering Creative (and Financially Resilient) Communities
Serving on a Citizen Advisory Committee
Partnering with Local Government to Create and Foster Ideas
Using Nonprofits to Build Strong Neighborhoods
Building Neighborhood-Boosting Community Groups
Using Local Food to Build Community
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free
Greece Travel Secrets Podcast
That Park Life: a Disney World Podcast
Ghostlore of Hawaii: Paranormal Paradise
Stuff You Should Know
Timcast IRL