Our predominant mode of thinking over the last century, afflicting cities and suburbs alike, favors highly centralized systems that prize efficiency over resilience.
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Our world is connected globally at a scale and speed that was unfathomable until the 20th-century. With that connectivity has come increased centralization at all levels and in virtually all facets of life. The result is a system that is extremely efficient for getting you cheap toilet paper, low-cost calories, and fast cars—until it’s not. It’s also a system that is extremely fragile, optimized for distributing a deadly disease rapidly and completely while maximizing the cost of isolating outbreaks. A Strong Town prizes the resiliency that comes with incremental duplication, over the short-term gains that come from hyper-efficiency.