Safety Harbor Heads Into 3rd Round Of Strongest Town Contest

SAFETY HARBOR, FL -- The vote was close but Safety Harbor proved victorious in the second round of the Strongest Town Contest last week.

Now, it's time to vote again as the city heads into Round 3 in its quest to be declared America's strongest town.

According to Strong Towns, nore than 5,500 votes were cast in the second round of the America's Strongest Town contest March 25-28.

Safety Harbor beat out Erwin, Tennessee with 51 percent of the vote.

This leaves just three other challengers for the title: Guthrie, Oklahoma; Pensacola; and Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

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Safety Harbor In Running To Be America's Strongest Town

Safety Harbor Makes It To Round 2 Of Strongest Town Contest

Strong Towns is a national nonprofit organization that helps foster economic development in small towns across the United States and Canada to make them financially stronger and more resilient to changes in the economy.

Each year, supporters of the movement are invited to enter their town or city in the annual Strongest Town Contest, a bracket-based competition designed to spotlight communities from around the world that are building enduring financial resilience at the local level and actively embodying the Strong Towns approach to economic growth and development.

Safety Harbor was among the top 16 contenders selected for the initial round.

This week, during voting for the Final Four Round from April 2-5, the four top vote-getters will participate in a Strong Towns podcast to make their case for why theirs is the strongest town. Strong Towns will publish these podcasts and invite the audience to listen and vote in two final match-ups concluding with the Championship Round April 8.

It's up to Safety Harbor resident James Fogarty, who nominated Safety Harbor for the competition, to convince podcast listeners that Safety Harbor

An engineer working on pedestrian safety and transit, Fogarty said he got involved in the Strong Towns movement after reading an article by the Strong Towns founder Chuck Marohn on common-sense approaches to engineering design to make roads safer for pedestrians.

Fogarty noted this is an issue of special concern in Florida, which is ranked first in the nation for the number of pedestrian deaths, according to Smart Growth America and the National Complete Streets Coalition.

"It connected a lot of dots for me," said Fogarty. "Safety Harbor, as a small town, has used common sense to wisely stretch its resources to provide a stellar quality of life."

Click here to see what Fogarty wrote about Safety Harbor.

Part of that quality of life involves creating a pedestrian-friendly environment in which residents don't have to rely on cars. Instead, they can safely walk or bike to Safety Harbor's downtown, waterfront and beaches.

Strong Towns asked its members to weigh in on the nominees

Hall Block of Lebanon, Ohio, said one thing Safety Harbor has done right is to keep its roads small.

"Most of the roads this town contends with are fairly well designed to the context of their setting," he said. "It's also obvious, based on the brick features on Main Street and the installation of pedestrian safety features ... that the leadership is not ignorant of potential lapses in safety and of the benefits of slowing the cars. Large, mature trees complemented by strategic street trees help most of the roads feel less like a highway and more like a cozy living room for greeting the neighbors."

Block said the biggest challenge facing Safety Harbor is development pressures.

"As with most communities, the highest risk of potential future failure in Safety Harbor lies with growth," he said. "The town has reached a mostly built-out state (which is usually a healthier place to be than having unlimited greenfield sites), but this is going to cause some growing pains. Where will new growth go? Will it grow upward, or will it swallow older, established neighborhoods? Will they provide more parking to draw in more tourists or residents, or will they continue their focus on strengthening the existing town structure and turning their '20-minute neighborhoods' into '10-minute neighborhoods'? Will the vast expanses of residential areas be kept under glass by NIMBY activists, or will they welcome new neighbors and new businesses into a more beautiful tapestry of community life?"

Block said one litmus test will be how the city handles future growth planned on Philippe Parkway.

"A town growing stronger would not use the city-reserved space on Philippe Parkway to add driving lanes, but for much more beneficial uses," he said.

The podcasts for the final four contestants will be available April 2 on the Small Towns website. Residents will be able to vote from April 2 to noon on April 5.

The top two winners will be announced on Monday, April 8. Then, in the Championship Round, there will be a live webinar with the representatives of the top two contenders, followed by a final round of voting. America's Strongest Town will be announced on April 12.

Starting April 2, cast your vote for Safety Harbor here.