Voting has begun for a March Madness-style competition that has Los Altos in the running for the “Strongest Town.”
Gary Hedden and Suresh Venkatraman of GreenTown Los Altos, the local environmental advocacy group, have nominated the city for the tournament. Los Altos is pitted against Selma, N.C., in the first-round bracket of the Strongest Town Contest.
“The strongest towns are all about making life better for people,” according to a statement from GreenTown. “For us, that means walkable, bikeable, livable neighborhoods. We are doing a lot of things right in Los Altos with the new community center and the newly renovated History Museum, and there are more good things to come with the (city of Los Altos) Climate Action and Adaptation Plan and the Downtown Vision (plan). … We will need everyone in Los Altos to vote.”
Voters from across the continent will be deciding which towns will advance to the Elite Eight round. The winner of this year’s contest will receive accommodations for a representative to attend the Strong Towns National Gathering in Charlotte, N.C., where the rep will receive an award and serve as an honored guest. Strong Towns, the nonprofit sponsoring the competition, will also produce a special video about the winning community for a national audience.
“The Strongest Town Contest spotlights and celebrates communities that are continuously becoming more resilient and prosperous through bottom-up action,” said a statement from Strong Towns.
The contest is modeled after the NCAA March Madness tournament, with communities advancing in single-elimination match-ups each week throughout March and into April. The winner will be announced April 14.
The Minnesota-based Strong Towns is a nonprofit media advocacy organization that produces content that analyzes the failures of the post-war North American development pattern while giving citizens the knowledge and tools to start improving their communities.
For more information, visit strongtowns.org/strongesttown.
To cast a vote, visit strongtowns.org/journal/2023/3/20/stc2023-r1-selma-los-altos.
